Merry Christmas! Although this was my first Christmas away from home and family, I enjoyed myself and didn’t get homesick.
Wednesday afternoon, I flew to Hong Kong to begin my Christmas adventure. I spent a relaxing two hours waiting for my friend Heidi at the airport; I enjoyed a ham baguette, a cinnamon roll (my first in months!), and a Starbucks hot chocolate, and I even listened to a group of carolers singing Christmas songs in both English and Chinese. I was so captivated that I followed them around the waiting hall!
After meeting Heidi at about 11 pm, we hopped on a bus and headed to our hostel, which was located in the notorious Chungking Mansions. Trip Advisor describes this tourist attraction as follows:
On Thursday morning, we rose early and hit the city. Heidi had been up for almost 30 hours and got a total of 6 hours of sleep that night, but she was insistent on getting an early start to the day. Now that is my kind of travel companion!
We began our day with a tram ride up to the Peak, the highest point in Hong Kong. With clear weather, the views were amazing. Though we were in the city, on the Peak, we were also surrounded by a lush, tropical landscape, and after living in a city for four months, it was a much needed moment to enjoy nature.
We headed down from the Peak to the Bank of China building’s 43rd floor viewing room for another bird’s eye view of the city. Very few days in Hong Kong are clear, so we took full advantage of the opportunity.
Afterwards, we wandered through the glamorous shops in Central (most goods are tax free, so buyers from throughout Asia flock to Hong Kong for shopping), the crowded narrow streets of Lan Kwai Fong, and the very Chinese streets of Sheung Wan complete with Chinese medicine shops, and finally, we visited the Man Mo Temple.
By this point, I had a good feel for the city, and I loved what we found—one-third San Francisco, one-third New York City, and one-third China. It had the narrow, hilly feel of San Francisco, the shiny high-rises of New York City, and the crowded bustle of Asia.
Hong Kong really isn’t China. British first gained control of Hong Kong under the 1841 Treaty of Nanking, a result of the First Opium War. British rule continued and in 1898, Britain obtained a 99-year lease of Hong Kong and the surrounding islands. The lease came to term in 1997 when the British gave China Hong Kong with the condition that it would operate as a Special Administrative Region for at least 50 years.
Ten years later, Hong Kong remains a different world from the mainland. There is a much greater Western influence—most shops have English signs, almost everyone speaks English, and Western chains are everywhere (Mrs. Field’s, Ben&Jerry’s, and even the Body Shop). Everything is much cleaner, including bathrooms. People seem less rushed, not so aggressive, and do not carry habits such as spitting while walking down the street. Even the language is different since Cantonese, not Mandarin, is spoken. Since China regained control, Mandarin is growing quickly in popularity, but the main language is still Cantonese.
Thursday evening we met Heidi’s mom, who had been in the South of China teaching at a graduate school through Peking University. For dinner, we headed back to Lwan Kwai Fang, but instead of using the metro, we took the Star Ferry, which offered spectacular views of the harbor, complete with buildings glistening with Christmas lights.
By the time we were finished with our American delicacies—hamburgers and fries!—it seemed like all of Hong Kong was out walking. In America on Christmas Eve, the streets are dead and hardly a person is in sight. Not the case here! Whole streets were blocked from cars to make room for pedestrians! We finally found our beds around midnight and unknowingly missed a fireworks show near our hostel. Christmas Eve felt more like New Year’s Eve.
Christmas day did not feel like Christmas at all. The weather was warm, the streets were busy, there was no monkey bread or turkey, and no gathering of family. For our non-traditional Christmas, we headed to a mountainous region on Lantau Island to visit Big Buddha and a monastery. The Buddha was gigantic, the surrounding area beautiful, and we even enjoyed a cable car ride down with more spectacular views. Visiting a Buddha and monastery made the feeling of Christmas even more strange!
In the afternoon, we enjoyed a “dim sum” lunch (a Cantonese specialty!) and wandered through the crowded streets of Kowloon. For Christmas dinner, we ate at Deli France, but fried apple pie and ice-cream from McDonald’s almost made up for it. This Christmas was strange but surely a memorable one.
On Saturday morning, we took the ferry to Macau, another Special Administration Region of the PRC that was once controlled by Portugal. Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia, one of the few areas where gambling is legalized. Macau is a contrasting mixture. Most of the island is run-down with a slum-like feel, but here and there, beautiful Portuguese-style buildings from the past and glitzy casinos of the present stand in sharp contrast. An MGM Grand and a Venetian modeled after the one in Vegas add to a very eccentric place that I don’t plan to visit too soon.
Saturday night, we boarded another ferry headed to the mainland to stay at Heidi’s mom’s apartment in Shenzhen, a relatively new city near the boarder of Hong Kong. After Deng Xiaoping’s Open Door Policy of the early 1980s, Shenzhen was created as a Special Economic Zone for manufacturing. Today, with factories aplenty, Shenzhen is a booming manufacturing and business city with little history or culture. The city is spread out giving it a different feel than most Chinese cities I’ve visited.
Sunday, we toured Shenzhen and the highlight was an electronics market, where virtually every type of electronic gizmo is sold along with the thousands of parts used to make the gizmos. I even saw three types of iPhones, the classic, a mini-version of the classic, and an “iPhone flip-phone” very similar to other flip-phones I’ve seen. Very interesting…
I am so thankful I had the opportunity to travel with Heidi. In addition to seeing a friend from home, I was also able to pick her brain about things I’d been noticing about China. She happily answered all of my endless questions and even taught me useful Mandarin phrases that I wouldn’t learn in a classroom. Thank you Heidi!
I am now back in school in Shanghai, but at the end of next week, I leave for Cambodia, so it’s time to start packing!
Here are pictures of Hong Kong and Macau.
Hope everyone has a Happy New Year!