Hong Kong - is it still worth visiting?

35 years ago I stepped onto the sweltering tarmac at Kai Tak airport in August 1989 a confused and bleary-eyed kid from Suburban California. One glance around and I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore. The heat and humidity were overpowering. The buildings were looming, immense, and everywhere. The people, I'd never seen so many people, all looked different. The food looked odd and unappealing to my corn dog and Capri Sun eyes. The writing was unintelligible, the language of sing song of nonsense noises to this naive and sheltered kid. For the first time in my life *I* was the foreigner, *I* was the minority, *I* was The Outsider and nothing will humble you faster. But this was home now apparently, this loud, smelly, bright, brash, overwhelming place. And I had no idea how quickly or how deeply I would fall in love with her. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] But Alex you've done Hong Kong, why do it again? Why not Vietnam or Texas or Vietnam? I hear you bray. And friends you're right I usually don't retread old ground. But every now and then a situation changes, a story unfolds, and I'm compelled to return to a city I've been to before. But Hong Kong is different. Hong Kong was my home for many years. I love this place and I will shout aggressively about this place to basically anybody that will humour me. Also we have unfinished business here. In 2018 we spent 3 days filming here ostensibly to try and uncover how much the city had changed since the Handover in 1997. We spoke to journalists. This is Hong Kong. They love their home but there's also this different layers of uncertainty built on top of that. Hong Kong citizens young and old. The Hong Kong identity has never been very clear cut. I even had my son with me who was the same age as I was when I moved to Hong Kong in 1989. We ran out of time to cover all of the things that we wanted to talk about but vowed to return just a few months later. Unfortunately the world had other plans and here we are 5 years later our first opportunity to return and a lot has changed on every level. And while many can't or won't talk about that change some feel compelled to. Like this guy who just appeared. "Unthinkable change. Lot of people in Hong Kong they they didn't realise such a change will take place." Change has always come easily to Hong Kong. In its Relentless Pursuit Of The Almighty dollar the past was frequently dispensed with. Discarded as inconvenient or outdated or inefficient. Colonial buildings were demolished and replaced with glass and steel and the harbor was routinely filled in to accommodate another Boutique another bank or another Highway. Even when I was coming back here two or three times a year Hong Kong was always changing. The skyline would always change because some new skyscraper had erupted from the concrete the harbor was just a little bit smaller than when I was last here because of the city's Relentless centuries long Reclamation project but there are a lot more changes that have happened since I've last been here some of them more Sinister than a new highrise but the principles and values of this Unique city somehow remained intact in fact they were fiercely and proudly protected by Hong Kong's population and the cultural icons and rituals that were uniquely Hong Kong survived as a result so it seemed like a tenuous equilibrium between the Relentless March of progress and the sacred cornerstones of tradition had been reached but then the tide turned in 24 14 a series of protests started That Shook Hong Kong to its core angry at China's interference and local election law Hong Kong citizens took to the streets in their Millions to stand up against what they felt were the erosion of freedoms and rights guaranteed to them for 50 years after the 1997 Handover these continuous changes to the very fabric of Hong Kong Society were always followed by Monumental protests that is until Hong Kong has been hit by a surging coron Virus Infection under the fog of covid the dilution of Hong Kong's Independence continued but now the streets were empty and when the veil was finally lifted Hong Kong had changed forever not just politically and not just societally but its very identity had dimmed somehow things that made it unique that made it Hong Kong were becoming scarce to the point of Extinction Co or should say Hong Kong's Co policy was brutal to this city 650 days of restrictions in one form or another in the bizarre pursuit of a zero Co goal brought this city to its knees and when the rest of the world started opening up traveling eating Hong Kong Street remained quiet and his restaurants remain shuttered and eventually the rest of the world stopped including Hong Kong in its cultural conversations and I noticed something else as well every TV show lifestyle travel food that was produced during and after the pandemic and there were a lot of them every single one of them skipped over Hong Kong all of them ugly delicious somebody feed Phil midnight ASA Street F days are [ __ ] that solution is all of them not because they wanted to necessarily this is one of the greatest foods cities in the world well because they had to and as ideas as TV shows they all moved on but I most certainly have not moved on there's too much goodness here too much uniqueness but like so much of what makes Hong Kong unique it's getting harder and harder to find so they may all skip over Hong Kong but I sure as hell long we're in sham po one of my favorite parts of Hong Kong I've been coming here since I was 10 years old in fact I went to school just down that road in yachun back then the school was on the flight path to the legendary kitac airport every 90 seconds a plane would scream overhead and almost reflexively we would stop our lessons wait for the plane to go over and then start up again and for a 10-year-old kid from Suburban California that was a trip but I soon got used to it and soon learned to love it but that infamous white path restricted the growth of callon an already overly populated area significantly you couldn't build buildings Beyond a certain height and there were no flashing lights allowed anywhere in Hong Kong but in 2005 when the airport moved to lanow Island what was once scuzzy noisy undesirable flight path land became Priceless almost overnight and this entire area erupted upwards in a twisting right in metamorphosis of Redevelopment regeneration and gentrification and Sham po was caught in the middle of that this is and pretty much always has been a workingclass neighborhood lowincome community and one of the highest cost of living cities in the entire world there's some hard living going on here those coffin Apartments those cage homes that Hong Kong is Infamous for right here overcrowded tenement buildings subdivided apartments that that's sham Street po but this is all Al one of the most interesting exciting vibrant neighborhoods in the entire world not just