First Impressions of Hong Kong

First 24 hours in Hong Kong

            I’m a bit reluctant to start blogging about Hong Kong and have procrastinated thus far.  Perhaps I’m reluctant because I feel everything I’ve experienced is far past my understanding.  It’s a human tendency to try and make sense of the world, to generalize and put the world into terms we understand.  Yet a traveler far from home is often humbled to realize they are in a place where millions of people are doing things that have nothing to do with them or  the context in which they lived their life thus.  So at first I try not to make any judgements or understand it at all; and to stare in awe while taking it in like an infant.  Yet, as a reasoning, ordering human the wide-eyed wonder soon fades as I begin to generalize, judge, and put together some coherent picture of the reality that surrounds me.  I fear that I will do that then look back later and cringe at the generalizations I made on first arriving here or the things I thought were true that aren’t.  Yet I have no choice but to write something as I promised many of you I would.  And I could go on whining about how hard it is to write about, about how tortured one is in the writing process, etc, but you would stop reading so I’ll shut up and try my best.

            According to Google, JFK International to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific is the second longest commercial flight in the world, topped by those overachievers who fly an extra 20 miles from Newark to Hong Kong.  I left New York late at night after getting lubricated for the flight over dinner with my mom and second-mother Robin.  The flight was almost entirely Chinese and I already felt like I was diving into a new world as I boarded the flight.  It still wasn’t real that I was moving all the way across the world to stay for awhile, but I had 16 glorious hours on the flight to try to come to grips with that fact.

            The flight goes near the North pole on the way to the tropics.  Its fascinating to think about treating the whole globe as a little playground to circumvent at will like that: to just casually shoot up to the North Pole as a jumping off point.  Then I pictured being at the very tip of the world with the option of spinning around in a circle and pointing south in any direction: from that center its e qually plausible to point towards Russia, New York, Europe, Africa.

            They gave us a quick meal an hour after take off, at 2 Am.  It was 2 PM on the other side of the globe, and it was time to start thinking that way.  The lunch(? Dinner?  Late night snack?) came with an ice cream bar that was already melting.  I think the ice cream was intended to get us to shove the food in our mouths as quick as possible so that they could clean up the meal and get us to bed.  Everyone ate quick then the flight attendants asked everyone to shut windows and I ordered some wine and dozed with my head on the window, which I soon woke up to find scorching hot.  I figured it must’ve been the Artic 20+ hours of daylight. I wanted to look and spot some glaciers and icebergs but I didn’t dare open the window with everyone sleeping.  And so I dozed, woke up, watched movies, dozed some more, watched some more movies.  Every time I woke up I looked at the time then cursed at how little had gone by.  I paced some, I read, watched more movies, got some instant noodles and tea.

            It was morning in New York but time had ceased to have any meaning somewhere over Siberia, then it was afternoon in New York and we skipped the rest of that day to jump forward to morning again, and the lights came on and everyone was waking up to eat breakfast and drink tea and coffee.  It looked like the dawn was about to break and I squinted at some distant lights, my first ever view of China, then I could see all sorts of boats down in the harbor, but I was on the wrong side to actually see the lights of Hong Kong island.  Then soon enough we were circling around then charging across the ground on the opposite side of the world and the sun was creeping up and I could see lines of green hills on the horizon above the water.

            The customs line was huge but it moved fast.  I gave the man my passport and work authorization and he didn’t speak, flipping through, marking, stapling, stamping.  I exchanged currency, as I realized no one else was doing it and that the rate was terrible.  Dorothy, the HR contact in HK said to call her on a courtesy phone from the airport right beyond customs.  I looked for the phones too early then sure enough there was a line of free phones for local calls right where she said they would be.  I called and arranged to meet at the HK train station.  I went out, got my bags , threw them on a cart, and grabbed a delicious fruit smoothie.

  Then I needed to look for the Hong Kong express train.  I looked up and saw huge signs that said Hong Kong express, they were pointing straight and also right and left, it was impossible to miss.  I went straight.  I grabbed an Octopus rechargeable transit card, paid a deposit and asked him to put 200 HK Dollars on it.  I got to the platform right as the doors were closing and the train was leaving and was frustrated until I saw the monitors “next train arriving in 4 minutes” and that was when I knew I wasn’t in New York anymore.  The train came and the glass doors slid open.  I wheeled the cart right up to the doors, grabbed my bags and was off at full speed towards the city, following the coastline along what looked like a bike trail, then going into a web of tunnels, overpasses and high rise buildings along the coast.  Soon we could see more high rises and lines of mountains peaking out of the morning haze across the bay.  Then we were underground, made a couple stops, and before I know it we were at Hong Kong station.

            I snatched up my bags and staggered out into the station.  Another little cart was waiting there to meet me so I threw everything on it and swiped my card to exit the platform and Dorothy was waiting right there.  We went outside but I could only see lines of cabs and buses under highway overpasses.  We threw our things into a taxi and were off between lines of concrete buildings.  Within 5 minutes we were dropped us off in front of my building in Wan Chai.

