East Meets West

I slept so well last night! Even with all the sunlight filling the room, I slept until nearly 9:00. Before I got out of bed I studied my books and maps one more time to make sure I knew exactly where I was going.

The schedule was:
I was going to start the day by taking the tram up Victoria Peak to take in a little bit of nature and get a view of the city. When I came back down, I was going to catch the famous Star Ferry across the harbor to the markets of Tsim Sha Tsui and then take the subway over to Man Mo Temple for a free tour before finding dinner for the night.

I can honestly say, most of that actually happened.

I grabbed breakfast at Starbucks again (which makes me feel a bit pathetic, but from the window shopping I’ve done, it appears to be one of the cheaper options…and I got my tall drink and a muffin for less than 5USD.) Taking the metro back to the city center, I immediately spotted the blue signs directing tourists to the Peak Tram Terminal. It was a bit of a hike up the streets, which still fascinate me by their steepness. In a way, it looks like San Francisco, but with more people and more neon.

I bought a roundtrip ticket for the tram and climbed into one of the maroon colored cars. As they started moving, they kept pitching further and further back. I could feel gravity holding me to the chair, not by pulling my butt to the seat, but by keeping my back to the rest. It also picked up pretty good speed. If we were going downhill it would definitely have had a roller coaster feel to it.

The ride wasn’t long (maybe 6 minutes) but there wasn’t much view for most of it. It was only at the very top when we broke through the trees and had a great view of Victoria Harbor. And you have to love Asia! What do they have at the top of their tallest peaks? Huangshan in China had hotels; now Victoria Peak in Hong Kong had two full size shopping malls.

I made my way passed all the shops and up to observation deck at the top. Because I took the tram, I got a complimentary audio guide for the view. It was almost too hot to have the headset on, but there were some interesting points.

Hongkong is made up of three main areas: Kowloon which is attached to the main land, Hong Kong Island, and Lantou Island (which is where the airport and Buddha are). Victoria Harbor that runs between the three areas is one of the deepest harbors in the world. The mountain range that separates Hong Kong from the main land is called “The Nine Dragon Peaks.” They were named by one of the emperors who though they looked like dragons. Interestingly, there are only eight peaks. The emperor himself was considered the ninth dragon, since dragons are symbolic of gods in Chinese culture, and emperors are considered to be gods.

The British were attracted to the area of Hong Kong because of a little strip of land off of Hong Kong Island, on the back of Victoria Peak. Called Ap Lei Chai (which in Cantonese means “Duck Tongue”) this little peninsula was a tropical paradise, and started the series of events that would lead to the British owning Hong Kong. After setting up ports in Hong Kong (as well as Shanghai) the British were expressing interested in trading tea for “dirty mud” (AKA: Opium.) When the Chinese government cracked down on drugs and prohibited opium, Britain invaded in China. Up until this point, China had considered the British to be fairly naïve, and ill fit. As the British continued defeating the Chinese armies, the Chinese realized that the outside world may not be as unintelligent as assumed. In fact, this is where the slang term “Laowei” for foreigners comes from. All previous terms implied that foreigners were idiots or barbarians. Laowei was created to describe them simply as people from outside China. In the final truce, Hong Kong was given to England, and it was ruled as part of the British empire until 1997, when, according to the truce, it was “returned” to China…except for the part where they consider themselves to be their own country.

Prior to construction of the tram, royals and wealthy people would get carried up Victoria by servants hoisting their chairs. Rickshaws were later used to roll them up the hills, especially as prime real-estate on the peak became increasingly desirable. The tram was built in 1888, and the engineer who designed it actually studied in the US before coming up with the idea for a venicular system.

On the back side of Hong Kong Island, facing the ocean, there are two notable sites. One is the site of the former Repulse Bay Hotel. This hotel was built as the nicest of nice destinations in Hong Kong. It became a main attraction for movie stars and royals from around the world. The famous “Repulse Bay Waltz” (which I did not know it was called that, but I recognized the instrumentation when I heard it) was composed for tourists to dance in the elegant ballroom. During World War II, the hotel was used as barracks to house British soldiers in the Pacific. It was all but destroyed, and later shut down, but the building materials were used to build the Galleria Restaurant that now sits on the Peak.

