As a Tourist in Hong Kong

Last week I described the Pride festivities that I was lucky enough to be able to attend in Hong Kong. It was amazing to be able to attend those on my first day, but the next day was when I would be able to really explore the city. I awoke in my hostel, not terribly late, and found that there was a young German medical student who was about to head down to find breakfast. He asked me if I was interested in joining him and we proceeded to spend the next two days together seeing tourist sites and exploring the city.

Hong Kong Pride

A few weeks before my trip to Hong Kong I discovered that the Hong Kong Pride Parade was going to be held November 7 this year. At first, I didn't think that I'd be able to go. Then I mentioned the event to Neir, my Hawaiian friend. His eyebrows raised and his eyes lit up. "You have to go," he said. "There isn't much to keep you sane while you're living in China. If this is something that you can treat yourself with, you should do it." Neir volunteered to take my classes that day and advised me to take the night train so that I would get there on time. I took his advice and met with him and some friends at Sean's bar before leaving. I had a small bag with me when I was at the bar, but no one asked about it. Then, about ten minutes before I had to leave for the train station I got up and announced that I had to go. When asked why, I said "I'm going to Hong Kong for Pride tomorrow and my train leaves in a little while. The group was dumbfounded and Rebecca, an English friend, exclaimed "Why didn't you invite me?!" I felt bad that I hadn't mentioned it, but I honestly didn't think anyone would be interested in going.

A new love interest

I want to be more regular on posting, so I'm going to use this post as an update. I've only made a few posts so far and missed December altogether. I thought I would start regular posts as soon as things settled down, but I'm beginning to discover that things never settle down here. The holidays were especially crazy. All the foreigners wanted to get together to celebrate as if we were back home, but of course the schools were still operating on a normal schedule. I was off for both Christmas and New Years, but just the one day each. The big holiday here is Chinese New Year. I'll get about a month off for that. So both holidays the expats in town got together for a little dinner and drinks, then went out for more drinks and things went on into the early hours for both holidays. Perhaps things will settle down now that we're in the New Year, but I think the best policy is to work these posts into my schedule regardless.

The biggest point on which I'd like to update is my new love. It's one of those amazing stories where your love interest is beautiful and has an amazing personality with depth, intelligence, and fun. But, of course is unapproachable. Until you approach. Then you discover they're fun to be with, interesting and, surprise, it's possible to start a long term relationship with them. This has happened to me and my love is fun at parties, a foodie, and provides plenty of opportunities for outdoor activities like hiking or swimming at the beach. My new love is part British, part Chinese, and pegs its currency to the US Dollar. Of course, I'm talking about Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is one of those cities that I've observed from afar for many years. Being a geographer, I've been studying maps of Hong Kong and I'm fairly familiar with their transportation systems (Hong Kong has the highest use of public transportation of any country in the world) and am enthralled by the Central and Kowloon districts. It's an amazing city from the point of view of history, culture, and development.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is, technically, part of China. The Chinese military have a presence in the city (albeit an invisible one) and Hong Kong can't enter into diplomatic negotiations with foreign countries, but it ends there. When you come from China into Hong Kong, there's a border crossing between the two countries (the world's busiest) and there's a deep, wide canal at the border (think Rio Grand, but deeper and wider) ensuring people cross at the checkpoint. There are only three checkpoints along the border and Chinese people must have a visa to cross. Hong Kong has its own currency (the Hong Kong Dollar), its own language (Cantonese, not Mandarin), and very different laws from the mainland. The law here is based on British common law because they were a British colony up until 1997, though recent conflicts with the mainland Chinese government has brought the future of the freedom enjoyed by Hong Kongers into question.

Nevertheless, Hong Kong is very western by Chinese standards and certainly qualifies as an economically developed nation. Unlike mainland China, Hong Kong is a place where traffic laws are obeyed, government is democratically voted for, and potable water comes out of every tap. It's just Chinese enough to be exciting and just western enough to be comfortable. To be honest, Hong Kong is the perfect combination of urban and natural, east and west, modern and ancient. In such a perfect city, the cost of living must be astronomical. Except it isn't.

