Chapter 55: To the Victor the Spoils: Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

Having our usual preference for early morning flights, Lao-puo Suzanne and I arose early on Saturday morning for our flight from Taipei to Hong Kong. Thai Airlines is usually pretty good, but they were mediocre at best on this trip. Devil a drop of wine for one thing, and my tongue hanging out a mile. The meal, not really a breakfast, was a greasy Chinese ham sausage and some cold cabbage. It didn’t really matter, as it’s only a two-hour flight. Such a difference from our first trip from Vancouver to Hong Kong, which was a little over thirteen hours! We arrived relaxed and refreshed, which was a good thing given the hordes of people with which we were immediately faced at Customs and Immigration. We got stamped and cleared relatively quickly, and met up with my cousin Bob—I hadn’t seen him for over two years.

He lives and teaches over the border, about three and a half hours away by bus, at a place called Shantou. More about that in the next chapter.

Bob’s friend, with whom we stayed, lives away out in the New Territories, and it took about an hour to get there on a lovely Volvo double-decker bus. For all the people living there (Kowloon is the most densely-populated city in the world from what I understand), Hong Kong is still lovely and green—sort of like Singapore in that regard.

It was Lao-puo’s birthday that night, so we went to Aberdeen for a meal on one of those floating restaurants. I do not recommend them—the ambiance was great (including the shuttle across Aberdeen Harbour to get there), the service was impeccable, and the meal was the wonderful gourmet Chinese of which we are all so fond. The only problem was, the diner requires not only a bit of room on the credit card, but sufficient home equity to handle a second mortgage. What the heck, it’s her birthday, it’s Hong Kong, and we had a great time.

Hong Kong is a bit overwhelming, and I am still putting my thoughts down. Some of the interesting things (to me anyway) are:

· The Star Ferries from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, still running despite the fact that there is now a tunnel. For sheltered waters, Hong Kong Harbour is always very choppy—and I think Star ferries would roll in a heavy dew.
· The British influence—driving on the left, double decker buses, and a “First Class” commuter train car that has fabric seats instead of metal ones.
· The number of foreign people (that’d be us), both tourists and residents, and the fact that English is widely understood and spoken. Cantonese-speaking store clerks spoke in English to us (it’s so tonal that Bob says that you have to take singing lessons before you can learn Cantonese), but switched to Mandarin when we did.
· The number of people with money in Hong Kong, ranging from prosperous to loaded. There are many houses and apartments obviously very expensive (none of which seemed ostentatious by the way), and luxury cars by the lotful.
· The number of Indian males—half of whom think I want a Rolex knock-off and the other half of whom think I want a tailored suit. (The next time I wear a suit I’ll be lying down, I think).
· The hordes of young Filipina women congregating in large groups. They are domestic workers, usually married to deep-sea sailors or labourers. Neither their warm smiles nor their chattiness should be misinterpreted as interest in the amiable old duffer with a camera and a small digital recorder.
· The incredible number of people (30,000 of them), out protesting the moment the Chinese big shots went home to Beijing after the 10th anniversary of the retrocession. Some of them even carried and waved ROC flags.
· The food is fabulous in Hong Kong, and there is something for every budget.
· The cost of living in HK is wickedness—away more than Hualien or even Taipei.

We saw the parts of Hong Kong that we missed the last time—Stanley, Aberdeen, Repulse Bay, Kowloon, and the New Territories, and we stayed in a real community and not a tourist area. Even so, we were not objects of general remark (or giggles or pointing or stares) as was later to be the case when we went over the border into China.

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