A little historical context: Hong Kong was an English colony from 1842 until 1997, when a “transfer of its sovereignty,” a kind of purposely vague term, to China occurred. Whole books have been written about why it was transferred (I saw one in the bookstore yesterday), but the end result is that Hong Kong is both part of China and not, and theirs remains a very complicated political relationship. Unlike mainland China (Beijing, etc), a traveler doesn’t need a special visa to enter, as it operates its own immigration policies.
If European capitols are cities of the past, and Tokyo and other big Asian cities hosts to the past and future meeting, then Hong Kong is most definitely a city of the future. The first thing that struck me was how foolproof their transportation system is – it’s nearly impossible to go in the wrong direction. The streets of downtown are connected via a labyrinthine system of overpasses and underground walkways, and each subway station seemed to have so many entrances that it would be harder not to find one than to get lost.
Of course, the main attraction in Hong Kong, is the city-of-the-future look of its skyline, where this incredible system of transport weaves in and out like ivy.
It seemed the entire city was on its way to a meeting with a high-profile client that would push Hong Kong’s economy even further. Well-dressed businessmen dominated the landscape, shoulder to shoulder with both each other, eyes down cell phones open, and wide-eyed tourists trying to find the point at which the skyscrapers ended (they don’t).
The skyscrapers literally had no end – as my dad and I walked further up the central hill on which Hong Kong is built, each building, whether it residential or commercial, rose 40 stories above the ground as if it were no height at all. Closer to the bay, expensive brand names and western-style hotels were the norm, and each corner turned revealed another shopping center with stores familiar to buyers the world over. Further up the hill, Hong Kong’s Chinese side slowly revealed itself – the ubiquitous small restaurant with the roasted duck hanging in the window, red lanterns hanging lazily outside rundown bars, dimly lit fruit and vegetable stalls, and dusty old storefronts selling electronics, souvenirs, and everything else.
In Hong Kong city:
Hong Kong Park
Incense coils and candle at Man-Mo Temple, the oldest in Hong Kong. They celebrate the God of Literature there - needless to say I had to get one. There's a sticker on the bottom that says "Blessed."
Hong Kong Flower Market
Yuen Po Bird Market. This was kind of heartbreaking, seeing all these beautiful birds in cages.
One gets the feeling, exploring downtown Hong Kong, that there is more to the area than that. Hong Kong’s largest island, Lantau, a ferry ride away, revealed rural areas that seemed miles and centuries away from the shiny capitalism of downtown. A long bus ride that seemed to ascend and descend the same mountain every few minutes lead us to Po-Lin Monastery, home to the largest outdoor Buddha in the world (who knew?) and, to my surprise and delight, a vegetarian cafeteria (quite the rarity in Tokyo). It was wonderfully peaceful, and even the presence of a largish bus terminal right in front of the monastery wasn’t enough to diminish the feeling of entering a sacred space.
A 15-minute walk away from the main monastery revealed the Wisdom Path. In the shape of the symbol for infinity, the path is surrounded by 38 halved tree trunks, on which are written passages from the Heart Sutra, a sacred document in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Our second-to-last day in Hong Kong took us to the very north of the territory. Our destination was the Hong Kong Wetlands Park, a vast nature reserve on the border with China proper. The New Territories, as the area is called (it was the last section of Hong Kong to be incorporated), is home to both half of the population of Hong Kong (about 3.3 million), and new government subsidized housing projects for the built in order to maintain their stability as its likely future economic hope. These housing projects were awe-inspiring. Like downtown, each building was over 40 stories tall, and they literally went on for miles. The buildings were organized into single areas, each of which had a separate name. Each of these areas had their own grocery store, train station (explained later), play areas and other amenities. We saw many kids running about and giving us \ looks (we hardly saw another foreign-looking face).
The reason for this is probably because the Wetlands Park is so far away. We took a commuter railway out to one of the final stops on the line. Each of the stations on this line was nearly empty, spotlessly clean and utterly state-of-the-art. There clearly had been a large movement recently to increase the access of those living out in the New Territories to Hong Kong city. We hopped on what is called the Light Rail, which consisted of one little train filled mostly with young kids, old folks and the like. This train wound its way around all of these monstrous housing projects and stopped near every one.
