Hong Kong

HONG KONG ‘95
Sunday, December 24, 1995

It is one o’clock in the morning in Hong Kong and I’m getting ready for bed. After anxiously watching the skies all week I lucked out. The blizzard I half expected to put the kibosh on my trip arrived early rather than on time. I managed to fly out of Boston between snowfalls. The flight was smooth and uneventful, the only bad moment being when I opened my bag to find my journal and realized that I had left it, along with my Fodor guidebook and a collection of essays by Saul Bellow lying on the kitchen table. My greatest fear in traveling is that I shall be stuck somewhere with nothing to read, so when we reached the Tokyo airport, I bought a book, the only one available — a tacky piece of American porn, which I never even got to, thank heaven. The flight was an agonizingly long one; in fact, from the time I got on the plane to the time I got to the back of the immigration line in Hong Kong airport, just about 24 hours had passed. I managed to get a window seat all the way to Tokyo, when for the last leg of the journey, a native Hong Konger got the prize. I was thus cheated of what is generally considered to be the most spectacular landing of all the world’s airports.
Hong Kong itself was worth the wait, a glittering, many-tiered tray of jewels against the velvet night. We set down quickly, as is the style at this impossible airport situated on a mere strip jutting into Victoria Harbor.
I hurried off the plane and was horrified to hit a 45-minute snag waiting in line at the immigration counters. I’ve never seen so many people waiting in line, dozens of lines that seldom seemed to move at all. An Asian man (from America) told me angrily that no airport in the world was so customarily bogged down in immigration. In part to get away from his steady rant, I changed over to another line. This moved less well than the first, but presently, an airport official started motioning people over to yet another section of the airport. More lines, but I was much closer to the front. In my relief I let a chic Vietnamese girl ahead of me: bad move. The perfidious little bitch let in two of her friends in front of her, to my anguished impatience. Once through, I changed my money, easily retrieved my bags, and found a friendly little cabby who whisked me off to the Newton Hotel in North Point. It is in a gray, plain, vaguely disquieting neighborhood, looking not remotely like a Western city. But the hotel is clean and up-to-date, gleaming with polished wood and brass and mirrors, and seems quite new. My room is tiny, but beautifully appointed, compact in design and squeaky clean.
It is not in my character to get to a place and go immediately to bed, especially on a trip involving sitting for an entire day. Such is the secret, I firmly believe, to my uncanny resistance to jet lag. So I strode off into the night, with, it must be allowed, some trepidation. Tiny shops and large buildings, all draped in the gray half-light, and several spaces under construction were all I could find, but an occasional well-lit street with open eateries beguiled me onward. Finally, I found a major street, which curled around what turned out to be Victoria Park, and led me to the gaudy lights of the Causeway Bay area. I had my first taste of the super-streets to be found close to the waterfront, and the near-impossibility of crossing them. I had set myself the task of finding someplace where I could buy a journal, never really expecting to accomplish this in the middle of the night. Still, Causeway Bay was crawling with young people and open, brightly lit shops and restaurants. It was typical of a similar neighborhood in the west, say, Greenwich Village, except 99% of the faces were Asian. It was uncanny to walk for a block or two without seeing a western face.
I knew I might very well pay a pretty grim price if I didn’t get to bed soon, but I was hungry. So on the way back to the hotel I stopped at the street with the little restaurants. Only one remained open, and I despaired of making myself understood, so I went into a Seven-Eleven. It was nothing at all like its western equivalent, except for the glaring phosphorescent light, and those in the west don’t have plump little gnomes frying up goodies at sidewalk stands in front of them. I stopped at this woman’s stand. Ah, fried wontons, something I was familiar with! I got an order of four. That really should have been enough, but I also chose what I assumed were stakes of chicken which she dropped oh, so briefly in the oil and proffered to me. I just couldn’t work them down, even after I requested that she re-fry them (to her mild bewilderment). They were still of an odd quality, half rubbery, half crunchy, and tasting strongly of the fat they’d been fried in, and were probably not chicken at all. But I could never be sure, and my rockbound prejudice against eating raw meat (sushi excepted) insured that I could never choke them down. I stashed them in the trash on the way back, gobbled down the wontons, and hurried hotel-ward.
A quick, vital, shower, two pages of journal, and I’d had enough. I’ve now been up for 32 hours. And so to bed.

Christmas Eve morning
I got up at 9:00 —a fine 7-hour sleep— as per usual at home or abroad. Breakfast was in the hotel coffee shop. It’s a gorgeous day outside, roughly the same 72° it was last night, a sapphire sky overhead. Outside my breakfast window: a cluster of pencil-thin apartment buildings rise over a complex of older, connected buildings. They are perfectly, stolidly Chinese: stucco, red brick, charcoal gray tile roof in a plain but authentic style. From the side of my hotel a grimy Union Jack flutters listlessly. I wonder: does it know its time is running out?

1:30 p.m.
After breakfast I took a walk back into Causeway Bay. It was warm and welcoming and nothing at all like its vaguely menacing nighttime self. First I wandered down to the harbor, ringed with magnificent towers and thick with the floating homes of the “boat people.” I stepped onto a littered outcropping to take pictures. Done, I turned around only to find myself staring directly into the gaping mouth of a man asleep among a cluster of boxes, a tidy bedroom inside. Somewhat abashed at finding myself uninvited in someone’s home, I turned around and quietly crept away.
I crossed the highway to Victoria Park, a broad green space, a mommy and child-glutted joy, filled with playing areas, sporting fields, etc. I remembered a closed stationery store from the night before, bought a notebook and went directly back to the hotel to check out. I almost hated to leave such a neat, pretty hotel, but the Royal Pacific may be better.
Around the corner from the Newton was the Fortress Hill subway station. It’s a very efficient and uncomplicated system, with the same ticket-insertion tokens as the Washington Metro. My token card was for $9.50 (HK) which got me, with only one change of trains, to the Tsim Shat Tsui station in Kowloon, at the edge of Kowloon Park. Being only vaguely aware of where my hotel was, I strolled into the park, grateful that I’d packed so lightly. Kowloon Park is paradise, a glorious jungle with pathways, a cross between Central Park and a rain forest. I look forward to getting to know it better. Over a bridge crossing a large pond inhabited largely by a huge flock of flamingoes, I found a walkway out of the park, in the general direction of Canton Road. On the right was a stunning bank of buildings dressed in gold-tinted glass, the traces of unlit Christmas ornaments trailing across them. I had no idea that the building on the near end was the Royal Pacific till I saw the hotel’s name in gold on a window. I walked in, checked in and left my bags with the concierge, since our room wasn’t ready, and descended to the shopping arcade below. What a terrific collection of shops! On one floor of the arcade is the pier from which one catches the boat to Macau. I bought a guidebook to replace the one lying unread on the table at home, and more important to my comfort, a short-sleeved red polo shirt. The weather here —so far— is less winter in the American south (as the guidebooks say) but more a Boston summer. I reflect that the best advice about Hong Kong anyone could have given me is: don’t pack shirts; a wonderful variety can be found anywhere here, and at bargain prices. This one (I changed into it immediately) was $90 (HK): about $13 (US).