Hong Kong is an expensive city compared to mainland China, but cheap by western standards. Some things are even cheaper in Hong Kong than Salt Lake or Atlanta. For example, it takes less than US$1 to cross the entire island of Hong Kong on the MTR (Hong Kong's metro system) and admission to the Hong Kong Museum of History costs just over US$1. That's compared to $2.50 to ride the bus in Salt Lake or US$16.50 to get into the Atlanta History Center. But the cheapest thing in Hong Kong is the thing it's world famous for, shopping. The markets are places where you can buy good quality clothes, leather goods, electronics, and all manner of merchandise for low, low  prices. Of course, there's one area I've neglected to mention: real estate.

Hong Kong itself is an island. A small island. A small island covered mostly by mountains too steep for construction and sometimes too steep for roads. Therefore most of the island is undeveloped or sparsely developed. Except for the northern shore of the island. A small strip of land mostly along that north shore is where the incredibly dense city of Hong Kong lies. Between the mountains and Hong Kong Harbor is where all the action happens. The entire city is squeezed into this strip, with every square inch of available space put to use. It's amazing. To be sure, this is not all there is to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Across the harbor is Kowloon, the peninsula that faces HK island and it's actually more densely populated than the city itself, since it it a bit flatter and can accommodate more development. Beyond Kowloon is an area called the New Territories ('New' because they were acquired in 1898, after Hong Kong and Kowloon had already been established). HKSAR also includes over 200 outlying islands (most are unpopulated).

Because of Hong Kong's unique geography, the cost of real estate there is unfathomably high. On both the island and in Kowloon, rents can be astronomical. But the government does help. I've read that a large percentage of Hong Kongers receive government assistance for rent. I've also found, when looking for teaching positions, that many employers offer to generously subsidize housing for native English speaking teachers. And, of course, one has to manage expectations if he plans to move to Hong Kong. I had an apartment of just under 800 sf in Salt Lake City. I would never be able afford that much space in Hong Kong, but I shouldn't expect to. I wouldn't have a full kitchen and would probably be living in a studio apartment. Of course, I wouldn't expect to spend much time at home and eating fast food or in a small eatery is cheaper in HK than SLC. And salaries are comparable for teachers. (Higher in HK if you have the right teaching qualifications.) I visited the apartment of a friend of a friend while in HK and was surprised to find that the apartment wasn't small. I've lived in smaller myself and paid almost as much in Georgia.

Hong Kong's geography also means that there are a lot of surprises in store for new residents and visitors. Hong Kong is technically tropical, but weather patterns mean that the winter is cool, but by no means cold. Similar to north or central Florida. And the topography means that one can climb a nearby mountain (or take the bus) in the summer and get a few degrees of temperature relief. But the range of available activities in Hong Kong is the most exciting thing.

In Central, a person has all the urban amenities available that one can imagine: high end and low end shopping, fine dining and fantastic street food (HK is definitely a foodie town), amazing nightlife in several distinct districts, and all the theatre and shows available in any alpha level metropolis.

But it's also a tropical island. There are beaches all over the island and around the region. Take a 30 min bus to Shek'O (as we did) for what is possibly HK's most beautiful beach and matching village complete with open air restaurants or over to Repulse Bay for HK's most popular beaches. Not in the mood for a crowd? Take the 30 min ferry from Central over to Lantau Island for some of the longest, most secluded beaches you've ever seen. Or take ferries to any of the other islands of the SAR and discover a new beach.

Not in the mood for a beach? How about hiking? Victoria Peak is right on HK Island and has plenty of hiking trails, but if you'd like to be a little more adventurous, you can also take the train into the New Territories. Because of the incredibly dense development of HK, and the small area the SAR occupies, 40% of the land area of HK is reserved as parkland. That means that there's still a lot of natural area in HK to explore.

Bored of the big city fine dining, clubbing, shopping, hiking, beaches and cultural options? I understand. If only this city had a tropical version of Las Vegas set in a former Portugese colony an hour's ferry ride away. Oh, wait a minute. It does. Macau is a quick and simple high speed ferry ride and offers up a beautiful colonial city with several of the eyesores of Las Vegas thrown in for good measure. Just in case Hong Kong gets too hum-drum. And that, of course leads me to the fact that HK is right on China's doorstep, with all the amazing adventures it has to offer (pretty much endless), and HK is centrally located in East Asia with reasonably short flights to Indochina, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the list goes on.