One of the smaller islands that sits out in Repulse Bay is called Lama island. This site is considered a tropical resort with the best beaches in Hong Kong, but from the peak, the most notable feature are the three smoke stacks stick up over the trees. All of Hong Kong’s electricity is generated at this single power plant on Lama Island.

I swear you could play a drinking game with the number of times I’ve said this but…it was really HOT! After taking pictures for about 10 minutes and listening to the more interesting parts of the audio tour, I turned in my headset and went back inside. There was a juice bar inside. Their special for the day was iced Hibiscus Tea with Mango flavored Boba. I bought one and enjoyed it in a small booth before catching the tram back down.

At the bottom, I immediately saw more blue signs for the Star Ferry. The Star Ferry has been continuously operated in Hong Kong since 1888. The company was founded by Dorabjee Nowrojee, who practiced Zoroastrianism (this is the same Eastern religion that the Magi who visited Jesus in Bethlehem followed.) According to Zoroastrian faith, the five pointed star has special mythical powers. Since the national symbol of Hong Kong is the five pedal orchid—found only in this area—the connection seemed clandestine! For a while, one of Tennyson’s poems that talked about stars were also used when promoting the fleet, and it quickly the largest ferry services between Kowloon and the island. Even today, they still use steam powered boats to shuttle tourists and commuters across the harbor every 10 minutes (for jus t$2.50HKD…about 41cents US.)

Following the signs, I got to the pier for the boat destine to Tsim Sha Tsui. The ticket to ride was actually a token, dispensed from a machine after you inserted your payment.

The boat was incredible. I took a seat in the bow of the upper deck. The entire thing was made of wood, with a natural stained interior and a green and white coat of paint on the outside. Eight life boats were mounted on the roof of the ferry in case we needed to abandon ship. As the steam billowed out of the funnel on the room and the hemp rope was pulled from the mooring ball, we rolled out into the harbor. Being suck a small boat on a steam powered engine, we felt every wave as we rolled over it and across our 8 minute journey. I find a rocking boat to be very relaxing, but I’m sure a queasy stomach would not do so well on this adventure.

On the other side, we disembarked and were at the Tsim Sha Tsui promenade. While everyone, including Leo, told me this was something you can’t miss in Hong Kong, I have to say, I was not too impressed. It appeared to be just a lot of luxury shops mostly selling brands I can get back in the US. What was impressive was the old clock tower and concert hall. The clock tower was build in 1915 when the Kowloon train station opened and Tsim Sha Tsui became a formal port of trade. Since then, the railroad station has been relocated and the concert hall was built in it’s place. Ducking into the concert hall it was a beautiful building, with many beautiful features—not the least of which was air conditioning.

Walking along the pier, under the shade of palm trees and enjoying the gentle sea breeze, I realized how both (a) cool and (b) exhausting this was. I again thought back to when I first left the US. It seriously feels like so long ago. In a lot of ways, I think China has been even more life changing than Europe was. While Europe definitely changed my world view and my view of myself, China made me dig a little deeper. I’ve had to confront a lot of my own beliefs about religion, safety, politics, government, relationships, history, etc…and in a lot of ways, it has both changed and crystalized what I believe about each of these things.

In a lot of ways China was so much harder than Europe, but at the same time, it has been just as meaningful, if not a little more so. When I went home from Europe I felt lost in epiphanies I was never going to be able to sort through. Nothing made sense after studying abroad and I was constantly frustrated by going back to the same life I left. Now, I feel China has helped me not only discover things about myself, but process how they fit into my life going forward. I have some new ideas about what I want to do in the future, and I think I even have some sense of what I need to do to get there…which as a soon to be college grad, is a very liberating thought to have.