2:20 pm
“Hey buddy...wanna buy a Honduran milk snake? No? Well, how about a toad-head agama? A guinea pig? —A puppy?” I just walked back the pier behind the hotel. They are having some sort of a pet fair. All sorts of animals for sale, mostly rabbits and other warm cuddlies, but quite a few scaly exotics, too. I wasn’t tempted to buy anything live, but found the bookstalls beguiling. Best of all were the cookbooks, in English and Chinese. A glance through convinced me that collecting the ingredients in Boston might be difficult, though Chinatown might provide such delicacies as fish lips, chicken feet, and cliff swallow saliva. I passed these cookbooks up without too much regret and returned to the lobby to wait for Darling Dana.
She did not come, and for so long, that I ventured a return into Kowloon Park to admire the exotic birds in the aviary. Well, abandon your post for twenty minutes...! Dana had arrived and our joy was unbounded. We exchanged our Christmas gifts, mine a neat little book of Hong Kong tales I’ve seen for some time and always intended to read.
We decided we wanted Indian food, for which Dana would scale mountains and conquer distant lands, and which I am only slightly less enthusiastic about. We settled on The Johnson Mess (very pukkah, to judge by the name), an eatery in Wanchai. We got to the Star Ferry and took the boat across —a sight of breathtaking beauty. My God, what a harbor! It was a gray-blue dusk, slightly hazy. The elaborate Christmas lights covering the faces of the skyscrapers imparted a surreal glow to the landscape. This ferry is an arch-bargain: a gorgeous ride for $1.70 HK, about 26 cents in America. And if that’s too steep for you, the lower deck provides the same view for 23 cents!
We landed at the Wanchai Ferry pier and wandered up the not-too-tangled streets of Wanchai itself, and we were there. Johnson’s Mess, not to go into too much detail, turned out to be unsuitable. VERY unprepossessing decor and a weird perfume masking the scent of food —and what else? we couldn’t help thinking. Another restaurant was clearly called for. We walked up Johnson Road to Central, and stumbled across a little beauty, Bacchus, specializing in Mediterranean cuisine. Strange to find ourselves in such a decidedly European milieu, but what the hell, it was here, and we were hungry. It turned out to be very British, and unfortunately, the food reflected it. We started out with fried calamari. Tender, perfectly done. But the main courses were much less satisfactory — and both Greek, with which Dana professed to be unfamiliar. She ordered spanikopita. She enjoyed it, but the sample bite I had of it was —if pleasant— NOT spanikopita. If the pastry surrounding it was phyllo, I’m an ostrich. My moussaka was not exactly on target, either —served in a deep porringer, watery, unconvincing and crowned with all manner of radicchio-type excrescences, apparently put there to throw a knowledgeable diner off the scent. My wine, sauvignon blanc, was first rate, and the decor made up for a lot.
Dana’s knee was giving her fits, so after a stroll through Central grooving on the Christmas lights, we took the ferry back. On the Kowloon side, the crowd was so thick it took us twenty minutes to get off the bloody quay! It was like one of those movies where the seething masses are herded off to some totalitarian horror or other. We got to bed early since a tour awaited us in the morning.

