I moved to Hong Kong about three years ago. Overall, my experience has been positive. However, there are some things I just don't understand:
Driving: HK drivers love to tailgate, don't like merging properly when a traffic lane is blocked and rarely use their blinkers when changing lanes. The tailgating is the worse. You're in a tunnel, there's no way the car behind can overake you and the driver is so close he could read your speedometer. I guess every country has its own driving culture and it's probably even worse in other Asian countries, but I can't help but wonder why the taigating is so prevalent. A lot of drivers also don't have eTags. So they drive like madmen and then I pass them while they're queuing at the toll booth.
Banking: Prior to moving to HK I hadn't used my cheque book for at least two years. I'm now half way through my second book of 100 cheques. There's no bPay equivalent and people seem to like being paid with cheques. For a leading financial centre, it seems really backward.
Shopping: I always thought that HK was a shopping paradise. I couldn't have been more wrong. Take one example: big screen TVs. They cost three times as much in HK compared to the US. Although everything is made in China, it's much cheaper to shop online via Amazon. The best thing I did was get a US address (check out myus.com) so that I can buy whatever I need online. Cheaper and saves the pain and suffering of going to some of the most crowded shopping malls I've ever seen.
Taxis: HK is one of the few countries I've been too where you can't pay electronically. And the red/green/blue taxis system: I can't undertand why they do it that way. Nothing worse that wanting to travel from the New Territories to Hong Kong island and all you can see is green taxis.
Waterways: HK has a beautiful harbour and waterways, yet they're underutilised. Too many people in the shopping centres and too few going boating.
China knocking: There's some really strong predjudice against mainland Chinese. Don't people realise that the HK economy relies more than ever on mainlanders coming to HK and spending their money?
Overseas helpers: I can't believe the sort of crap the overseas (mainly Philippino) helpers have to put up with. Too many HK parents also outsource their parenting to helpers. I think it has a corrupting influence on HK society- you see it with some of the children who are used to bossing around the helpers (rather than the natural order, which is partents telling their children what to do). And all this recent nonsense about imposing sanctions on the Phiippines over the bus hostage incident because the president wouldn't apologise on behalf of the entire nation for the actions of a lone gunman. Unbelievable.
Tiger Mum attitudes: I guess this is more of an Asian thing, rather than anything that is specific to HK. Some kids have their entire days filled with music lessons, maths lessons, language lessons and everything else you could imagine. What about letting kids play and have some fun?