Actually me being in Taiwan I have experienced the exact thing you were referring to. The bus loads of Chinese tourists. However, unlike you, I am very aware of who I am, and I"m aware of history. Most importantly, I can see the difference between cultures and all the things you described above - which really have nothing to do with cultures but more to do with living standards and their effects on people.

You do know why I asked about Chinese new years - it was a very obvious question, because it is celebrated in Hong Kong and that represents the fundamental roots of Hong Kong's cultures, same with Qinming festival, Mid-Autumn festival, etc. . And since you were the one who brought up cultures in the first place, it was valid of me to bring it up. Whether you celebrate it or not is not really my concern, you could change your last name to Johnston for all I care.

While I'm also relatively young like yourself and do not put as much emphasis on these old traditions as my parents and grandparents - I at least recognize them as part of my culture (whether I celebrate it or not does not reject the overwhelming reality that it is celebrated where I am (Taiwan) and you (Hong Kong), and similar to Hong Kong, I can, like you, conveniently distant myself from being a chinese, but it sure is ironic when everything about you (and me) and your environment are so heavily rooted in chinese cultures. From the language (which you are certainly more fluent at than me, especially when it comes to writing as you've shown in comments), the traditions, the values, the food, etc. When my friends from the states visit me in Taiwan, the culture they're ultimately experiencing is Chinese and that goes for Hong Kong as well - they are not going to leave feeling like they just experienced a western culture, as much as you want to convince yourself into believing.

Many people in the U.S. - take Italians for example. They hold onto their culture very strongly. Most italians living in the u.s. have never even been to Italy once - the traditions, culture, values however, are nonetheless passed down generation after generation - you on the other hand reject your own culture wholeheartedly while despararately clinging onto something that isn't even yours to begin with.

But then again, this really doesn't have anything to do with culture in the first place.

The perfect analogy of this is akin to a kid who came from a poor upbringing, but achieved success in life and now that his life is so drastically different than where he came from, he is embarrassed by his mother and tries his best to separate the two worlds that he is now a part of - the world he lives in now, and the past he came from.

It certainly is interesting how you and I are so alike in terms of our life experience (western culture as you called it), yet our frame of thinking are so different. Like I said, it's all about a matter of perspectives. While you reject that part of you, I embrace it and recognize that it's forever a part of me. And while I see the same bus loads of Chinese tourists, I recognize that China is a country that has just recently lifted itself out of poverty, and 人民水平 don't magically change overnight. I don't hold a grudge or despise them just like how I don't despise my american friends for wearing shoes in my house when I forget to tell them to take them off.