Monday, Christmas Day

I slept fitfully due to wretched, fiery indigestion. However, although we were awakened at 6:30 by request, I felt quite refreshed nonetheless. We went down to the Cafe on the Park for breakfast, a terrific buffet provided as part of the hotel package Dana arranged. We gorged liberally on bangers, fried rice and more traditional fare —and wonderful coffee. From there we walked up the Canton Road to the Omni Hong Kong, where we met Ray and Pat, a couple Dana had met on the plane from Korea. We were going on a tour of much of the island, again part of Dana’s package. We gadded about for a while, picking up other passengers from other hotels, till our bus was full. Our young Chinese guide hit a nice balance between informative and gabby. We circled around the roads spiraling through the thick of Hong Kong proper, passing by the Happy Valley racetrack, an enormous and most attractive arena ringed by absurdly tall and narrow apartment buildings and, incongruously, Chinese graveyards, the tombstones tilted at odd angles. The apparent randomness is designed to take advantage of the feng shui (propitious omens) pronounced by geomancers hired by the mourning families. We ended up, sooner than I expected, in the harbor town of Aberdeen. The bus stopped, we piled out and were directed onto two or three sampans, in which we toured the harbor, circling the large floating restaurants and back in again. In the inner harbor we swanned through the real sight to see in Aberdeen, the maze of sampans, fishing boats all, on which entire families live, often living out their lives on these self-same little scows without ever touching land. The sampans ranged from the tidy to the barely seaworthy. Some fishermen and their families were cleaning fish for market, others were drying them on bamboo racks. One young man squatted with a basin high on a prow, placidly brushing his teeth and spitting into the creamy turquoise water. The water here, as in Victoria Harbor, is clean and free of the smell of fish. It was breezy but not at all cold, and I almost regretted hitting dry land again.
That didn’t last long. We ascended a winding road and down again, ending up in Repulse Bay. Here is a glorious beach, more pebble than sand, a hallucinogenic temple to Tin Hau, the sea goddess, the great lady herself surrounded by lesser Buddhas, urns and foo dogs littering the promenade. A jetty covered with fabulous beasts and other figures of Chinese mythology looked like a lost outpost of Disney World.
We were let loose to wander for a half hour. The bay is another natural harbor, with tall building all around: condos, hotels, large private homes, etc. There wasn’t really much to do, just stroll the beach and stretch, so it was pleasant finally to move on. We kept going upward, winding up tortuous roads to Victoria Peak.. The drop down from our bus was sheer, heart-catchingly beautiful, and hung with mist. Along the road could be spotted the homes of the super-rich, with stables of Rolls-Royces clearly displayed for the envy of the passing populace.
All the way to the top, I kept spying little temples and ornamental gates and altars, all topped with beautiful green ceramic tiles, topped with bizarre figures, people, animals, and pop-eyed demons. I determined to buy something along those lines: the ultimate souvenir.
At the peak itself, we parked in a dark garage and piled out into the sunlight. Out on the lookout ledge we gazed down the peak at the unearthly towers of Hong Kong, like stalagmites lifting out of the mist below. It was too misty to get the full benefit of the sight, but it was unforgettable anyway.
When we got back down into the city, we drove back through the tunnel to Kowloon, down Nathan Road, a broad thoroughfare lined with massive trees in full leaf, thronged with people, buses sailing along. We stopped at a jewelry store featuring fine art on its top floor. I sensed this was the first of a series of shops tied in somehow to the interests of the bus company. I had absolutely no interest in jewelry, so I thanked the tour guide and departed on foot. Dana did the same, taking a taxi to the hotel.
I set off into the thicket of streets in that part of Kowloon to do some serious shopping. I bought a much-needed wallet for about $16 (US), then headed up the Nathan Road, ending at a large Chinese department store. And I do mean Chinese, that big totalitarian state immediately to the north. I spent at least an hour on the second floor, dedicated to arts, crafts, and antiques.There’s an exciting variety of wares: from cheap crockery to vast urns worth thousands of dollars; antiques, reproductions, more than I could possibly review in so short a time. I was essentially searching for gifts, never really hoping to find my ornamental roof tile. I found nothing that I wanted to take away that day. As I was starting to flag, I turned back toward the hotel. Turning to the area south of Kowloon park I found several small gifts on the little booths that line the streets off the Haiphong Road. Back to the hotel, Dana was practically foaming at the mouth with hunger and I was feeling a bit attenuated myself.
We walked down to the Star Ferry via Ocean Terminal, to scout out The Silk Road, a floor devoted to upscale antiques dealers. Only one was open; we vowed to return tomorrow. The ride across the harbor was again thrilling, with the gaudy Christmas lights turning the Hong Kong skyline into a rectilinear Fourth of July.
Dana wanted to pamper her knee, so we took a taxi to Tandoor, off Wyndham Street. The ride through this mini-freeway was like a short roller-coaster, even though it took a mere few minutes. The driver let us out on a tilted street, near a stone staircase, leading up to the restaurant. We have both been close to growling like wolves in hunger and the anticipation of Indian food. We were more than amply rewarded.
The Tandoor is an elegantly gleaming room, crystal and silver glinting from every surface, hardly like a typical Indian restaurant. The service alone could have made the meal memorable, but OH what pleasures awaited us. We started with Tsingtao Beer, served in silver tumblers, and in smaller porcelain tumblers came a splendiferous appetizer-soup called rasam. Rasam is quite salty (lovely with the beer!) and tastes strongly of lentils. Dana was so vocal in her appreciation that we were immediately served more. We set into an appetizer, a program of small, thoroughly delightful small vegetable fritters, then came our main courses. Dana had a smoky chicken dish in a rich red sauce, called Murgh Makhani —thrillingly good. My dish had a slight edge on hers, we both agreed, a heavenly concoction called Murgh Shahi Korma, chicken in a gravy of nuts, raisin, and egg. It was perhaps the best Indian dish I have ever eaten. The waiter very considerately served each of us a small sample of the other’s dish, then piled our selection on our own plates. These courses were served in beautiful, small, silver tureens. Everything was accompanied by two kinds of nan (flat Indian bread, sort of a glandular-case pita).
Everything was perfect: impeccable service by a large and attentive staff (my favorite being a handsome, smoky-eyed young man with black eyelashes thick as an equatorial jungle, but they were all perfect); live music by a man and woman singing, accompanied by traditional Indian instruments and an anachronistic electronic keyboard; beautiful presentation. The cherry on top came when we left: Dana was presented with a spray of orchids. We sang the restaurant’s praises all the way down the hill, then took a side trip up D’Aguilar Street, glutted with little restaurants and bars. I was reminded, for some reason, of Rome, and felt a stab of longing for it. The street was lit up like a festival, more Christmas lights, a fretwork of tiny gold lights strung like fiery fishnet at the way up the street. Wearily we made our way back to the pier and back to the hotel. Dana called Hannah and had a nice long visit, and I wrote this. A perfect day —and not remotely like a real Christmas.

