Hong Kong 90F cloudy with rain showers
Hong Kong is another stop I was looking forward to seeing. I have visited Hong Kong a while ago (as part of a trip into China). I have been to the more iconic places in Hong Kong such as Victoria’s Peak, the mid level escalators that exist as moving sidewalks to assist pedestrians up the hills to businesses and residences and various temples- normal tourist stops. .
My visit was before the British handoff of Hong Kong to China in 1997. One of my goals during this stop was to hopefully talk with people about changes from the handoff. I found different levels of comfortableness in discussing this topic. I found younger Hong Kongers were usually more willing to discuss the topic. As age increased, discussions were innuendo or even unwillingness to discuss certain aspects. Being in a group vs one on one made a difference as well. I’ll share some of the encounters as we go along.
Waiting for immigration to clear the ship for disembarkation, we were treated to drumming, a Chinese dragon and some acrobatics. First is a picture at the end of the show with the dogs all holding Welcome to Hong Kong banners in their mouths. Hopefully the video link will work – it was very fun to watch.
https://youtu.be/UbcsZFx0QTU (link if the embedded video doesnt work well.
Hong Kong is now described as a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China. Land wise Hong Kong consists of Hong Kong Island (many of the iconic tourist locations and business), 200 various smaller islands, Kowloon Peninsula (business/some residential) along the southern coast of China and the New Territories which is the residential suburb areas in the north. With approx. 414 sq miles of land, the population of 7.4 million is 90% Han Chinese heritage. Hong Kong has also reclaimed land from the sea to create more buildable land.
Hong Kong before the transfer was a British Colony. The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration agreed that the UK would hand over the colony to China in 1997 and China would guarantee Hong Kong’s economic and political systems for the next 50 years.
I think the prevailing opinion is that China immediately started to exercise control over Hong Kong with changes to their election (democratic) and security policies. Their promises of hands off have not been upheld. Demonstrations and riots (ie Umbrella revolution 2014 and others in 2019, 2020) were the form younger Hong Kongers used to express their discontent with these forced changes. During one of my Uber rides, this topic came up. The driver was late 20s and he had participated in some of the demonstrations. My summary from our discussion is the government reaction to the demonstrations was so swift that he felt people were not likely to speak out in that manner again. “You step into the street, and you were immediately arrested and could be beaten”. We discussed that Chinese communist culture was to always follow what the government tells you to do and adapt, never question. He suggested that after the 50 years before China can change what they want, it allowed for 2 generations to grow up in this current culture of increasing government restrictions and no one will care or remember what has been taken from them.
I had a city introduction tour from the ship so let’s get started with some highlights. The tour started at Victoria Harbor which separates the Kowloon mainland from Hong Kong Island. After the handoff, China gifted a gold monument along the harbor welcoming Hong Kong to the People’s Republic. The statue is a Bauhinia orchid which is the national flower of Hong Kong, represented on their flag.
Our tour guide was over 40. She was describing the situation of receiving this statue and simply stated “We have no opinion on this matter”. Sometimes things not said are the loudest. Throughout the tour she would share some additional thoughts such as “We create many products in Hong Kong, but we can no longer say Made in Hong Kong. We must mark things as Made in China”. We are not allowed to say “ I live in Hong Kong. We can only say I live in China, in Hong Kong. Someone asked her about the 50 year period before China can fully take over. Her response in this larger tour group was that ‘she would not be alive in 50 years, so it did not concern her’.
We also stopped at the Sampan area of Victoria Harbor referred to as Jumbo. It has changed over many years and covid affected this area as well. Sampans are small boats that would sell goods such as food, produce etc. The Sampan would not only be a shop but also their home. The number of people living in this manner has been in a steep decline and covid greatly affected people willing to continue to live in this manner. There is a much smaller group of house boats in the area – with mega yachts now taking up docking space. The Sampans are also used as a water taxi, meaning they will ferry people from their house to the shore or like Venice, take people to various docks along the harbor. The people clinging to this way of life are traditionally female and older (our pilot was supposedly in her 70s) and while it is a family business, rules and regulations have made it difficult to pass the business to younger generations. Our guide expects this way of life will disappear.
Jumbo Dock
A sampan
Sampan captain
Houseboats - most were plywood boxes installed on smaller boats. However with larger boats like these, people kept pets, washer dryers and refrigerators on the deck.
Back when I visited there were 3 floating restaurants in this area. One was relocated out of the area to refurbish. The second restaurant was purchased by a wealthy Chinese who had it towed outside the harbor. Not surprisingly to Hong Kongers, the boat shortly after sank and the insurance company had to pay the damages.
Last floating restaurant in Victoria Harbor, closed due to covid and starting to breakdown. It was a landmark and people are hoping someone will restore it.
We also went to one of their beaches for a stroll. At the end of the beach was a quasi temple. It wasn’t a ‘proper’ temple but there were enough statues and people burning incense to qualify for something. The guide indicated this area was a tribute to the life guards on the beaches.
The 'Money Budda' was one of the statues. The story is that you are supposed to move your hand from the top of his head down his side and then put your hand in your pocket. Then go buy a lottery ticket for your riches. Unfortunately, there was no place to buy a lottery ticket – maybe that was the intent. Your wealth is keeping your money!
I find these small features very interesting. There was a landscape crew attending to the flower beds in the area. They had regular looking gardening hand tools. But the brooms were made from palm fronds with woven baskets to collect the weeds etc to be taken to a truck.
