Hong Kong: the experience of a lifetime

Natural History, July-August, 2002

ITS FLAG HAS CHANGED from the crossed blue-and-red stripes of Great Britain's Union Jack to the bauhinia, a five-petaled, magenta native flower, a symbol, at once gentle yet historic, of Hong Kong's unruffled transition from colony to autonomous enclave of China. An enormous change, to be sure, yet this glistening, unique amalgam of East meeting West remains seamless, a dynamic, fetching city-state that offers to those who visit her a panorama of its Qing Dynasty-Victorian England history, the comforts of hotels with few equals, the finest Chinese kitchen extant, and a matchless collection of modish boutiques.

Hong Kong is exhilarating. A visitor cannot help but be plunged into history: gaslights and 100-step market streets; temples redolent with incense; Queen Victoria in bronze, enthroned in a public park; sing-song Cantonese opera in the nighttime Temple Street Market; and the Noon Day Gun blasting its signal every day.

Remnants of the old walled city remain, and you may sit on Sung Wong Rock, once the visiting throne of the Sung Dynasty emperor. In the Yuen Po Street Bird Market, join the old men drinking tea in the company of their exotic birds. Take a ride on a double-decked tram clattering ten miles east to west along a 98-year-old rail route from the Western District, full of aromatic dried food shops, through teeming Wanchai and Causeway Bay, past the Happy Valley racecourse. Or cross Victoria Harbor on a snub-nosed Star Ferry, with "star" names such as Guiding, Evening, Rising, and Twinkling--the way Hong Kongers have commuted since 1898. Ferry over to Hong Kong's other islands, to the 70-foot-high sitting Buddha on Lan Tau, and to Peng Chau, once the refuge of South China Sea pirates.

A few rickshaws still remain at the ferry slips in Central, and the Peak Tram, the way up to Hong Kong's steep Victoria Peak, runs as smoothly as it has since 1888. People come to Hong Kong lured by its promise of the latest ready-to-wear from Paris and Milan; for pearls and jades, some to be found in the morning bazaar of the Jade Market; and for afternoons among the Ming Dynasty porcelains and heavy old blackwood furniture along Hollywood Road. They come evenings a small way up the peak to the pubs and jazz of Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong's Soho, its Greenwich Village. They come to eat dim sum and roasted duck, bowls of noodles, and fish just pulled from the sea.

Just as satisfying, however, is Hong Kong as history, old and new. Its Museum of Art, on the Kowloon waterfront, regularly displays antique calligraphy and historic ink paintings on silk. The Hong Kong Museum of History, farther into Kowloon, and the new Heritage Museum, in the New Territories, boast dioramas and exhibits from 6,000-year-old Neolithic pottery shards to Qing Dynasty embroideries. Learn about Hong Kong's history, from the early fishing tribes--the Punti, Hoklo, the seafaring Yueh, and the Tanka--to its 150 colonial years of Taipans and foreign traders and its relationship to revolutionary China.

In such small restorations as the Tai Fu Tai scholar's residence, the Sam Tung Uk walled village, a rolling stock Railroad Museum, and in the Sheung Yiu Folk Museum, so much of old Hong Kong endures. In the Taoist monastery of Ching Chung Koon, visit with the monks and their gardens of miniature trees and eat vegetables with them.

To be in Hong Kong at any time of the year is to be in the midst of a festival. The Lunar New Year occurs each January or February, and Victoria Harbor is alight with great explosions of fireworks. Fifteen days later the Lantern Festival is celebrated and all of the city is illuminated with glowing ornate paper lanterns. April brings the Bun Festival to the nearby island of Cheung Chau, with its 50-foot-high pyramids of steamed buns offered to hungry mythological ghosts. In May, foods and prayers are offered to Tin Hau, the goddess of fishermen, and the following month the brightly decorated Dragon Boats are oared swiftly in races through Hong Kong's waters. Mid-autumn brings more lanterns and mounds of sweet paste-filled moon cakes.

Hong Kong is home to feng shui, the belief in the efficacy of properly located winds and waters. It is a place to perhaps meet with an herbalist who will analyze your pulse and your forehead and prescribe foods and herbs to restore your interior balance. Visit City Hall on the weekend and you will see newly married couples by the score, the brides often in their glittering red traditional gowns, their heads adorned with spangles.

Universal amity, foods that excite the palate, the stimulation of history and the presence of the past, touches of the exotic, continual festivals, all within exuberant urban beauty. Visit Hong Kong for an experience of a lifetime.

The MEET THE PEOPLE program allows you to meet with English-speaking specialists each day of the week who will initiate you into the many aspects of Hong Kong that casual visitors miss. There is no need to book ahead for these visits with specialists, whose expertise ranges from Tin Hau, tai chi, Chinese tea, and traditional medicine to the city's contemporary art and antiques scene. For more information on Hong Kong, visit www.DiscoverHongKong.com or call 1-800-282-4582.