Tuesday, December 26, Boxing Day

We got up quite late and breakfasted a bit before ten. Our morning walk took us to a shop specializing in cashmere, which I’d found the day before and wanted to show Dana. She didn’t buy anything there, but made a great haul at the shop next door.
It was a small tea shop, featuring hundreds of exquisite little teapots, various teas and paraphernalia. The lady of the shop was making jasmine tea, and the scent filled the room. She invited us to sit down and served us tea, unbelievably fresh and fragrant. Her ritual was nothing like mine, that is to say British, and the pots held no more than a whole hearty American mug. After that, she made rose tea, putting into the pot somewhere around sixteen dried rosebuds. This too was delicate, fresh, and utterly unlike the rose congou black tea I prepare at home. Dana bought a small gray-green teapot aswarm with tiny dragons, a small bamboo container of tea paraphernalia, and a box of the jasmine tea. As we were leaving, the lady added a bag of the rose tea, gratis.
Back on the Canton Road, we meandered through the shops of The Silk Road, exquisite Asian art at even more exquisite prices but very much worth a visit. Across on the ferry, we hailed a taxi to take us to the Hollywood Road. My only thought was to buy an ornamental roof tile, though I suppose I was really open to anything which caught my fancy. There were dozens of shops along the main street, hundreds of temptations. The first shop, Arch Angel Antiques, was maybe the best. Dana succumbed first: a brown jade pendant. Presently her bad knee sent her back to the ferry in another taxi. We parted in front of the Man Mo Temple, itself abristle with ornamental roof tiles in all manner of shape, an Asian menagerie. I pressed on, and quickly found Cat Road (aka Upper Lascar Row), which we’d been searching for. I prowled the shops top to bottom, finding only a few roof tiles, none I particularly liked. I had just about given up hope when I turned into the Willow Galleries, Ltd. They had several fine tiles, but only one that stole my heart. It is a seated green Chinese lion, eyes aflame, tongue curled hungrily out, a quite ferocious beast. It was $3000 (HK), but I managed to cajole the manager, a Miss Belinda Chow, into bringing it down to $2500. She said it is late Ming dynasty, from Xiang district in North China. She bundled it into a thick shroud of bubble-wrap and tissue paper, and I schlepped it back to the ferry.
Dana was waiting for me when I returned and I proudly showed her my prize. She was properly impressed and told me I should, for insurance purposes, get a certificate of authenticity later. We schmoozed a bit, then got a taxi to Star Ferry, crossed, and took another to Aberdeen, to the pier of the Jumbo Restaurant. Our driver was really bad, had no clear idea where the pier was and even had to pick someone up to help him get us there. This was all the more remarkable considering the fame of the restaurant, supposedly the largest in the world.
[Cabbies in this town seem to be almost willfully ignorant of where even the main streets are. I’ve noticed it all along this trip. Travel advisory: always take a map to show them.]
We met two friends of Dana’s from Korea, Karen and another whose name I didn’t get, the 7-year-old daughter of the latter, and two gay male friends of Karen. We took the barge to the restaurant, across the brightly lit bay, alighted and were shown to the third floor. Jumbo is utterly over-the-top, with red and gold ornament crawling over every surface, lights everywhere, and ferocious dragons posing provocatively at every corner. We had reservations and were shown quickly to our places. I never did quite connect with anyone at the table. The deafening noise of the restaurant (our floor being as big as a football field and every bit as chaotic) pretty well accomplished that on its own. Nice as they were, the two men (not a couple, I was assured with a wink) were totally non simpatico with me. All the women and one of the men were puffing lustily on cigarettes much of the time. I did rather take to the little girl and drew a couple of cartoons for her. (Dana told me later that she was coked to the gills on Ritalin.)
What really put the ultimate damper on the evening was the restaurant itself. The service was thoroughly inadequate; dishes were invariably put in front of the wrong people and arrived at different times. The quality of the food was indifferent. My dish, shrimp with cashews, was tasty if a bit disconcerting: a handful of shrimp resting on a golden brown nest of cashews. Delightful nut, of course, but it was as if the nuts themselves were the main course, and the shrimp merely a garnish. When the bill arrived it was quite incomprehensible. Not one of the great dining adventures.
We left the ladies in Aberdeen, and with the two men took a taxi (with no mix-ups this time) back to the Ferry. The ride across was chilly, the only time on this trip that I felt insufficiently warm. The unmistakable post-nasal Niagara presaging a cold began, bad news.

Wednesday, December 27

Woke up early and went down to breakfast alone, reading the South China Morning Post (a superb English language paper) and my Hong Kong book from Dana. She arrived presently and after breakfast we again agreed to split up: she has her shopping and I have mine. (As it turned out, I didn’t buy anything; she bought a fake Rolex and a beautiful burl brush container for her friend Tangee.) I set off slowly (it was early yet) for the Western District on the island. Des Voeux Street in this area is a warren of small merchants’ shops, most of them specializing in dried foods, particularly seafood of all kinds, and mushrooms. There were many herbalists as well, with such exotics on display as deer antlers and antelope horns, bird’s nests, and even dried snakes. Most of the city’s soups must originate here, for I saw more shark fins on display than any other item. When I got as far as Western Street, I turned and went up it several blocks, a good 40° angle street, and a damned hard climb. At the top, Bonham Road, there was a ruddy little church, the Chinese Rhenish Church (Lutheran?). I explored the Bonham Road for a while, looking for the section of the street featuring live snake shops, only to realize later that the street I meant to explore was the Bonham Strand. West on Bonham Rd. I encountered Hong Kong University, a beautiful collection of brick buildings set at graceful intev als in the jungle covering the hill. At this point I headed back towards Central, with only one real goal, the Western Market. It’s a lovely old brick Victorian space with pretty little shops scattered on the first floor, a huge fabric shop on the second, and a full-service Chinese restaurant on top.
From there I toiled up Morison to the Hollywood Road. I stopped at Willow Gallery and got my certificate of authenticity from Belinda Chow. We had a nice chat, and I saw something I fell in love with, a knotty burl brush holder, early Nineteenth Century. It occurred to me that Belinda, with her seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of Asian art, might be able to help me identify my flying fish wood carving I bought in Boston last April. I’ve no idea even what country it comes from. Belinda suggested I fax her the drawing I made of it; I think I’ll mail the drawing instead, along with a photo.
It was getting time to meet Dana for lunch, so I scooted down the hill and set out for Wanchai, to Harbour Road. It was a very tortuous route, and seemed more so as I was in such a hurry. I thought that going through the system of shopping malls that thread through the skyscrapers of Hong Kong might make my route over the superhighways more effective (not to mention safe), but I can’t tell if time was spared. When this system of many-staired elevated walkways, malls and dead ends finally spat me out into the Harbour Road, I found that the address was at the other end of the street, so I hurried along and arrived only about five minutes late. We were to eat at the Viceroy —more Indian food.
It was a splendid buffet with probably twenty dishes to choose from, all the standards, some new delights, and even a wide selection of Indian desserts, which I generally avoid. My palate, when it comes to sweets, is hopelessly Eurocentric. The waiter pronounced it too cool to sit out on the terrace (it wasn’t), a pity as it’s a great view of the harbor. We could have insisted, but stayed inside anyway. I cannot express how wild Dana is about Indian food; she could eat it every day, whereas I could be satisfied to eat it once every few days.
Afterward we parted again, Dana to take the ferry back to Kowloon, I to return to Central. Another, less Byzantine route back to Central was easier on me than the mad tear for the restaurant. In a park I encountered a strange little man, sitting on a bench alone, babbling and giggling to himself. This man might easily have stepped off an old Chinese scroll. He was a worn, not-too-old gnome, with top-knot impaled with a twig, with a scraggly beard and mustache. He was grimy, certainly homeless, and very likely mad. There are not many homeless here (or they hide themselves well), and fewer beggars, really, than in Harvard Square or Back Bay. Refreshing. It also occurs to me that I haven’t seen a single pigeon, that bane of the cities, in all of Hong Kong. I don’t know how they accomplish this. Perhaps the boat people eat them.
I ended up at the Pedder Building, in the heart of Central, but went no higher than the basement. It’s a department store, Shanghai Tang, meant to evoke a Shanghai emporium of the Thirties. It does, as far as I can tell. Beautiful clothes, many of them traditional Chinese, unusual items like the feng shui calendar for 1996, which gives with every date good and bad omens. Like a certain date may be GOOD for sending a bill; and BAD for meeting friends for dinner. I found the Fu Manchu ashtray more resistible.
I took the ferry back, and stopped at Swindon’s, a large English bookstore on Lock Street in Kowloon. It was finally open, but I made no purchases. It is a medium sized, and quite well-stocked bookstore, very British, very inviting.
Back at the hotel I found Darling Dana in distress. She’d gotten food poisoning or something equally baneful, with vomiting and diarrhea. So she couldn’t quite see her way clear to joining me for dinner. I wanted to try Shanghainese food, so ended up —where else— at the Shanghai Restaurant. The food is not that different from Cantonese, and what I had was filling, if not particularly noteworthy. I ordered a dish of chicken with thick, yummy beefsteak mushrooms. It was quite tasty but small, so I ordered the fried noodles Shanghai style, thick noodles served in a broth, and afterward, sweet almond bean curd and pineapple. The bean curd was delicate and fine, and virtually tasteless, but perfect with the fruit and its juice.
Then I hit the streets again, wandering around Kowloon’s nighttown, looking for a rosewood stand for my roof tile, and being ceaselessly offered girls and cheap suits, none of which I wanted.
Home late, I found Dana still up and feeling much better.

