Hong Kong Chapter – Mr X Escape Room

About the Event

Written by Sam GALLER (FS2009-10, Harvard University)

On 3 Jan 2014, after an exciting meeting at the Fung Office to prepare for the Make a Difference (MaD) conference, a group of Fung Scholars in Hong Kong headed over to Mr. X (the escape room activity venue) in Hung Hom late in the evening. The MaD participants, after a delicious Indian vegetarian dinner together, joined together with the other Fung Scholars to solve challenging mental puzzles and challenges in the dark. We had a total of 30 people including non-Fung Scholar friends and spouses, and divided ourselves between three rooms (Room 2, Room 4, and Room 5). The venue organized a competition between the three rooms with a point system for how far and how fast we advanced through the puzzles, and offered a prize to the team who performed the best.

Each team began in a dark room, with only some basic clues and one free hint card that could be used any point during the puzzle challenge. The groups had to work together, communicating, brainstorming, and learning by trial and error in order to advance. Going through these various brainteasers together and being forced to collaborate brought out the leaders, tinkerers, delegators, and doers among us, and mutual trust became very important as time began to tick down. All of the groups took slightly longer than the allotted one hour, but the venue was very gracious and allowed all teams some extra time. By the end of the evening, we had all finished, and met for pictures and celebration in the lobby. The Room 5 team won, just slightly edging out the team in Room 4. Everyone left with new friends and an evening full of great memories. For many, it was their first time participating in this kind of “Escape Room” activity, yet even one Fung Scholar who had been four times remarked that it was a fun and rewarding team-building experience.

Feedback from Participants:

LEUNG Wai-sze, Helen (FS2013-14, Hong Kong Baptist University) “I had a surprisingly great time in Mr X. As it was my first Fung Scholar event, I was very amazed, impressed and excited about the quality of the other Fung Scholars and how much I was able to learn from them from the positive group dynamics. Although it was only my first time meeting them, it felt as if we got along right away and there are a lot of potential within the group. We were able to practice our team work and problem solving skills throughout the event. I thank the foundation for organizing the event and for their support.”

YIP Tsan Pong, Willy (FS2009-10, Hong Kong Polytechnic University) “Unlike traditional training workshop, Mr X gave me a quite new experience on team building. In this game, we have to establish a effective communication and share the information in order to escape the room. Everyone has to bring their own talent into full play for these big questions. That’s not easy. Without the smartphone, we seems to be a handicapped. We have to think back what is the effective way to tell a simple idea to our teammates in the other side of room. Thanks our sponsors – Foundation and organiser – Sam. Done well!! :)”

AU YEUNG Tsui See, Ceci (FS2013-14, Hong Kong Baptist University) “It was a great chance to meet a lot of Fung Scholars and cooperate with them to escape. The activity actually made me understand that being proactive is important. There is no single clue of what we need to do after being trapped in the room. We have to search by ourselves and reveal what we need to do.Some of the clues are really hard to understand. It could train us to solve problems in some ways that we may not have thought of before. Besides, cooperation is also important. For our room, we have to give clues to another roommates in order to escape together. It is good to have this event.”

LEUNG Kwok Sum, Jessie (FS2011-12, Chinese University of Hong Kong) “The event was fun! It hones one’s logical thinking and problem solving skills.”