Hong Kong and one of the many reasons for that is these diai dong DIY dong which literally translates as big license stall used to be everywhere in Hong Kong hundreds if not thousands of them after World War II the colonial Hong Kong government issued ad hoc licenses to the families of deceased and injured civil servants allowing them to run Hawker style street food carts as a way of making a living they peaked in the 1950s and you could find them on almost every street corner but there's so much more than a place to get a quick cheap bite which they still are today they were a place for working people to gather and talk a real Social Hub for the community but their ubiquity and their popularity led to noise and traffic complaints so in 1956 the government stopped issuing those licenses and actually went a step further by prohibiting the transfer or sale of those licenses to anyone except the proprietor's spouse or direct descendants the government even offered millions of Hong Kong dollars to buy back licenses just to get them off the street for an older proprietor that was a difficult offer to turn down so their decline was Swift and consistent but diong represent the spirit of this city but they are like so much of this City's identity fading away there are only 20 left in Hong Kong and half of them are here in sham Sho o man sang is a quintessential diong since 1956 they've been feeding the Great and the good of Hong Kong from their stall in sham po they like most di pidong serve small stir fry dishes prepared with lots of seasoning over insanely hot walks and to get that signature heat the stoves use kerosene literally jet fuel because no other fuel can get that heat that is required for this kind of cooking but even the stoves are hard to find these days because the government stopped issuing licenses for them a recurring theme of attrition and Extinction in this city but that walk or breath of the Walk is like nothing you have ever experienced before cheap fast delicious meals served in austere but convivial settings with copious bottles of local beer Paradise as far as I'm concerned but diong are not just an experience for after the [Music] sunsets breakfast in Hong Kong is kind of an in congruous experience another one of Hong Kong's cultural Curiosities born out of the wonderful notion that the only good meal is a hot one breakfast dishes in Hong Kong are a reflection of the city's history like this macaroni or noodle soup it's simply instant noodles or elbow macaroni pasta in a broth and then uh often served with ham an egg with tomatoes soup or another variety of wonderful toppings not exactly what you think of when you think of Chinese food but here we are for Irene is the embodiment of the DI pidong Spirit the inventor of dishes to feed the community she like her forbearers took what they had available to them and created now iconic di pong dishes served in places like this and actually born out of places like this in the 1950s when Proprietors started riffing on Western ingredients and Western dishes in an attempt to make them more accessible to local pallets and the venues themselves more accessible to visiting Palace the result are these wonderful East meast West concoctions that pretty much everybody here will have grown up on Irene is Among The Last of a Dying Breed she's had to adapt to survive even this long she's seen the city evolve and fully understands that Generations change and tastes change but that doesn't mean the spirit of the DI pong needs to change with it for as Hong Kong continues down a path of uncertainty we can only hope that people like Irene continue to preserve the traditions and spirit that make this city so [Music] unique but what so many Hong kongers grew up on is becoming harder and harder to find sure the mechanics of the day-to-day remain at least superficially intact and to the Casual visitor Hong Kong probably feels like not much much has changed it is and will always remain a fantastic place to visit but there has been fundamental damage to the pillars of this city that is undeniable ask anyone about life here and you will hear exasperation and frustration and Desperation alongside Fierce pride and A Renewed urgency to preserve what remains of this City's identity but ask them to talk about it on camera and you'll get a knowing smile a chuckle and a I don't think so and I think that speaks volume about what has been taken from this city its voice Hong Kong is one of those rare places where I don't actually feel out of place here I know that sounds a little bit silly because I am by definition out of place here but when I visit a new city for the first time or even revisit a familiar favorite I always have that sense of the outsider I observe local customs and etiquette with a fastidiousness that borders on compulsion and I'm convinced that I'm a nuisance and irritation to every waiter shopkeeper fellow Transit Rider that I come within 50 ft of not here though I feel at home here my Cantonese is elementary and stumbling my Chopstick use is passible but inelegant but I have core memories here many of them wonderful happy moments of Hong Kong being home or my friends my family my stuff was the things that mattered I think that goes a long way to explaining why I am so protective of this place I'll be honest I've been hesitant to complete this episode for a long time we started in 2018 with the somewhat lofty idea of seeing Hong Kong through a child's eyes again to see what had changed since I first saw it but as time passed and the world moved on I became resigned to the fact that this episode would never see the light of day it felt like an impossible task to neatly summarize what Hong Kong has been through in the years since we were last here beyond that I never felt like I'd be able to capture what Hong Kong means to me in a 20-minute video I'd always feel that we'd missed a place or a dish or a person or an idea how can we possibly do this magical place Justice so I can tell you this we will be back and we will be making more Hong Kong content because even though there's something truly heartbreaking going on here this place is by no means dead there's too much good here too much worth preserving too much that needs to be shared and experienced and enjoyed and while you can of course view Hong Kong from afar through the distorted lens of social media where everything everything is neat tidy and orderly the rough edges and noisy soundtracks are what make Hong Kong so perfect and so beautiful so put down the phone get on a plane and come to Hong Kong while its uniqueness still [Music] shines

Channel: Attaché

Views: 253,319

Keywords: guide, city, visit, trip, sightseeing, tourism, architecture, slideshow, destination, culture, hong kong, hong kong travel, hong kong travel guide, dai pai dong, hong kong street food, hong kong protests, hong kong independence

Id: SQ041I-PcI4

Length: 19min 32sec (1172 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2024