Thursday, December 28

At breakfast I wrote up my journal and from there I once again parted from Dana to do some shopping and perform one small errand: three pockets from 2 pairs of trousers have gone out with holes (after much mending) and lately, the heavy Hong Kong coins have provided excess strain. I left them with the Johnson Company on Lock Street and can pick them up tomorrow.
Heading up Nathan Road, partly through Kowloon Park, I got back to Yue Hwa, the Chinese department store I’d been to on Monday. This time I knew exactly what I wanted, and sure enough they had it: a perfect, and perfectly simple, teak stand for my roof tile to perch atop. In addition I found a wonderful brush rest in their calligraphy case, for use on my own studio worktable. And I was presented with a bonus purchase: one takes one’s receipts to the top floor of the store, then reaches into a closed compartment for a tile telling what percentage of your purchase you get in merchandise. Mine was 20%, or $56 (HK), so I bought a CD of traditional Chinese music, having only to add four U.S. dollars to buy it.
Back at the hotel to drop off my purchases, I picked up Dana and we headed into the heart of Kowloon to cash some travelers’ checks. Dana had found a place with a great exchange rate, and she wanted to cash the checks I’d signed over to her to pay for the hotel. So we found a modest, somewhat shabby arcade, picking up in the process a charming little Indian monkey of a man named Anwar. He was, of course, a shill for great tailoring in some nearby part of Kowloon. We found the place and I was just about to sign the checks when it was pointed out to me that I’d need proof of purchase. Guess what? Anwar knew another place, right upstairs, with a comparable rate! We made our way through this grimy, thoroughly charming bazaar to the top floor. The exchange agency was run by a family of Sikhs. I had signed several of Dana’s checks, and then the clerk demanded the proof of purchase stubs. I was outraged. So Dana had to catch a taxi back to the hotel, root through my luggage to find them, and come back, while I paced angrily. Anwar cowered like a scolded dog, and eventually disappeared. I wandered the arcade, buying nothing but an ice cream cone of the Nutty Buddy type, and tried to assuage my chagrin by glorying in the very exotic atmosphere. This arcade is nothing like the elegant shopping meccas of Canton Road, but more like a thin slice of Calcutta inserted into the hot heart of Kowloon. Presently Dana returned, Anwar miraculously reappeared, and we left. Our only thought was to get to Hong Kong proper, so we made our way to the ferry with Anwar jabbering madly about returning to the “best tailor in all of Hong Kong,” and at one magical point he referred Dana to the “best Indian restaurant.” We stopped and paid attention. Then it occurred to us that Anwar didn’t want us to stop and follow him, but that language and a vague mistrust had made it seem so. Dana promised to visit the tailor [and later got a beautifully tailored cashmere overcoat], and we set off for the pier.
We took the ferry across to the island together. The sight of the city from the water hasn’t palled yet. True to form, our cabby had to be shown on the map where we wanted to be taken: a certain point in the Hollywood Road. the first shop we hit was again the best, a floorful of beauties, much of it Japanese, and a spiral stair to the basement with more of the same.
It occurred to me that I might be antiqued out (what? hardly!) for I didn’t do too much of it after that. We found Honeychurch Antiques, run by two charming older American ladies. Three-quarters of their stock must have been Japanese, which delighted Dana. Lots of tansu. There was another floor, reached by the steepest narrow-stepped stair I’ve seen since my Navy days. Then an affable young Chinese man took us to the annex, 2 doors down the street. Two more floors of wonders, including some fine masks, which looked so expensive I didn’t even bother to ask the prices.
Soon after we split up again, Dana to indulge in Italian food, I to wander a bit more. I headed up to Stanley Street to the Luk Yu Teahouse, a true Hong Kong landmark. It was around four in the afternoon, and I was hungry. Luckily the place was fairly deserted. It is plain, heavy, very, very Chinese, dark mahogany everywhere, a brass spittoon at every booth. Except for the last detail, it’s similar to my neighborhood pub, Doyle’s. The menu, at the page I first turned to, was dim sum — so naturally I succumbed, my first in Hong Kong. It was wonderfully familiar, just what I regularly eat with my Dim Sumthing group.
I wandered back through the streets of Wanchai, Suzie Wong’s old haunt, simply to soak up the charming foreignness of it all. Wanchai is my favorite part of the city.
Back at the hotel, Dana didn’t want to go out to dinner —again— having just polished off a pizza. So I went off alone to the Banana Leaf Curry House on Nathan Road, specializing in Malay food. One of my ambitions while here is to sample as much of the spectrum of Asian cooking as possible.
The Banana Leaf Curry House is a noisy, much-populated spot, garishly lit and noisy as a Burger King, but with a much finer aroma pervading the place. I had a Tiger Beer (Singapore) and two Malaysian dishes. The first was a classic, satay, stakes of cooked chicken meat dipped in a wonderfully spicy peanut sauce. The second was Chai Tau Kwae, chunks of (I think) taro, mixed with bean sprouts, tiny prawns and some unidentifiable weed-like affair. A very satisfying meal. It took forever to get my check, but what the hell, I had my book along and needed to sit and relax.
Back at the hotel I collected Dana and we took off to the 9th floor of the hotel to the Swiss Chalet Restaurant for coffee and dessert. Dana had chocolate mousse, served in a little hut (!) made of flat sheets of chocolate, amid a landscape of fresh fruits -- exquisite presentation. I had blackberries, raspberries and cherries soaked in rum, topped with honey-pear ice cream. The berries were so thoroughly saturated by the alcohol I hoped the candle at the table wouldn’t send me up in a pillar of flame. The ice cream barely mitigated the intensity of the alcohol. It was all celestial, and the restaurant itself a charmer, but every garden has its toad. Presently we were joined by the ‘entertainment,’ an accordionist, who shimmered about the room murdering pop classics with impunity. “I Love Paris” done in an oom-pah-pah style is as grating as anything on earth. The Cole Porter estate could sue. Once again I was reminded of the wisecrack that the accordion is an instrument on which every song sounds like “Lady of Spain.”
During the night, my cold came to a crisis, with much hawking and honking, but upon awakening I felt great.

