different, but familiar
Friday, March 6th, 2009by Rachael
Hong Kong
We continue to notice differences in Hong Kong, comparing this new experience to others we have had in the now-five-months away.
“There are no motorbikes, Dad.”
That’s true, and much less honking than other places too.
What’s more, the vehicles observe the traffic light suggestions, making it perfectly safe to cross the road when the little green man says you can. Not that crossing the road is necessarily easy though. There are barriers down the middle of many streets preventing you zipping through the traffic on foot. Funny, really, coz the traffic is much more orderly than other big cities, so it would be a piece of cake to walk through. There aren’t any vehicles coming the wrong way up the street – none at all! Force of habit means we keep looking for them though. Just yesterday morning I had commented on how comfortable it now felt to be driving on the right side of the road. Then we crossed the border, and with it, the road. We’re back to the British legacy of left side driving. It doesn’t feel as familiar as we’d have expected. We keep expecting traffic to appear from the left – actually, expecting it to appear from all directions, we’ve become accustomed to looking 734 times each way before crossing, so we’re unlikely to be caught unawares. And having heard that it’s VERBOTEN to cross where there’s no designated crossing, we are trying to be law-abiding citizens by using overpasses and underpasses whenever we can; they really are quite a novelty and keep you much drier than street-walking in the pouring rain.
(Note to Nova: those wonderful capes you made us got a thorough soaking this morning and stood the test perfectly – mine was big enough for ER2 to snuggle under and stay superdry).
Yes, the roads are different. Red taxis, instead of pink ones like Bangkok. Fancy buses, instead of old ones like Laos. And most are double-decker. Traffic lights turn orange with the red before giving the green signal.
We slip up the gangplank to the “Morning Star”. The Star Ferry has been operating in Hong Kong for 121 years, and for ninety of those years was the only public means of transport across the harbour. The fleet was also used to evacuate refugees and Allied troops during the Japanese invasion in 1941, and the only time services have been suspended was during World War II. Today it took us. None of our other boat trips (from Singapore and Melaka river cruises to two days on the Mekong, from ferry and barge river crossings to overnighting on Halong Bay) have had even the slightest swell to contend with. The comparison is duly noted as this old wooden lady cuts through the chop.
Across on Hong Kong Island the buildings are tall, standing sentry-like along the waterfront and marching up the hill – just what Rob was expecting from his documentary and drama viewing over the years. And then there are more, even taller ones poking up through the already-HIGH-rises. Amazing feats of engineering, which look impressive by day and sparkling spectacular at night.
“The lights are on even in the middle of the day,” Kgirl10 observed. Yes dear, this is Hong Kong. Neon signs flash day and night.
It’s so different to our home town, and indeed if we had come straight from New Zealand we’d have felt we were a world away, but it feels familiar.
Probably due to a number of factors.
A lot of signs are in English; it’s strangely comforting to be able to recognise something…anything, for that matter. In fact, yesterday it was after we had driven past the Shin Ing Hotel that I realised it was the Shining Hotel and we’ve been Chinglishing too much!!!!
Plenty of streets, named for British history, have a comfortable feel about them – names from our own country (which of course is full of British-sounding places)…Blenheim, Cameron, Granville, Queen….
Everybody here speaks some English too. And most people speak very good English. But at first, out of habit, the children continued with “Ni hau” regardless of whether they were speaking to Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Middle Eastern or African.
And there’s another contributing factor….this is a cosmopolitan city, there’s more than one main ethnic group. Just like home. Although, unlike home, here all the Indians want to sell us fake watches and handbags or tailor-make suits for the whole family. Maybe it’s just the place where we are staying, but it is crawling with various shades of black rather than yellow faces. We are used to a bit of everything.
Then there are the signs that we know – Wilson Parking, McDonalds, Herbal Essences shampoo, AIG, KFC, BK, The Salvation Army, Revlon, Dymocks, Century 21, Adidas, Prudential, Vegemite, 7 Eleven (hang on, we have only met this one in the five months we’ve been away, but whenever it crops up now, it makes us feel at home!)
It all adds to that feeling of familiarity.
Perhaps most significantly, today we were unobtrusive. We were able to walk around town with hardly a glance in our direction (apart from the offers of handbags and tailor services). It was refreshing.
But maybe so that Grandpa (who arrived today – yippee-dippee-doo) would believe all he’d been reading about our notoriety, we found fame down on the Avenue of Stars tonight….
(or security guard, anyway!)
No matter how hard I watched, I couldn't work out how he did it. This man at the front of a little shop on the street started with a ball of dough ... 
rayres