The beach was flat, wide with a breakwater for child friendly water. If you look at the middle mountain you can just make out Ocean Park. Hong Kong has multiple theme parks – not only Disneyland Hong Kong but also, Legoland, Snoopy’s World and the Cup of Noodles Museum, to name a few.
It was a very cloudy day but a few city view pictures:
It was not unusual to see tall buildings with holes. As explained some people believe that dragons spirits fly around Hong Kong for protection. Having holes or passage ways in the buildings helps the dragon's energy flow easily.
The Peninsula Hotel is old Hong Kong. Around for ages, it is the place for visiting dignitaries to stay, right at Victoria Harbor edge.
At night bigger sampan boats that carry tourists on a drinks cruise when the waterfront is all lit up. They have not yet unfurled the center red sail. In sunshine, the colors are very pretty. This also shows the Harbor Promenade that goes along the edge of the harbor from the Kowloon side.
Skyline of Hong Kong Island from the Kowloon side of Victoria Harbor.
Let’s eat! The food of Hong Kong is by far Cantonese style. I arranged for another food tour, and it ended up me and a guide who was in her early 30s. Another opportunity to discuss preferences and places to visit. I asked for local family restaurants that the guide's family would eat at. I wasn’t ready to try street food carts and thought this was a better way – she agreed. I also rejected things like snake soup, chicken feet and toad- she added smelly tofu and some kind of organ broth to avoid – unless I thought differently. Nope.
First up was Dim Sum – the concept of small plates / small bites which makes it easier to try different foods instead of eating full dinners. We went to a small family restaurant that she has been to since childhood and after a very short wait, got the last available table. You get a ticket to wait for a table and watch an electronic board to see where you are in line. If the wait is long, you do some other shopping and come back. The colored ticket lined up with the colors on the wait board so if you had a party of four you could accurately judge how much longer. I asked her how one could tell a good restaurant in Hong Kong. Her reply was if it is open and has a line, it is good. The rent in Hong Kong is too high to support a restaurant not doing good business immediately.
Tea came in a French press and she made several selections from the menu. We had buns and dumplings. The dumplings were prawn (back right) and prawn with crab topped with turmeric and crab roe(back left). Delicious.
The buns on the left are BBQ sweet pork – something I’ve always called Bao Buns and an egg custard bun on the right. Bao Buns are a favorite but after eating these, I don’t know what I have been eating in the US.
The outside of the bun was a light and fluffy steamed bread filled with a good portion of BBQ pork and a little sweetness. I was calculating if I could order 2 dozen and keep them in the fridge on the ship and sweet talk one of the kitchen crew to heat them up. Yum. The custard bun was not as exciting to me. Aside from wondering how you managed to form a bun around a glop of custard, I thought the custard was gritty. It seemed to be the way it was intended.
Every restaurant that we visited was in a different neighborhood, so we were on and off the metro a couple of times. The metro is well maintained, spotless and still a little crowed at 7pm. Each neighborhood had a different purpose, architecture et.
neighborhood evening picture
Metro station
Metro car
Next stop was rice rolls and Hong Kong doughnuts with soy sauce. Think of lasagna noodles but made with rice. Translucent and just a little chewy, the rice roll is simply a noodle rolled up, no filling. It is eaten for breakfast or a snack. The Hong Kong doughnut is a stick of fried bread dough with the rice noodle wrapped around it. Both were very plain but I could actually see eating either for breakfast. I think I would just want a little powdered sugar over soy sauce.
The third stop was for Hong Kong BBQ pork from another restaurant her family has visited for years. Great pork, jasmine rice and the vegetable was a cousin of bok choy. There was an accompanied pork broth but really, the BBQ was the star.
Off to the neighborhood of the goldfish market. Store after store on the same block of goldfish and other freshwater fish for home pets. The only problem was if you wanted a goldfish, you really needed to buy 8 for good luck. They would put varying numbers of fish in the plastic bags and hang them during the day for shoppers to easily see them from the sidewalk. At least at the end of the day, the fish were removed from their plastic bags and put back in aquariums until the next day. We also wandered through a lovely flower market that was shutting down for the night so not many stalls were active.
Last stop was dessert of pineapple bun and lemon tart. The lemon tart was ok but the pineapple bun was great. There is no pineapple in the bun as the name comes from the way the topping crackles to look like the outside of a pineapple. The secret of this sweet bread bun is that after it has cooled and right before serving, a slit is made in the top and a frozen pat of butter is inserted. Butter makes the bun!
The guide's family (grandparents) immigrated from Indonesia and she and her mom still live in the original apartment in Kowloon. An area of town that today is very expensive to try to find an apartment. Unless you are very rich or have been there for 50 years, available housing is about 30 minutes north by metro in the New Territories area. There, every very large and tall apartment complex has its own park, shops, temple and school.
As we started to talk about the hand off, I did my usual that my interest was general and if I asked something that she wasn’t comfortable discussing just please say so. She said that that we should NOT discuss the National Security Policy (the changes that started the demonstrations in the last 5 years). She was a teacher and said that very quickly after the handoff, China decreed that public schools would no longer teach English as a secondary language, but every child would be taught Mandarin. The hardest comment was to hear her say that it is difficult living in a country where freedoms existed but now one can be afraid of saying the wrong thing and have it reported and used against you.
The Victoria Harbor skyline is colorfully lit in the evening although this picture with the fog doesn’t do it justice.
The next day I had a great day wandering the harbor area, the harbor walk over the water, finding funny signs and dropping into an art museum when it started to rain.
Back to the boat and moving on to Vietnam! The rain should be stopping as we move west.
Baai – baai
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