This area struck a chord in me much more so than the Emerald City-esque city skyline. While exploring that area, I was struck by the feeling that although it seemed all-encompassing, there had to be a segment of the population of Hong Kong whose lives in no way related to the high-stakes business going on downtown. I believe we found it in the New Territories. It wasn’t desolate, nor did it seem crime-ridden or like an inner city at all. It seemed quite organized and the faces I saw did not appear to be those living in dire situations.
For me at least, what was overwhelming was seeing this endless skyline of apartment buildings and trying to picture the mass of people who lived there. Thousands of people living here, in such close quarters, in identical buildings in a community that looked exactly the same as the one next to it. It was humbling and made me feel quite small, especially since in the background of any view in the wetland park (which was quite beautiful), these buildings dominated the view. I doubted those who looked at the park from their small rooms on the 34th floor of a nameless building cared how many acres they had saved, or how many birds could now fly free.
The view looking south...
and the view looking north.
A common side trip for visitors to Hong Kong is to the nearby dependency of Macau. Macau was a colony of Portugal but, like Hong Kong, its sovereignty was transferred to China in the late 90s. It remains capitalistic, but unlike Hong Kong, it exuded a more provincial, laid-back feel. Although newly built-up sections of Macau are becoming indistinguishable from Las Vegas and other gambling hotspots, in the old sections colorful old colonial buildings dotted the landscape in between dilapidating apartment buildings and shops selling second- and third-hand goods.
From a chapel crowning the highest point on Macau, we peered at China proper lurking mysteriously in the distance, and walked around the small peninsula on the withered cobblestone walkway. Away from the glitz of the casinos and central tourist areas, Macau seemed tired. Our last stop, the A-Ma Temple, was a fog of incense that acted as a veil, an Oriental fog that clung to the skin like a sweet memory. Wrapped in dust, the sun set.
All of the street signs were in both Portugese and Cantonese. I took 7,000 pictures of them.
The Ruins of St. John's church, from the 16th century sometime, an important site for Asian Christians.
Colonial colors and styles.
A-Ma Temple
As is my tendency even when the occasion doesn’t call for it, I attempted to place my trip to Hong Kong in the context of my greater year abroad. Aside from the actual sightseeing, eating (the food, Chinese and otherwise, was fantastic) and photography, all of which opportunities were better than I could have hoped, this trip to me served as an extended meditation on the meaning of “home.”
Waiting for the elevator in the hotel one morning, a Japanese woman noticed that I was only wearing a t-shirt and, rubbing her arms to make the universal symbol for cold, asked me in Japanese if I wasn’t cold? I responded to her, No no, I’m fine, and she nearly fell over with surprise that I spoke the language.
Why is this relevant? This has never happened to me in Tokyo, that a random Japanese has talked to me in such a harmless manner. She undoubtedly talked to me because, in her mind, there was no way I could respond – in the same way that people sometimes tell deep secrets to people they have met once and will never meet again, secrets they haven’t told even their closest confidants.
Being out of one’s element is both a scary and liberating experience, and I suppose that I’ve gotten used to having that duality in my everyday life. In Hong Kong, when I looked at a menu in English for the first time in months, I felt like I was cheating on an important test. The ease with which I read all the signs in English unnerved me – I actually longed for the challenge of having very little available in English, and for the feeling of accomplishment that wells up inside me when I learn a certain word and can finally understand a sign I’ve seen so many times before.
As I walked through the airport back in Tokyo, I felt once again at home, but in a different sense than I would have expected. I count four cities in which I’ve lived in the past seven months, so I suppose I’m used to uprooting myself as of late. Although Japan is still a riddle I’ve yet to solve, I’ve realized that I’ve become comfortable not knowing the answer. I’m never going to “look” like I belong in Tokyo, but if that had been the goal in the first place, I wouldn’t have felt so wonderful when, upon returning home, I saw that my apartment was just the way I had left it.
