Good post pin....
I hear that many people are late to work in HK. But at my previous place, they would be mad if you were late more than 30 minutes. Also, they never said anything if you left right at 6pm but I definitely felt weird when I did. But after you do it for awhile, then you get used to it. So I mean I would seriously just leave right at 6:00pm. I think the admin is happy because they feel an urge to leave too.
Try to go out to lunch with your coworkers. It is fun! Hopefully your co-workers are talkative. Many do have pillows! So true!
From my experience, the people who have been there longer have more work and usually stay later compared to the juniors. But depends on your company.
Also, some employees pretend to be busy but it's so obvious and stupid, in my opinion, when you pretend to read the same book everyday or blah. But whatever.
And under an asian employer, the employee is now a professional is every field possible. They will ask you IT questions, to read Chinese documents (even if you don't speak Chinese). I mean nothing surprises me, and you are just baffled everyday.
OT is common, but only because no one does anything in the morning and you always get an assignment/task/email at 5:55pm that takes 40 minutes to 3 hours to finish. Turn your computer off at 5:45pm and you can leave at 5:57pm allowing you 3 minutes to get to the door and say bye to your "friends/coworkers".