Hong Kong, again
Trip Start
Feb 29, 2004
1
29
33
Trip End
Nov 24, 2004
Hong Kong,
Hong Kong
Sunday, October 24, 2004
I think that Hong Kong could be the future of China. The bratty child who ran away from mainland China so long ago recently came back into the warm loving embrace of the Motherland - but he has learnt a few tricks and bad words that will undoubtedly eagerly be taken over by his siblings. I can see the way of life in Hong Kong - they way they deal with foreign influences, the way press censorship is handled/evaded and how they manage their incredibly densely populated neighbourhoods - as a blueprint for mainland China, now that it's slowly emerging from its dictatorial nightmare.
Economically, as a separate entity named the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) is one of the biggest investors in mainland China; trade and commerce are the local religions in Hong Kong, and it must be one of the most commercially-minded cities I've ever seen. It's been influenced by centuries of foreign intervention, yet the locals think like Chinese, not as Europeans, but are still much better informed about and part of the outside world than their ignorant and isolated mainland China brothers.
The name Hong Kong officially only refers to Britain's first colony here, the 15km by 11km small island housing the districts of Central (the former Victoria), Wan Chai and Causeway Bay. Later, the Brits managed to rob China of ground on the mainland, stretching 4km inland, called Kowloon, where you'll find Nathan Road, Hong Kong's main street. Later still, the Brits nicked an even larger chunk of mainland now called the New Territories (click the dot on the map above for a good close-up).
Once on the street, it's baffling to see how many similarities there are with England, where I lived for a number of years. Just like England, Hong Kong has:
- left driving traffic, and 'llok right' painted on the asphalt at crossings
- double-decker buses
- an incredibly well-organised tourist office (probably printing more brochures and free maps than in all the rest of China put together)
- English street names on UK-style traffic signs, with the Cantonese name listed first (the locals use their own names)
- UK-style car license plates, with short stylish ones for the very rich
- double and single yellow parking stripes along the streets
- 'look right' pedestrian warnings painted on the asphalt at crossings
- lollypop pedestrian crossings
- decent WH Smith bookstores
- battered old Bedford ice-cream trucks, just like in Brighton
But completely unlike England, Hong Kong has:
- a dry hot climate, extremely sticky in summer
- amazingly efficient and cheap public transport that runs on time
- incredibly dense residential areas
- 95% Cantonese-only speakers
- not much culture in the way of museums or concerts; money is the main focus
Most intriguing is the amazing mix of ethnicities on the streets; people from all corners of Asia and the former British Empire can be found here; traders from India, Pakistan and Africa selling fake Rolex watches on the streets; descendents of Vietnamese boat people, Indian women in saris, African women in brightly coloured dresses, Punjabis with high turbans running their shops. It's a fascinating mix, and the only cosmopolitan city I've seen in Asia.
The heady mix of ethnicities comes to its apotheosis in the southernmost stretch of Nathan Road, where two huge, ugly and labyrinthine apartment complexes called Chunkin Mansions and Mirador Mansions house hundreds of ethnic shops, watch sellers, mobile phone shops, Indian takeaways and the likes on the lower three floors, while managing to cram thousands of people, hostels, illegal restaurants, tailors and launderettes in the apartments on the 20 floors above. I checked into the Garden Hostel (Hong Kong's cheapest sleep at HK$60 per dorm bed) which doubles as a Kung Fu centre and has - especially for Hong Kong standards - a large terrace, with dying pot plants and two squawking budgies in a cage.
Hong Kong is noise. At night, it's the sound of hundreds of air-conditioning units whirring and rasping away, but by day the din includes continuous construction noise, traffic noise (though no Asian-style honking at all) and planes overhead.
The best thing to do there, apart from shopping in one of the many glamorous air-conditioned malls, is to watch the amazing skyline of Hong Kong Island from Kowloon. There's a wall of skyscrapers, framed against the mountain. The island has some of the most expensive real estate in the world and they're constantly reclaiming land from the ever-narrowing harbour to build more more more, higher. As a result, the people who have paid for the skyscrapers that have been plonked on the thin strip of land between the water and the steep slopes of Victoria peak over especially the past 20 years, have made sure the architecture is amazing (see www.emporis.com/en/wm/ci/?id=101300 for pictures). Best known is the 367m-high Bank of China building, which has crossed beams all the way to the top, though my favourite was the 415m-high Financial Centre, the highest one, which towers right on the waterfront and which has an elegant curved peak. The Financial Centre is an embarrasing 5m lower than Shanghai's Jin Mao tower, but Hong Kong has a new 474m-high building under construction, planned for 2007 - this one will even top Shanghai's ugly Oriental Pearl TV tower (468m). But then in Shanghai, there's another one being built; 492m ...when will the madness stop?
A great feature of Hong Kong is that many buildings that would be completely private and closed elsewhere, are incorperated into the city fabric here. There are raised pedestrian walkways in the skyscraper district, and often they'll dive into a building, popping out the other side; the architects will have made a public floor to allow the stream of pedestrians move through. This is probably partly out of lack of space, but also for the prestige of the building - sometimes you walk though enormous marble-clad foyers. Nice touch, Hong Kong.
In between the skyscrapers are the really expensive buildings - the ones that can afford to have few floors. In the days I wandered around there, I've come to characterise them as 'architecture that goes boing' - they're often steel-clad on the outside, and when you kick an expensaive building, it'll go 'boing'. The HSCB (Hong Kong Shanghai Bank) building, designed by Reichtsag-dome-Foster, is probably the world's most expensive building (670 million US$, back in the 1980s); it's not too high (only 179m - pah!), but consists of four immense pillars near the corners of the building, from which the floors hang - you can walk all the way underneath it, looking up through the glass 'floor' of the atrium. This one goes boing too. Amazing.
With a Bavarian from the hostel I did a daytrip out to the New Territories, the place locals go to sense some space. It's amazingly efficient to get there of course; the metro followed by a half hour ride in a doudledecker brings you to the start of the 'trail'. Nature in Hong Kong is pretty limited; it's such a dry area that it's mostly scrubs growing on the hills. The path was asphalted all the way, with of course regular posts telling you which emergency number to call if you get into trouble - a tad superfluous on such a short trek in such an urbanised area. After an hour we reached the beach - a very nice one; an crescent of sand with rocky outcrops on both sides, high waves, tropical vegetation and a view of several mountainous islands. Strangely, though there were literally hundreds of people walking the trail, we were the only ones actually to sit on the beach and have a dip - only after an hour some other foreigners planted themselves on the sand too.
On the way to the airport, after passing over the world's longest suspension bridge, is one of my Hong Kong favourites - a whole city that consists of 12 buildings. Imagine a standard European flat building - and then make it four times higher. Near the airport, this city has just a few buildings, but each with 60 floors of relatively small apartments - they must cram thousands of people in each. There are many such huge apartment buildings in Hong Kong, but this one is the most impressive. On ground level there are transport facilities, and shop and recreation complexes (and a beach), but that's it. It's about as compact as a city can get... though in Kowloon, a few stops by metro north of the coast, the Mong Kok district is the most densely inhabited area on the planet; an incredible 30,000 people per square kilometre.
After picking up my brand new passport (finally a version with a plastic ID page - the old one always looked tatty after a few trips) and getting a new Chinese visa, I took off to Shanghai.
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Next up: relaxing and working in Suzhou, and living the high life in Shanghai.
Sign of the day: 'Mind the gap' (HK metro)
Currently reading: The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides. Simply brilliant.
Exchange rate: HK$ 10 = €1 = US$1,27