            And so suddenly we were in the middle of the city that was just starting to come to life at 7:15 in the morning.  The first thing I noticed was lines of buses and taxis instead of cars; Hong Kong is the highest in the world with over 90% public transit share.  And I noticed neon signs in every directions, tall concrete buildings and flashy steel ones, and lines of air conditioners in thousands of tiny little windows.  We rang the bell and waited for Matt from Air Bnb to let us into the building and he was down in a couple minutes, an Aussie guy who greeted me with 4 or 5 “mates” in the first minute.  We walked up one flight of stairs to a rickety elevator that crawled up to 7. 

           I knew apartments in Hong Kong were small but when I opened the door I laughed then sighed.  It seemed more a hallway then an apartment and I didn’t know if two people could even pass each other walking down it.  I staggered under my bags and struggled to find a place to put them.  I had been so proud to travel light and now the four bags seemed huge in the context of this space.  The hallway led down to a little corner where the kitchen was.  The burner was on a shelf that folded in to save space then there was a sink by the window and a tall shelf.  There was a dining room table but it was blocking the bedroom door until Matt kicked underneath it and it folded down.  The bedroom was all bed and no room with a tiny dresser in the corner.  The ac was broken and it was stiflingly hot.  

Matt oriented me a bit to the room and talked about internet and other issues.  Dorothy gave me a map and picture directions to the Tin Hau campus of IMS then left.  I was going to meet her there at 2 to go to immigration and to the bank which left me 6 hours or so to explore.  And then I was on my own.  I went outside and walked a block then walked back, then walked 2 and back; I was terrified to get lost.  I could just barely see mountains to my back and knew the harbor was in front of me so I could orient North South that way.

            The rivers of people were just starting to flow every which way.  There were old Chinese men hunched over under huge sacks, there were fancy businessmen in suits and toothless men in dirty shorts  and sleeveless shirts who sat smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk, there were women who looked like Barbie dolls in short skirts with 8 inch heels.  There were 7/11s in every direction and fancy, sterile restaurants and hotels mixed with grimy little shops, windows packed full of whole chickens waiting in neat lines to be sliced open.  There were British pubs, flashing signs with pictures of feet and “massage,” Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Middle Eastern restaurants, McDonalds and Starbucks, women with carts full of dozens of hot liquids; carts of fruits and vegetables, juice and tea, pharmacies, flower vendors, the smell of fish everywhere, squid, crabs and lobsters in tanks and lines and lines of vendors selling cell phones.  I went into a building that said market and there were bins filled with big fat toads crawling all over each other, every sort of shellfish, mangos as big as my face, vegetables I’d never seen before, and so many things I couldn’t even begin to guess the origin or purposes of.  And this was all within a 3 block walk.

            The streets were lined with guard rails that funneled pedestrians to crosswalks so jay-walking was almost impossible though some found ways to do it.  I waited to cross the street and the crowd around me swelled.  There was a break in the traffic but still a don’t walk signal.   A few rule breakers started pouring into the street early and stern older men glared at them.  Then the symbol turned to walk and the flood of humanity surged into the intersection.  I walked towards the harbor.  I wanted to take the ferry across to Kowloon and back to see the skyline of the city.  As I got towards the harbor there was more and more bus traffic and I got to streets that seemed impassable.  There were ped bridges going over the traffic in every direction so I took the escalator up then down then back up again, zigzagging towards the water.  I would later learn that "no one who lives here actually walks on street level," there's aerial pathways that lead wherever you need to go

Soon I saw the sign for the star ferry and was funneled into a tunnel to the pier.  I swiped my octopus card and it charged me 3 Hong Kong dollars; that is about 30 cents.  People had told me I could but I still couldn’t believe I could take a boat ride for 30 cents.  I followed the people down a gangplank past lines of vending machines.  A red signal turned green and we marched towards the ferry.

  It left within a minute and we were floating on turquoise green water towards the tall concrete of Kowloon in front of green hills.  To oversimplify, Kowloon is Brooklyn to Manhattan.  The high rises on the shore have some of the most expensive rent in Hong Kong because of views to the skyscrapers of downtown, but many neighborhoods are cheaper and more densely packed then the island itself.  In general its reputation is being grimier and more legitimately Chinese then the main Hong Kong island.

            The boat ride lasted 6 minutes.  I walked along the harbor for a bit in Kowloon, looking back at the lines of skinny tall skyscrapers and some clouds swirling around the mountains.  There were old men doing tai chi and pilates around the harbor in deep concentration and younger men in shorts staring at the harbor with dazed looks on their faces like California surfers.  I was hungry and hoped to find a place to eat so I started into the city.

