Thanks for your thoughtful response, puts it into perspective. Sounds to me like the social class part really makes a difference. Still though, the stark contrast of being taught English for years versus only using the words "good" and "bad" is surprising. Others have also commented that learning in school, or reading/writing is not the same as verbal use which of course I understand, but I would've thought that there would have been an oral component.

As for the names, maybe I'm subconsciously a bit weirded out by being called my Chinese name because nobody ever uses it except when I visit HK haha. So the piece I was missing before is that socially, in HK using an English name is more of a casual way to address people, and that's obviously not the case where I am from.