I know, I'm gushing. But I did mention that I'm in love. I wanted to inform you of how I felt about Hong Kong. All of these things are good on paper, but how would I actually feel about the city when I got there? The reality of a place can be very different than the information you find out through the internet. The information I've put forth in this post is mostly stuff I knew before I went. Next week, I'd like to take you through my first and second trips to HK (I've only made two so far) and let you know what it felt like to actually be there and what I did while there.

On that midnight train to Hong Kong...

The following content was written on a night train to Hong Kong. It was a grueling trip on a  crowded slow train. I didn't post right away because there's no internet connection on the train, though I should have thought to do it when I first got into the city, I didn't and the post has languished for a while:

I find myself on a train crossing southern China overnight. The temperature is low, though only by subtropical standards. I'm in shorts and a t-shirt because it was fairly warm when I left Chenzhou and two people have shown concern for my well being so far, one managing to choke out, in English, “Where are your clothes?” I've been surprised and delighted so far by how nice everyone is and how willing to help at every turn. A couple of weeks ago I went for a walk along the river that flows through Chenzhou and ended up on the north side of town in a n unfamiliar neighborhood. As I walked, I realized that there wasn't a main road that ran through the neighborhood and I had no idea how to get back to town. A man, apparently, walking home from work intercepted me and walked me back out to the river, crossing rail lines and walking through his neighbors' back gardens to get me there. I thought it was on his way the whole time until, upon reaching the road that ran beside the river, he waved goodbye and turned to head back to where we had first met.

I have no particular reason for writing this post except that I don't often take the time to write as things are happening. Tonight I decided to pull out my computer and put down thoughts in the midst of action, since I may not get another chance. I'm headed to Hong Kong Pride for the weekend, taking the overnight train to get there. I opted for the seats, not the sleeper in order to save money. It has been quite the experience, and not an entirely unpleasant one. The train has been conpletely full for the majority of the trip, though in these last couple of hours it has begun to empty out some. Most of the people around me slept for the majority of the trip, but I've been unable to do so, since the seat, while soft, do not recline at all.

When I arrived at the train station I was ushered towards a desk where I was asked to pay an additional 10 yuan over the ticket price so that I could be escorted to a small room filled with people in terribly comfortable chairs watching an American movie. I got to see about seven minutes of an aging Arnold Swartzeneggar apparently fighting more terminators before I was retrieved by the people who took my ten Yuan and sent out to the train platform to wait for twenty minutes on the train to arrive. When I boarded the train it appeared I had missed the party because most everyone was already passed out and the floor was covered with all manner of trash: snack food bags, candy wrappers, sunflower seed shells and what appeared to be a bedpan were among the plethora of discarded items. It looked as if the train company must not have been cleaned for months. As I soon discovered, however, they do a complete sweep of every car at every stop.

In any case, the trip has been exciting so far, though I am now quite cold. It's close to five AM, so hopefully it will start to warm as the sun comes up, though I think I'll be in Shenzhen before that happens. That this train's destination. A trip to Hong Kong is quite involved. If you're not familiar with the area (and I assume you're not), Shenzhen is the border town on the mainland side of the Hong Kong border. Twenty years ago there was nothing in this town, I'm not even sure there was a fishing village there, which is usually how these stories start in China. Then the Chinese government began to pour money into the town in anticipation of the handover of Hong Kong to China from Britain. And the town began to grow, continuing, of course, after the handover. Today, Shenzhen is a metropolis of about ten million, larger than Hong Kong itself. It is also one of the richest cities in China, perhaps even wealthier than Shanghai.

From Shenzhen, I will cross the international border (yes, Hong Kong is still considered an independent nation in most respects) into the Special Admistrative Region of Hong Kong, where I will then board the Hong Kong rail system and begin the final leg of the journey (about an hour and a half). The train will take me all the way to Kowloon, which is the peninsula that juts out into Victoria Harbor. From there, a bus will take me across the harbor via tunnel onto Hong Kong Island, where the actual city of Hong Kong lies. I've booked a hostel in the city just a few blocks from Victoria Park, where the pride parade will begin.

That's all I know at the moment. I'll try to stop to write as it all happens, but if not, I'll be writing another post on the return train. (I have a sleeper for that one.)