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I'm in HK now. The weather's not bad, the 'hotel' is adequate and HK is bizarre. People are nice and friendly but the mindset is decidedly alien.

Hong Kong Dec '98

Nickjenkins
2003-11-20 12:16:07

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Hong Kong and Lantau

07 Dec 1998 02:26:27

I'm in HK now. The weather's not bad, the 'hotel' is adequate and HK is bizarre. People are nice and friendly but the mindset is decidedly alien. Unless you want to buy something or you have something to sell you’re probably out of place in HK. You also shouldn't come here if you're a) claustrophobic or b) don't like neon.

Internet access seems to be free to HK residents but hard to find for visitors. In order to get mine I've had to buy a cup of very bad coffee in this cafe. It tastes something like warm dirt. Still it is coffee and the email is free. As I sit here writing two Germans are having an animated discussion about the economy or possibly their girlfriends (their hand gestures suggest the former rather than the latter) and a large group of HK Chinese huddle over the table talking not to each other, but to their mobile phones.

I find the protestations that Hong Kong will always be a British enclave to be ludicrous.

The city is Chinese to its roots! It’s an harbour of fever pitch Oriental capitalism on the fringes of its much larger and less commercially inclined parent. The fact that the British have managed to pretend otherwise for the better part of a century is simply a reflection of the tolerant and inscrutable nature of its occupants.

The food is Chinese, the signs are Chinese, the people are largely Chinese and you could go a week without hearing a word spoken in anything but Cantonese. For someone like me, coming to Hong Kong with all my Anglo-Saxon predjudices, the raw and bustling Asian character of the city and be quite startling (and quite refreshing).

But it’s easy to be overwhelmed by many aspects of Hong Kong. Even the landscape is challenging. It seems about the same physical size as the CBD’s of most modern ...