Holy Cow it's Hong Kong and Macau!

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From the border with Shenzhen, the train ride was about an hour into Kowloon, one of the two urban centers of Hong Kong. The German couple I met on the Yangtze River had told me about the Chungking Mansion, a group of four dilapidated high-rises containing numerous hostels. This was the cheapest place to find a room in Hong Kong. One could easily understand why. The bottom floor of the building consists of a number of stores, with Africans, Indians, and people of other ethnicities standing around hawking rooms and whatever else you wanted. I felt like I was in Nairobi or Mumbai rather than Hong Kong. Despite these warning signs, my need to save money took me to stand in line for an elevator. In the elevator, I listened in on an African guy trying to pick up on a lady from a different part of Africa. For some reason I was surprised at the conversation. Somehow in my mind I had lumped these people into one group: the Africans. In reality, individuals from one African country are as foreign to one another as I am to them. Perhaps I had been spending too much time in China and got used to having people of my own ethnicity around me all the time and thus started to consider all foreigners as one group. Anyways, I got the sense from their conversation that many Africans come to Hong Kong to load up on supplies that they can resell in Africa. In this case, the guy was taking a bunch of cell phones.

I picked a hostel recommended by my Lonely Planet book. Unfortunately it was full. Tired at this point, I walked across the hallway to another one run by a Pinay, or Pilipino lady. I greeted her in the only tagalong I knew, and negotiated a price. Actually I think prices in Chungking Mansion are fairly standard, so no bargaining was necessary. The room, again quite standard in Chungking Mansion and probably through Hong Kong, was tiny. It could easily have been a walk-in closet. There was barely space for a bed. The shower was directly over the toilet. With the high real estate prices, I guess this was inevitable. In any case, it made for the quintessential Hong Kong experience (a la the movie Chungking Express).

The rest of the night consisted of wandering the streets of Kowloon, which is the stereotypical part of Hong Kong that is overloaded with neon signs. Despite the rain, people were out everywhere. Unable to find a decent place that was not flooded with people, I elected to buy some instant noodles and eat it back in the hostel room with the TV. After “dinner,” I walked over to the Walk of Stars, where at 8:00pm the City of Lights show was to start. The show consisted of the highest office buildings in Hong Kong coordinating their lights as a show, with music at the Walk of Stars. And without rain, the show was to be topped off with coordinated fireworks. Luckily the rain stopped enough for the fireworks to resume on schedule. Until just before the show that is. Exactly at 8:00pm, a rain cloud flew over and released its load. Many of the people broke out their umbrellas and annoyingly blocked the view of people behind them. I was one of these people in the front with the umbrellas, mine having been freshly bought in Shenzhen. But I think everyone enjoyed the show like I did.

The next day I packed up and moved to a hostel on Hong Kong Island. On the plus side, there was free internet at this hostel. On the minus side, I have to walk through the caretaker’s office to get to my room. The hostel was obviously someone’s old apartment. Convenience not aesthetics, I think that is the official Chinese motto. The rest of the day consisted of taking the tram up to Victoria Peak and hiking down, walking through the urban planning museum, and shopping. Hong Kong was really a shopper’s paradise. But the real surprise was the number of Pinays in Hong Kong. Being Sunday, the only day Pinays have as a day off, all of Hong Kong seem more like Manila. There were discount malls that were packed to the hilt with Tagalog conversation. The plaza of HSBS was covered with them, with paths dividing the pinay crowds based on the province they’re from. I was simply amazed. I wonder if there are any young women left in the Philippines.

The next day I took a ferry out to Macau. Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia. When I got out of the ferry station, I took a walk. Seeing a casino, I couldn’t help but walk in and drop a quarter in the slot machine. And I won! Well it like $2 in U.S. dollars in winnings. Nonetheless, the secret to success in gambling is knowing when to quit. That I did. But if you think of it as a ratio, then it was good winnings.

Next I walked over to the Tower of Macau, where I took a guided walk on the outside plank. Basically it was an unfenced path around the outside the observation platform. I wore a harness so that I would not fall off, while Zhuhai, which is to Macau what Shenzhen is to Hong Kong (China’s bid to steal from or, more politically correct, complement the businesses in the former colonies). Though it was perfectly safe, my fear of falling kept me trembling with each step. Only very carefully could I sit on the edge and dangle my feet into the sky. This was a test of whether I could go bungee jumping. Given the adrenaline pumping in my system, I was feeling less optimistic about it.

The remainder of my stay in Macau consisted of more strolling through the city’s historic core, which looked very much like a Mediterranean town, with columns, pastel colors, and palm trees. Unfortunately Starbucks and other global retailers have already arrived, but the charm of the place remains. In the next few years, Macau plan to become a even more attractive tourist destination. From the amount of construction going on, I take this to be true. If nothing else, the food, a blend of Chinese and Portuguese cuisine, was quite good.

I took the ferry back to Hong Kong, where I picked up my bags and headed to the new airport via the new airport train. Had I known that I could take a ferry from Macau directly to the Hong Kong airport, I would have done that. Nonetheless, it was nice to experience Hong Kong’s brand new infrastructure. As expensive as the train ride was, I suspect it was not a profitable venture. However, it’s also the train line that would take tourists to the soon to be opened Hong Kong Disneyland. It seems that tourism fever has overtaken the entire Pearl Delta region. Both Hong Kong and Macau have benefited from the China boom, though this required them to transform from manufacturing-based economies to more service-oriented ones. In any case, the Pearl Delta region happens to be the part of China that is receiving the largest amount of foreign direct investment, even though Shanghai (the Yangtze Delta region) seems to get more press attention.

The flight to Taipei on Thai Airways was quite nice. I looked forward to seeing my mom and my aunt, who were to pick me up at the airport. Finally, familiar faces after these weeks.

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