Friday, December 29

In the morning, Dana and I packed up all the stuff we’re mailing home via the China Fleet Club. It was heavy enough to warrant taking a taxi to the pier. The crossing was lovely (more than usual?) since the fog which has usually obscured the faraway buildings seemed much diminished. We took the ferry to Wanchai, and very unwisely tried to walk all the way to the CFC. It’s impossible to walk along those roads at the best of times (much of Hong Kong near the harbor seems designed expressly to frustrate pedestrians) and it was worse now, with much construction going on. We finally arrived. It’s a very large PX, really, and the only part that held my interest was the pack-and-wrap and the post office. I can’t express how relieved I am not to have to schlep all that loot back to America myself. Dana was inclined to want to shop there —I was not. So we promised to meet at Exchange Square in about an hour. I went on back to Shanghai Tang to buy a beautiful gray cashmere sweater I had my eye on, but bought another instead, in navy blue.
When I got there, Dana was nowhereto be seen. I waited for half an hour, grinding my teeth. Finally I got on the bus to Stanley Market and took that stunner of a ride, over the dramatic hills of the island, on the upper level of the bus. Much of the route I’d seen on the tour, but in the afternoon it had a different look.
Stanley Market is a labyrinth of small streets lined with shops. Many sell cheap trinkets, others have clothes. Nothing of great value was to be found, but I got a few gifts, and self-indulgently, some silk boxer shorts. Shopping more or less done, I walked down to the beach. This is, I think, the furthest south I’ve ever been. Finally it was time to go back home, so I caught a bus back to the city. Somewhat past Repulse Bay I got off the bus to photograph some of the scenes we’d whizzed past on Monday: the dazzling drop to the bay, the sleek golf course at the bottom near an inlet, the peaks rising like dragons from the mist of the sea.
Back in town I got to the Star Pier I ran into a VAST crowd —too hard for me to deal with. So I sprinted over to the Central Subway stop —only to find out why so many were massed at the ferry: the main line of the subway had broken down, so I couldn’t take the train to Tsim Sha Tsui. So, back to the Star Pier. The crowd had doubled. It should be easier, I thought, to get onto the lower deck, so I thrust myself into that throng, a bad mistake. It took a full 45 minutes just to get up to the turnstiles, squeezed by a crowd of what seemed several thousand. Not only were we nuts-to-butts the entire time, but threads of people would, incredibly, pass through from one side to the other, like the warp going through the woof of a human tapestry. I’ve never found myself in so dense a crowd; we seemed to be one huge, thick, gargantuan person. Not a situation to gladden the heart of a claustrophobe. To their credit, this crowd of overwhelmingly Chinese people were very well-behaved, really quite philosophical about being stuck in a human jam. There was pushing, of course, but nothing ugly or impatient, not, that is, till we got up to the two tiny turnstiles, through which we were ground like sausage. Once past that blasted bottleneck, I got right onto the boat, and we were under weigh in two minutes. Surprisingly, the boat wasn’t even crowded. I got into conversation with a handsome young Indian man I’d nodded to with sympathetic chagrin in the crowd. He advised me not to buy electronic equipment in Kowloon because it was the one area of trade in which much chicanery is common. I hadn’t any thought to buy anything of that nature but thanked him anyway.
I picked up Dana at the hotel and we went out to get some Indonesian food at a restaurant recommended by the HKTourist Association dining guide. There wasn’t a table available, so we pressed on. It occurred to us that Anwar, Dana’s tailor’s shill, had recommended a fabulous place —Indian food, of course. So we thence repaired to the Khyber Restaurant. Good choice, even though we were stuck in an air-conditioned corner that turned me blue with cold. The bill of fare for the both of us came down to: Tsingtao beer; chicken fritters, paratha bread stuffed with spicy potato, a murgh do piaza, which translates as bits of chicken done in a sauce of crushed cashews and onions. Heavenly, and yet the Tandoor rises ever before us as a yardstick and nothing can compare to it. We had a coffee and biscotto on the street and returned to the hotel.