            I was blocked in by traffic and a shopping mall so I went into the mall.  It was all fancy name brand stores selling glittering silver watches, diamond necklaces, designer handbags.  I wanted nothing to do with them nor them with me.  I walked into the mall hoping to pass through then I was crossing the street on a bridge into a bigger mall 10 stories high.  I went down an escalator and kept walking and the mall kept going, and going.  I no longer even knew what floor I was on or if there were a reality outside as I went up, down escalators, over and under traffic in tunnels, always with more lines of fancy handbags pressing in on me.  I saw a sign for an exit but it went into a service room and I got scared it was an emergency exit and I’d get in trouble.

            By the time I finally found a way out of the air conditioned bubble into the noisy, humid city I was ready to go back so I went back to the the ferry paid my 30 cents and stared in a trance at everything in front of me.  When I got off I went up a bridge and found a little restaurant selling noodles, veggies and mystery meat.  There were pictures of everything so I pointed at what I wanted but the woman spoke English.  I was finding already that it was challenging to figure out how to talk to people here.  Most everyone spoke enough English to do their job yet I at first felt funny greeting people in English in a foreign country and assuming they understand.  And people were quick, short and direct in interactions.  There was no “Hi how are you, good thank you” before a transaction.  But in trying to fit in with the quick, business feel at first I went too far, not even saying hi and just grunting the name of what I wanted.   It seems a quick hi then a “Fried dumplings with milk tea please” was the appropriate amount of politeness without wasting time on silly small talk, and both parties in a transaction always said a quit thank you on parting.

            I got a plate of noodles for around 2.50 US and slurped them down but was still hungry.  I saw an ad for an American burger place and craved it though I can’t say I had been away long enough to really need comfort food.  The burger cost 6.50 US just for the burger with no fries.  I wondered if it was a coincidence or if American food was overpriced while Chinese underpriced.  It was great but not worth it.

            I wandered more then took the train to meet Dorothy.  It was an absolute pleasure getting to the spotlessly clean station and having the train greet me right when I arrived at the platform.  Hong Kong island itself is small and all the urbanization is concentrated in maybe a 10 block wide strip that hugs the harbor, then it meets the steep mountains and roads wind up into more residential areas. So, there is only one subway line that covers the whole of the downtown and within that one line you could get anywhere.  Each station has at least 5 and up to 25 exits labeled with letters, and then there is a network of tunnels allowing you to exit the station wherever you need to be.  So when meeting people you would say “meet me at Causeway Bay station exit L1.  I  would say each station serves a radius of a couple miles across and you can exit at any place within that radius.  The stations are a work of art, seeing how they funnel so many people in and out to so many different directions.

            I went to the school and met the director, Anne.  She made me promise to stay up to 10 to fight off the jetlag, and I agreed though I was fading fast already and it was barely 4.  We went to the immigration building to apply for work visas.  Dealing with the government bureaucracy was an absolute pleasure.  But really.  I got a number when I entered and there were 60 people in front of me but they went up to 20 different booths and it was my turn in a couple minutes.  I showed the woman paperwork, she clicked on her computer for a minute then smiled and sent me around a corner to another spot to sit and wait for my number.  It was called, they clicked a picture and sent me around another corner.  The number was called and I was given a temporary id to use until my final one was ready in a couple weeks.  Then I went around the corner and was back where I started.

            We went to the bank and opened accounts then I spent some time wandering around to street tech dealers trying to get my IPhone unlocked, but they were charging me what a new phone cost and so I went to a mobile store and sat listening to sales pitches and was pushed to buy a phone.  I felt like a Mexican immigrant in the States, being pressured to buy something and not knowing nearly enough to disagree, I was very out of my league here I probably made a decision on the cheapest smart phone and a year contract with less forethought than I should have, but I needed the internet access bad just to find my way around the city and get in touch with family.

            I ate some dumplings and grabbed a beer from 7/11 for a dollar, sat on the street and drank and ate watching the people.  Then I started walking towards Central.  I wanted to take the tram up to the Peak overlooking Hong Kong but the line was huge so I started walking up the path.  I realized I was climbing a legitimate mountain  and exhausted so I turned left at some point to loop back down a winding road.  As soon as I started climbing the mountain everything changed.  There were vines and moss everywhere and all sorts of tropical trees surrounding huge mansion.  There was no traffic and it was peaceful.  Below me the city lights were sparkling and dancing as clouds raced by a full moon.

  They put on a light show every night.  I am not normally impressed by skyscrapers but it was beautiful, so many colors and the geometric shapes of buildings, and some had images like a rabbit dancing around on the side of the building.  I walked and then found a footpath down towards Wan Chai.  As I neared the ground it was still quiet and hard to believe that there were still all those people running around down below.  Yet I reached the grid and sure enough, thousands of people raced past every which way and the skyscrapers engulfed me.  Wan Chai at night was the same hustle and bustle as during the day although the pubs were more noticeable and packed with backpackers and American and Chinese businessmen in suits sitting in big groups laughing.  In between the pubs there were lines of prostitutes outside dark doors who literally tried to drag me in the door saying "Hello Mr. please come just have one drink."  Suddenly it was almost 10 so I went back to my apartment and slept for an eternity.