HONG KONG April 2011

A clear blue sky, a 120 decibel siren from a fire engine screaming down the street again – I know I’m home in Sydney!!!

A paler shade of grey, smoggy sky, wall to wall people, traffic everywhere, a vertical urban sprawl – that’s Hong Kong!

A glimpse of Hong Kong Island

Hong Kong is about the same size as from Watson’s Bay, south to Marouba, west to Bankstown, north to Parramatta, down Parramatta River and the Harbour to the Heads.

It is home to about seven million people – (it’s wall to wall people!); they fit into an urban area about the same as south from Sydney Harbour at Watson’s Bay to Maroubra, west to Rockdale and north to Drummoyne on the harbour. They are squeezed into one tenth of the area of Hong Kong, the remainder is covered with scrubby bush to low forest. About a quarter of the folk live on Hong Kong Island and the rest live across the Harbour on the mainland in Kowloon and the New Territories and a minority on the islands scattered around Hong Kong Island. These islands are rocky outcrops of a sunken valley alike the Lower Hawkesbury River district.

500,000 expats; 130,000 Filipino women, employed as domestic help, who work 6 days a week; have Sunday off, many meeting up in Statue Square in Central on Sundays.

HK Island	80 km2	22% of the population
Kowloon		36%
New Territories	790 km2 (91%of the land)	40%

You could call it a vertical urban sprawl as compared with our (Sydney) sprawl – they build skyward, we’re building outward.

Climate is shaped by the cooler, drier, winter season from the north east in October to February/March, the hot, humid, wet, south west, summer monsoon typhoon season from May to October and a short, fleeting spring in April.

There are residential towers to 30 storeys or higher, everywhere; building and re-building continues a-pace. n the CBD of Hong Kong Island there would only be several buildings which predate the 1930’s – they’re even worse than Sydney in pulling heritage down. Apartments range from “No Frills” units occupied by Chinese residents up to exotic luxury apartments occupied by “ex-pats” and wealthy Chinese. Air conditioners and external plumbing abound on older style buildings. Prices for apartments and rents have skyrocketed the last few years reaching peak prices seen at the 1997 property bubble. There’s three, tall, new residential towers built on the steep hillside overlooking Repulse Bay - only one apartment deep, about thirty wide and thirty high – each just built to take in the glorious view over the bay!

The traffic lights blink at you “don’t walk” in green at the pedestrian crossings! Pedestrians were just about wall to wall in the off-peak times; they come out like sardines at lunch time and during the peak hours. They walk to the right unlike Sydney’s Brown’s Cows!

Cyclists appeared only on Sunday as a recreational pursuit on the urban streets; none during the week.

No graffiti; throughfares really clean – maintained by teams of cleaners working seven days a week.

Transport

Transport is by ferry, train, tram, taxi and bus as well as private, mainly luxury German and Japanese cars.

• Ferries - Star Ferries, with 12 double decker vessels, makes 400 crossings a day across Victoria Harbour from HK CBD to Kowloon; there are 16 cross harbour services as well to the smaller islands.
• Rail - a largely underground, public owned, rail system, the MTR (Mass Transit Rail), running across the north of The Island; also Kowloon linked with the Island by two tunnels which run under the Harbour
• Buses - privately owned, diesel driven, double decker buses, carrying 115 passengers, look like the London buses; privately owned mini buses (called public light bus, seating 16); these choof around the narrow roads on HK Island “like a bat out of hell.” I’d say they must have to replace the brake pads very frequently!
• Trams - double decker trams, which run across the north end of The Island (slow, but well patronised – the full trip takes about two hours, travelling at about five miles an hour). The trams are quant – they look really tall and are quite narrow and were designed on the old London trams probably from the turn of last century.
• Trains - The MTR (Mass Transit Railway), opened 1980, operates four rail lines – the Island Line across the north shore of HK Island; the Tseun Wan line connects Central in the HK CBD with Kooloon and the western part of the New Territories; the Kwun Tong Line makes a semi circle from the Tseun Wan Line at Prince Edward through eastern Kooloon under the Harbour joining island Line at Quarry Bay; and the Landau Line linking the Island CBD with the new International Airport on Landau Island, connecting the CBD and the airport via Kooloon, in about half an hour; runs at 135kph; departs every 10 minutes; costs about $9 a two way, return trip; clean, quiet, no graffiti, no scratched windows Does that sound like Sydney’s airport line – NO WAY!!! a taxi into town, about $42.

