Program Description | Getting There | AFS Orientations and Activities
Program Description
As with all AFS high school programs, you will be placed with a volunteer host family while attending a local host school.
Students are placed throughout Hong Kong.
The ability to speak Cantonese is not a prerequisite for the program but we strongly suggest that you learn as much as possible prior to departure. Compulsory one-week language classes will be held upon your arrival, followed by weekly classes in the following month.
Getting There
You and your fellow AFSers will travel together from one of the gateway cities in the United States. You all will arrive in Hong Kong, collect your baggage and pass through customs. You will be met by AFS staff and volunteers and will participate in a welcome orientation together. During your first week in Hong Kong, while living with your host family, you will participate in a five-day orientation which will give you some basic language training and introduction to Chinese etiquette and culture.
AFS Orientations and Activities
AFS will provide you with several orientations throughout your experience. These orientations give you a chance to gather important information about your host country, to meet other AFS teens from around the world, to share experiences and make friends. These group activities give you a chance to understand and process your intercultural learning experience during your time abroad as well as when you are returning home.
These required orientations are intended to help you maximize the AFS experience, prevent culture shock and to gain knowledge, skills and a global understanding.
Students are advised to bring extra money for souvenirs and other incidental expenses. A visa to mainland China, for instance, currently costs US$35. (Although Hong Kong was handed over to China on July 1, 1997, it is still administered as a Special Administrative Region with its own border-control jurisdiction. Therefore, any travel to the mainland, however brief, requires a two-way visa.)
