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Posts from the ‘Hong Kong’ Category

Mar 9

24 Comments

Borrowed place, borrowed time

SYP_1

Walking down the length of Wing Lee Street, I couldn’t help but marvel at the degree of change around me. The ageing tenements running along one side had been renovated in bright pastel yellow, with balconies and windows refitted to accommodate new tenants. A cheery sign midway indicated the presence of an artists’ studio. Formerly earmarked for demolition, the entire row was saved after a public outcry following its appearance in Echoes of the Rainbow, winner of a Crystal Bear at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival. Read more

Feb 9

19 Comments

Springing into Chinese New Year

CNY flower market_1

Tomorrow marks the beginning of Chinese New Year, without a doubt the biggest festival of the Hong Kong calendar. Families gather together for days of feasting, exchanging well-wishes and red packets of lucky money – lai see. Read more

Jan 27

20 Comments

Hong Kong by escalator

Mid-Levels Escalator (detail)

Stretching 800 metres uphill from the financial district, the Central – Mid-levels Escalator snakes through one of Hong Kong’s oldest and most fascinating neighbourhoods. Conceived by engineers in the late 80s as a creative solution to solve the area’s traffic woes, it is billed as the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. Read more

Jan 13

20 Comments

Postcards from Shek O

Shek O_1

It seems like a glaring paradox. What could a laidback seaside village – fronted by an inviting stretch of soft powder sand – have in common with an endless procession of towering skyscrapers, buzzing markets and neon-soaked streets?  But Hong Kong proves that both these worlds can comfortably coexist on a small, hilly island, just eight miles across at its widest point. Read more

Jan 2

31 Comments

New Year’s lions and dragons

Lion dances_1

Hong Kong has a penchant for weird and wonderful superlatives, including the largest origami mosaic, most expensive bathroom, loudest scream by an indoor crowd, and tallest revolving door.

On the first day of the New Year I went down to see the lion and dragon dances on the waterfront. Now a well-established annual parade, this year’s edition was also a bid to break the world record for the longest parade of Chinese unicorn (Qilin in Mandarin, Keilun in Cantonese). Read more

Nov 22

18 Comments

The accidental cartographer

I have always loved maps. During my childhood summers in Canada I collected illustrated maps of major North American cities, meticulously hand-drawn and painted by the aptly named company Unique Media. Somewhere stashed away in my cupboards are aerial depictions of Toronto, Vancouver, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with more general maps of the US and Canada. Unique Media also did a fabulous world map, which graced the wall of my bedroom in the days before Plus Ultra. Read more

Nov 9

23 Comments

Luk Keng, village at road’s end

The heron stands at rest, perched on a branch half-submerged in the calm, flat waters of Starling Inlet. Across the bay is Mainland China, marked by a proliferation of tower blocks, scaffolding, and off in the distance, Minsk World, a theme park based around a retired Russian aircraft carrier. Read more

Nov 6

18 Comments

Bride’s Pool: a tragic tale

Place names in Hong Kong often have poetic, almost legendary origins. Kowloon, the peninsula of ‘nine dragons’, actually has a backdrop of eight peaks, but the extra dragon denotes a Song emperor, who took refuge here with his entourage to escape the Mongol invasion. Read more

Sep 1

13 Comments

Guarding the Barren Rock

It was the twelfth year of the reign of Guangxu, emperor of China’s ailing Qing Dynasty; in Western terms, 1887. On a headland at the eastern entrance to Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, a new fortress was nearing its final stages of completion. Read more

Aug 25

19 Comments

Echoes of Kowloon’s Walled City

Centuries before the British took control of Hong Kong, a small outpost was built on the shores of its deepwater harbour to manage the local salt trade. Eventually this evolved into a coastal fort on Kowloon, the peninsula of “Nine Dragons”. Then, in the mid-19th century, came the disastrous First Opium War. Read more

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