Taxis abound, the fleet is Toyoto Crown diesel cars, seating usually five passengers; most drivers speak English, if they don’t, they mobile phone to their base for you to give journey details in English, translated by the base operator into Mandarin for the driver - that solves the problem.

Out the CDB district, the single lane roads wind their way round the bends of the island; these are quite narrow with small (about two metres diameter), effective roundabouts everywhere - (not like some of the monstrosities which we’re lumbered with); Fly-over roads everywhere in the CBD; three under harbour tunnels connecting the Island with mainland Kowloon; a 3 km two lane, dual carriageway tunnel connecting Happy Valley and Aberdeen. There are a lot of road flyovers in the city district.

On buses, exact fares are paid (no change given) or an Octopus Card can be used. – these are plastic cards which you swipe across a sensor pad upon start and end of your journey. They are re-chargeable at train stations or convenience stores (mainly 7-Eleven’s) and can be used on buses, ferries, trams and trains

The new airport was built between 1979 and 1998 by the departing British by flattening the tiny Chek Lap Kok Island off Landau Island and extending the landfill out into the water – it’s huge (some 1200 hectares); there’s two terminals, each about a kilometre long. You go from the terminal to the customs admin. and baggage handling on a high speed mini train (they run every two or three minutes and the journey takes about three minutes). It runs 24 hours a day; duty free shops look expensive and only seem to sell upmarket goods. A road expressway was built over or next to the fast train line into the City.

The countryside makes up about 70% of the territory; there are 21 country parks, mainly in the central and eastern parts of the New Territories, on Landau and Hong Kong Islands, and 17 reservoirs.

There was some kerfuffle in the press about the siting of a new garbage disposal system which the authorities are going to build. Electricity is supplied by one coal fired power station on one of the islands as well as from the mainland.

Shipping

A container vessel moves up and down the main shipping channel to the container terminal about every five minute, 24/7.

I was fortunate to go and see the Hong Kong Flower Show which was held in Victoria Park (much the same size as Hyde Park). Mostly flowers were exhibited – spring flowering azaleas and orchids, daffodils and tulips; (one stand on vegetable growing), and bonsai. David and I seemed to be the only non-Chinese persons there when we went through. Was surprised to see Indicia azaleas spot flowering everywhere in the urban area, but no Japanese Kurume types.

Street markets are a part of Hong Kong life, whether pitched to the tourist like the Stanley Markets; or a typical local market like the one in Causeway Bay catering for the needs of the locals – selling fruit and vegetables, fresh meat, fish, baked goods, hardware etc. Meat is butchered on the spot, live fish swim in large plastic tubs of water – select the fish you want, it is guttered and cleaned in front of you – open shop fronts onto the street.

The hardware shops are pocket handkerchief sized compared with the mega sized ones we are become used to.

Two main supermarket chains, Wellcome and Park’N’Shop, range from local mini-marts in the suburbs to mega stores in the main shopping hubs. Wellcome supermarkets is owned by the HK trading house company, Swire group, which owned our Franklin’s chain up to a few years ago - they sell a full range of groceries together with their “No Frills” brand generic brand of goods. CitySuper, a huge gourmet supermarket in the basemarket of the Times Square complex, is a mega DJ’s style food hall. Convenience stores – 7-Eleven - are everywhere, as well McDonald’s and Subway; a few Pizza Huts and Burger King (our Hungry Jacks).

Eating establishments operate at three levels – up market restaurants, pitched to the tourists, quality restaurants for the ex pats and wealthy locals and “No Frills” eating houses where you can pick up a nutritious meal but you have to know what to order.

Fauna

A few sparrows (English), bul buls (Indian) and (wait for it!) that ubiquitous sound of a koel calling his mate in the Gardens in the CBD and out at Stanley and a couple of native birds I didn’t recognise; a couple of turtles swimming in the Tai Tam Reservoir near Stanley.

Sport

Horse racing is big, with a major racecourse at Happy Valley on the edge of the Hong Kong Island CBD; race meetings on Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons (with horrific traffic jams around the major streets near the racecourse); quite a few tennis complexes with 10 to 12 courts; a couple of nine hole golf links; wind surfing and VJ yachting out at Stanley.

Media

TV - English language programs - three channels from the BBC, one from CNN, one from Australia (an Australian Government run channel, content from ABC with real commercials, not the Clayton’s faux ones we have to put up with in Sydney – no commercials, please!!!);

Newspapers – South China Morning Post, a broadsheet reporting mostly local Hong Kong news, with news and commentary, some critical, on China, reasonable overseas news with an occasional mention from Australia.

by George Parker