Saturday, December 30

I got up fairly early, went down to breakfast and finished up the Hong Kong book from Dana. A good collection of stuff. It was a typically filling breakfast, waffles for energy, stewed leechees for pleasure. Dana joined me for a while, then I popped off to pick up my pants at Johnson’s, and drop off my film for processing. Back at the hotel I finished up my packing (just a quick throwtogether for so short a trip) and went downstairs to check into my room for the remaining night, in the twin hotel building. Then I collected Dana and set out to do our errands. I picked up my film, and gained a new respect for my camera. Shots I would have sworn that I’d lose completely came out splendidly, like the ornamental gate at Aberdeen I shot as the bus streaked by. Dana and I walked along looking at the photos, ending up at Mr. Lao’s, the jeweler, where Dana had bought a lapis lazuli pendant. The gold clasp had broken. He sent it out with his assistant to be soldered, while Mr. Lao himself attempted, vainly, to sell us more jewelry. Dana, I should say here, is very good in this sort of encounter, friendly and familiar with the person in question, definitely establishing a relationship, but not taking any nonsense. He was a dear little man, and absolutely determined to go down fighting with another sale. I kept Mr. Lao entertained with my photos for a few moments while Dana tripped across the street to The Khyber, where she’d left a bag of purchases last night. Leaving things behind seems to be another of the things Dana is good at.
On the way back to the Royal Pacific, we strolled through the shops of Harbour City, supposedly the world’s largest shopping arcade -- or at least Hong Kong’s. At the hotel I said goodbye to Dana in the elevator (she was due to be picked up in the lobby by a taxi in five minutes) and I picked up my bag and camera and my new room. It’s all cool grays and blues, smaller than the other but quite nice. Comparable to my room at the Newton.
After stopping at the Charlotte Horstman Gallery to salivate over her priceless Asian antiques, I took the last daylight trip across the harbor to Hong Kong on the Star Ferry. Still an incomparable view. From the ferry I walked up the hill toward the Peak Tram station. Up a gorgeous tree-lined path past St. John’s Anglican Church. At one point on this path, I encountered an impromptu beauty salon, several Chinese ladies getting full hair treatments right there in the leafy shade. Around the corner from the church was the line for the tram.
I got in line; it took about 20 minutes to get up to buy my ticket. Past the turnstiles, waiting for the next tram, I got acquainted with the four men in front of me. They are a musical group, the City Lights Jazz Orchestra, based in Kansas City, right at the Plaza; I intend to tell Doug and Jane to go see them. They have a short gig in Hong Kong, all expenses paid, at the Peninsula Hotel. They were all a pleasure to talk to, and I promised to try to go hear them. As their first set is at 9:30, and I have an early flight (and therefore early bedtime) I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.
I had a bit more time at the peak than I did Monday, so explored the shops briefly, and went up top to get a look at the view from all sides. It truly seems the top of the world.
The tram ride to the bottom was even more impressive than ascending. It’s not really a tram, but a funicular railway. The angle is something like 45°, and going down one gets an impression of falling, but slowly. The company’s safety record is perfect, so one care was removed.
At the bottom I looked in at St. John’s Church. I would have gone in, but a wedding was in progress, so I strolled (if strolling can be done on a severe incline) over to Hollywood Road again. With my heart firmly on the burl brush holder I’d spied earlier, I went to Willow Galleries. Belinda Chow was not there: her day off. The young man in charge was not, I felt, inclined to dicker, so I wondered if I might find something comparable in the other shops, the several blocks of shops I’d never even gotten to. I did find a few sterling examples of what I was looking for, but most were outlandishly priced. I ticked off the shops rather hurriedly, as they all closed at 6:00 and I had only an hour. On returning to Willow Galleries, I decided I really didn’t want the brush holder enough to pay $2800 (HK), beautiful though it was. So I started back to the Star Ferry. However, down the hill a few blocks I found a shop open, in the front of which a huge burl root, hollowed out at the top, was displayed, a rope around it to prevent theft. It was, incredibly, only $1500 (HK), so I got it. The tiny little lady wrestled it into a bag and I departed. Not three steps down the street I wondered what had happened to my mind! The thing was as heavy as an anvil, and would certainly be murder to schlep around airports. Ah, well. It was so unwieldy I took the subway back to Tsim Sha Tsui. On the escalator at the Sheung Wan station, a man and his wife admired my burl piece (I hesitate to call this behemoth a mere brush holder. It would make a superior footstool) and pronounced it an excellent buy at that price. He was very helpful at explaining my change of subway lines, even though I could easily have figured it out for myself.
Back at the hotel, I shucked my burden, retaining my book and camera, and put on my new sweater. I got on the Star Ferry again, and on the Hong Kong side, walked to the mall on Queensway. On the way I finished up my final roll of film.
The restaurant, Tiger’s, turned out to be a splendid choice. It doesn’t specialize so much as give one an overview of the cuisines of southeast Asia, sort of a whirlwind tour of the South China Sea. I ordered (what else?) a Tiger beer and went up to the buffet. What a cornucopia of exotica! I didn’t avail myself of every choice (finding it fairly easy to pass up pickled chicken’s feet and jellyfish-chicken salad) but chose the incredible following:
•From the salad selection: tiny whole baby octopi, pickled to a dark Chinese
red, pleasant if bland in flavor until paired with fiery pistachio-green
wasabi; pickled seaweed (wonderful!); strips of raw abalone; a chicken salad in a
delicate pink sauce, with strips of red and green pepper; tiny triangular curried
samosas.
•From the main courses: braised eel, looking like little strips of bicycle tire;
lamb curry; duck curry; fried crab legs with a section of chest (?) attached;
two breads, papadam and kurpuk; basmati rice steamed in lotus leaf; prawns
in sambal sauce; spicy mussels in lime sauce; and a new one —hai nan gi
fan, which tasted vaguely like chicken but could just as easily have been
reticulated python or someone’s luckless cocker spaniel.
I had a little of all of the above, plus another Tiger beer, and was subsequently pretty well stuffed, though not uncomfortable. The walk back to the ferry and the trip across were a regretful goodbye to beautiful Hong Kong, never so wonderful as at night.
On undressing for my shower, I discovered that the itchy ankles I’d felt on the ferry were part of a larger pattern! Apparently I’m allergic to something (or a combination thereof?) on that marvellous southeast Asia menu. I’d broken out in patterns of pink welts, like bursts of fireworks, on back, flanks and legs. I may have looked as if I’d been tattooed with huge pink spider mums, but it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable.
I showered and fell into bed exhausted.

