Hong Kong and Macau

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Hong Kong airport was a real blast of luxury in comparison to Thailand, with glass and stainless steel everywhere, a cool temperature, and wealthy looking people strutting to and fro. A cool and empty train sped us from the airport, where we disembarked into the apparently calm maelstrom of the Kowloon peninsula. Going by guidebook we reached a towering apartment block, within which was apparently to be found a hotel. After consulting someone at the front desk we were given our key and shown up to our room. The hotel part of the apartment building had simply redecorated their part of the landing to look more European, with pine effect doors and gold handles, and the room was minuscule, but it felt great to be there. From the window you could make out the busy street winding down to the sea, and occasionally you would spot a huge sea eagle coasting down the road without much apparent purpose, though I could have watched it all day. There wasn't much to make out from the room so we headed out. Many of the streets of south Kowloon look pretty similar, with one apartment block/hotel after another perched on top of banks, malls, jewellers and pawn shops. A surprising number of guys who looked west African hung around on street corners. To be honest I really can't remember what we did next, probably some shopping. I still have a lot of cheap clothes I bought in Hong-Kong, most of which now have holes in or have a vestige of shame in me perhaps due to their sweat-shop provenance being relatively local to the place. I think that evening we went to an Irish bar and watched a large man from Birmingham sing some great and entertaining songs about bawdy subjects, and then we ventured to the Peninsula Hotel, where on one of the higher floors was to be found the “Felix”, an ultra-chic restaurant-bar designed all in glass with incredible views over the harbour. There I had an obnoxiously expensive pint of beer and enjoyed listening to the conversations around us. I think I left feeling a bit robbed of the importance of visiting HK, but I think it was worth it all the same, I'm sure there is nowhere like it.



The next day we headed across the harbour on the ferry to visit Hong Kong island, which was I think the most enjoyable part of the whole experience, perhaps a link to the maritime past without which Hong Kong would never have come to be what it is like today. Looking up at all the monolithic skyscrapers on the island's north side you briefly wonder what they are all for, although money seems to be a good enough reason for them to be there, on reflection. We wandered, and found a good café where we had an English breakfast, which wasn't too expensive but was interesting after 7 months in Thailand. My stomach resolved to stick to more interesting fare after that, and we enjoyed some good cheap noodles in several establishments during the rest of our stay. We took the train up the hill to see the view, which was really worth it, although from south side Hong Kong looked much like an ugly blot on the landscape than from the north, where there had been no landscape to look at. I felt another good sense of achievement at having made it to such a place, although you could tell it felt unloved by many people and was a place of huge contradictions. Taking the ferry back to Kowloon at night was incredible, with the skyscrapers lighting up the night sky and the sea as we drifted away from the island.





To make the most of our intended short stay in the south of China we got onto a hovercraft that took us fairly peacefully to Macau, a short journey to the east. Macau was originally a Portuguese colony and was held to be very different from Hong-Kong. We arrived in the evening, and milling around uncertainly at the taxi rank a pleasant couple offered to give us a lift into the town. We found our hotel with ease luckily, as it was getting late, and got an early night. I don't remember so much of Macau, and I think in the confusion we might have neglected to try any of the Chinese-Portuguese fusion food which was so famous to those parts, although we may have done. I was more interested in the architecture, and saving money, which seemed to me to be the proper procedure for visiting China. We wandered around some old and new streets, and up to the famous facade of the old cathedral, which echoes of a time seemingly forgotten and washed away by the modern world. A graveyard provided a more in-depth feeling of Macau's history, with the graves of Chinese, Portuguese and mixed families interspersed together, with an interesting variety of tombstones. It was a damp and misty day, with fog coming off the sea, but nevertheless we decided to go up to the old hill fort to get a better view. From there you could see the floating casinos and the sprawl of tower blocks spreading out and blocking the horizon to the west. It seemed eerily peaceful, and an older man was instructing a younger woman in the mysteries of Tai-chi to round off the picture.



The next day we wondered around some more, and went up the giant tower near the casinos to get a better look around. We also took in the more modern cathedral, which was strangely beautiful with its interior decorated with ornate figures like something off a large wedding cake. The streets of Macau were being nicely paved with wavy black and white flagstones, and it seemed the whole place was maybe beginning a slow revival. Macau was definitely worth the visit, although if I returned I would love to indulge in some of the local food in more depth, as I can't remember eating any!





The next day we wondered around some more, and went up the giant tower near the casinos to get a better look around. Macau was definitely worth the visit, although if I returned I would love to indulge in some of the local food in more depth, as I can't remember eating any!



Another day we took a stroll through the financial district, and ascended one of the huge skyscrapers to deal with a credit-card malfunction. This gave me an idea of the real, or maybe ideal Hong Kong, where everyone worked in sharp business suits and made enough to take themselves home in style to a nice, clean place they had worked hard to earn. Much of Hong Kong was apparently made up of apartment blocks, of all shapes sizes and even colours. Some of them looked totally unrealistic, with perhaps 70 storeys and only four apartments to each floor. It seemed many of these were being pulled down to make for more financial office space, but these tenements gave a vestige of character to the city, and below them you found markets selling goldfish, flowers, fast-food, and all kinds of things that brought life to the city, even if it was life that the upper echelons of society or even yourself might disagree with. At the other end of the spectrum were up-market shopping malls, endless articulated walkways and other pedestrian thoroughfares, inundated with traffic in the evenings but strangely quiet during the day. It seemed the life of Hong-Kong was being ushered out, and clung to the outside of the modern city, or itself changed into something else, translated into a life revolving around apartment buildings and the accumulated British influence that had accrued itself into something like a city during the occupation. It looked like the kind of place where money might arrive from any source and be disseminated, never to be seen again, but that was how the city fed and I found that perhaps there really couldn't be anywhere else like that in the world. I also got the impression that perhaps it would be the only time I might really get to see a living, breathing China, rather than the mishmash of traditional cultures and in-fighting that had tried to root it out which I might see on the mainland. Many might associate the modernity and fast paced, sterilised life of Hong-Kong perhaps with the Cultural Revolution and it's shearing of diversity and history from its people. I think it was perhaps more of an attempt to hold on to power by the deep-seated northern element of Chinese culture, who found that trade really was the seat of power, which perhaps had been re-located to the south unofficially over the centuries of international trade, leaving the traditional government in the lurch. Despite accusations of globalisation destroying traditional cultures around the world, it has also been found to depend on it eventually, and the local element could never be rooted out of Hong-Kong. Perhaps it has become recognisable as another seat for Chinese ethnicity, despite the absence of traditional culture which one might meet there at first glance.

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Photos

View from Kowloon harbour
From here you can see the Hong Kong financial district in all its glory.

Hong Kong apartment buildings
Buildings of this kind abounded on Hong Kong island, but seemed to be in the process of being replaced.