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| HONG KONG: A CHINESE TAKEAWAY
December 11, 2008 HONG KONG – Short of land to raise more skyscrapers Hong Kong has been spreading into the sea. The result has been a disaster for the city-state’s venerable old colonial buildings, once located on the seaside front row together with the first high-rises but now in the third and fourth row back from the sea and staring at walls instead of water. The joy of living in a sea-front apartment can be short-lived in this city - renown as the hub of the capitalist East - where tomorrow dredges, cranes and bulldozers can arrive to empty a piece of sea, plug the hole with earth and cement and then raise a series of forty to eighty floor tall cement monstrosities that will block out everyone’s sun and sea along that stretch. The ocean take-away has not only shrunk the once famous Harbor but generated a mad developers’ rush for more landfills. Some of the projected ‘sea-fillings’ will close sea lanes between Hong Kong and its nearest islands and could eventually allow Hong Kong island and Kowloon to be united by a short bridge. (The current connection is an abominably congested underwater tunnel) This small ex-British colony, once perched on a barren rock, has been spreading its tentacles with amazing speed, both as a clearing house and a financial link between China and the world. Under Beijing’s sovereignty the former colony will remain autonomous for another 39 years. The British, who ruled the rock as a fiefdom for more then one hundred years and had no intention to institute any notion of democracy, hurriedly gave Hong Kong a hybrid democratic system before the takeover by the Peoples Republic in 1997. The city-state has its own legal system and a kind of peoples voting rights with ‘limitations.’ Still, this anomaly has made the ‘the rock’ attractive to all kinds of international financial institutions and companies who prefer to operate on China’s doorstep under the westernized Hong Kong system rather then inside China under the direct rule of the Chinese government. Many expatriates fled when the British lowered the Union Jack on July 1, 1997, handing over to China their last Asian foothold. The ex-pats feared despite the arrangement of autonomy for the next fifty years Beijing would interfere in Hong’s Kong delicate global financial system. But the mainland Chinese proved far too smart to kill the golden goose they owned. Instead they allowed the City to operate as an independent business entity. The result: Aware the Chinese Politburo did not impose its rules (apart from banning criticism of the Motherland and exhorting the Hong Kong media to sing its praise) many of the expatriates and their companies who transferred to Singapore and Bangkok prior to the handover have returned and reestablished in the ex-colony. “Our fears of massive interference in the affairs of Hong Kong were not justified. So we came back,” said a British company executive. Their return and China’s growing clout in the world has made the demand for space more urgent then ever. Hong Kong’s population has now expanded to six million in one of the world’s most densely populated urban areas. But icons like the Pensinsula Hotel and the IFC building, once sea front, are now blocked by new sea-fill developments. The Peninsula has lost its panoramic charm and is now surrounded by a massive construction site. Entire shipping channels off Aberdeen are to be filled in for more construction sites. At the beginning of last century the famous Tin Hau temple at Causeway Bay was perched above the shoreline so the Goddess of the Sea could gaze out into the ocean and make sure seafarers and fishermen were safe, their nets full and the weather fine. Today the Goddess would have to walk fifteen minutes through a jungle of high rise buildings to reach the sea and as for keeping an eye on seafarers she would have to have x-ray vision or fly above the jungle of concrete skyscrapers. To be able to view the extent of the chilling concrete jungle that is Hong Kong today one has to climb or drive up to the Peak, the mountain overlooking what was once one of Asia’s most idyllic spots. The hunger for space has driven hotel prices sky-high for accommodation so small one literally could not swing a cat. The scams are amazing at times: If one books through the China Travel Service (CTS) both flights and hotel costs can be 25 per cent cheaper even for first class hotels like the Holiday Inn. Customers who buy multi-transport cards seem always to lose the 50 dollar deposit when they cancel the card at the end of their visit. Then there is the Hotel Internet racket: The Ibis Hotel wants 124 HK dollars for a 24-hour WiFi usage though public WiFi cards cost only 20 HK dollars for the same period. Hotels, among them the Holiday Inn, block out all other WiFi nets obliging clients to use their own expensive in-house nets. At certain coffee shops, like Starbucks, clients can use the WiFi free of charge by buying a cup of coffee. Some McDonalds allow a 15-minute free access on their in-house computers for customers. One can also sit on a park bench in one of Hong Kong’s pretty public gardens, relics from colonial days, which remain like a forlorn mini- oasis wedged between the concrete monsters. If you find one of these jewels Wi-Fi nets work perfectly and free of charge. Charm, beauty, décor in Hong Kong, unless a leftover from the British days, has been sacrificed to Chinese commercial expediency. One of the worst victims is Lamma Island a favorite picnic spot for Hong Kong citizen where dim-sum restaurants have sprouted like mushrooms all set between oozing sewage canals and the smoke-belching chimneys of Hong Kong’s three main power stations. Whatever charm Lamma once had has long ago been sacrificed to Mammon with the exception perhaps of a sweet teahouse-library with refined tastes and very reasonable prices. In the big smoke where crowds are like termites on the march reasonably priced restaurants are so crowded one may have to queue for an hour or more for a table or seek refuge in the up-market eateries where clients are suitably fleeced for the privilege of not having to wait for a table. Nothing beats Hong Kong for an experience in what the future holds for lifestyle a la Chinoise. (ends) |
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