Sunday, December 31

Well, this will be a very long day indeed.
I slept very lightly, waking up frequently through the night, and even though they missed giving me my wake-up call, I woke about five minutes past my desired time. My pink welts had disappeared.
I thankfully had the bright idea of juggling the contents of my suitcase around so I could accommodate the burl stump. Let the baggage handlers do the sweating... I checked out, and when I was finished, a taxi was waiting. It sped me through the almost-deserted streets of Kowloon and I was at the airport in fifteen minutes. Fare, around $7.00 (US). There were only three people ahead of me in line at the baggage check, getting through immigration was another five minutes (a 30-minute process is standard, a sign proclaims), so I had time to tuck into a Chinese breakfast: pan-fried noodles and —finally— congee. The latter had always intrigued me, and this was my last chance to try it. The congee had big black bits in it, tasting strangely eggy. I think I’ve just had my first thousand-year-old egg. Dana would have been so gratified: all through this trip she’s been waiting for me to eat one, since I expressed a desire to do so. (My secret opinion is that she has been hoping to see me gagging and spewing.) It really wasn’t awful —the egg part— but the congee is a nasty colorless color, most unappetizing. The noodles, thank heaven, were filling enough to make the meal.
I got on board swiftly. My seat by the exit door has lots of leg room but the window is a strain forward to look through. In the process of boarding, an enormous fat man (American, of course) waddled toward me. O God, I thought —Pleeeeeeeeaaze, not beside me! My luck held; a nice American couple are sitting beside me now.
........
It is now 2:30 pm in the Tokyo Narita airport. The flight was uneventful except for one fine highlight which is worth noting. About 30 minutes outside Tokyo, I was finally vouchsafed a glimpse of Mt. Fuji, a sight denied me thirteen and a half years ago on my trip to Japan. As I hurtled past this magical mountain on the bullet train to Kyoto, it was enshrouded in fog. A clear sight of its perfect cone is considered fairly rare from the ground, but it was clear today, and I could see it with no obstruction, along with the Japanese Alps.
Later...
The flight to Detroit seemed to be not half so long as the trip over. I managed to sleep fitfully for about three hours, really barely enough to count, but was fresh enough when awake to tuck into a hearty breakfast. In Detroit, we went through customs quickly. I had a two-hour wait in Detroit between planes anyway. There was duty to pay, a scanty $12.50. And just before my plane left I was able to exchange my remaining $100 of Hong Kong money.
The final leg of the trip was the best flight of all, less than 2 hours. At Logan however, occurred the only major balls-up of the whole trip, an exhausting wait for baggage that never got onto the carousel. An hour passed —and I was not the only one frustrated. Close to a hundred people paced about muttering. I reported to the counter, the young lady was helpful enough, I suppose. But just as I was about to go home and wait to have my luggage delivered, it finally arrived. Or rather I spied it, both bags sitting forlornly on a baggage cart with some others. With a gladsome cry I seized it, hailed a taxi, and sped home to Jamaica Plain. It was great to be home.


THE VERTICAL CITY

Hong Kong: Heung Gung: Fragrant Harbor. And it is fragrant, too, a spectacular chunk of real estate rising on both sides of one of the great natural harbors of the world. The first thing one notices crossing it is the color, a rich jasper-y blue, not clear of course, but utterly free of the odors one usually associates with seaports. There is no detectable odor of fish, or of diesel, only the scent of salt air. No seagulls, either, as Ian Fleming has observed, for the simple reason that the boat people are far more efficient scavengers. The only way to cross between Hong Kong island and Kowloon is the Star Ferry, as reliable as sunrise, only more frequent. I never timed the crossing, rather choosing to savor it instead, but it certainly can’t take more than ten minutes. Some people read or talk, but most, even the natives, simply look at the city. SuperficiallyHong Kong reminds one of New York, though more felicitously situated, and the resemblance is only from a distance. Once you’re on land, Hong Kong looks only like itself.
Skyscrapers thin as razors zoom into the sky all around you, but take a look up a side street, and the city changes into a gritty, busy warren of activity, and not as neat as the skyscrapers lead you to believe. And as if this weren’t enough, these tall buildings rise in groups out of an island that itself goes straight up. Looking at the city from a distance, say from the top of Victoria Peak, it’s astonishing to see so much greenery, a jungle almost, which gives the city a particular piquancy.
One can walk for blocks in Central and feel as if you’re in a modern metropolis, then suddenly you find you’ve wandered into an exotic oriental bazaar. In the Western District, for instance, the office buildings quickly give way to busy little markets where all manner of surprising foodstuffs are on display, and the current century has —suddenly— developed a slight kink in it. Does someone really eat dried snake in the age of Michael Jackson and the Internet? Well, apparently. And although the new technology has been embraced, obeisance is still paid to the old. In these shops, men sit at adding machines or calculators, but invariably you’ll see an abacus, too.
Other differences from western cities reveal themselves slowly. Halfway through my visit I was startled to notice that I hadn’t seen a single pigeon, that infestation of cities throughout all Europe and the Americas. Fewer homeless people were in evidence, too, at least as far as I could see. The beggars which one is constantly stumbling over in American cities are rarer here, and of an extravagantly different nature. Here, as opposed to the plump, cigarette-puffing panhandlers of, say, Boston, the beggars really seem in need. One horrific example I nearly fell over in Kowloon was sprawled on the sidewalk, like a turned-over turtle, mewing piteously. Numerous baskets were situated among his limbs into which the people dropped their coins as they poured around and past him.
Of course, Hong Kong is a shopper’s mecca, with bargains to be found everywhere. But the city is a magnet to the moneyed as well, and shopping can be ruinously expensive if you really indulge yourself. This rather nervous nipple on the great breast of China wonders, at this point, what the economy will be like when the city finds itself, a mere year and a half from now, just another part of a great socialist state. Everyone is puzzled and nervous, and I only met one man who was unconcernedly convinced that Hong Kong would remain the same. I don’t imagine the trillionaires living in Repulse Bay, with their fleets of Rolls-Royces, are quite so confident.
One of the pleasures of the city that even the non-rich can savor is the wealth of cuisines available. First and foremost, the various regions of China are well-represented, but so is the food of virtually any Asian country you can name. Only once or twice did I bother with European food, and never once ate mainstream American cooking. But even the most ravenous traveler has to miss something. I never did sample Burmese, or Indonesian, Korean, or even Vietnamese or Thai. Well, some of those can be found in Boston.
Hong Kong is still a British colony, but the British influence is now scarcely discernible. In fact, the western influence seems to be ebbing slowly. Maybe it never really was a strong presence. Everywhere I’ve ever traveled before, America seemed to be spreading its bright, colorful style. It almost seems to be taking over, from food to music to even packaging. But here, I felt that China was the measure of all things. Not even the many buildings designed by American architects can disguise that. So Hong Kong is gradually becoming what it always really was, another, and significant part of the great, ancient, universal culture of China.