The Zoo

 

Welcome to our home. Technically, it is the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens but we just call it the zoo.

 

By the way, let me introduce myself. I'm Philippe, originally from Madagascar, and a ring-tailed lemur.

 

 

There are quite a few of us here - although I'm the only one to greet visitors, the others are usually stuffing their faces. See what I mean?

 

 

 Honestly, it's quite rude, you'd think they hadn't eaten for ages. The worst of them is Marcel, he's overweight, probably has sky-high cholesterol and has never exercised in his life. I tell you...he's disgusting.

 



Not that the tamarins and monkeys are much better. They shriek and run about like their bottoms are on fire but do they pose and sit prettily so you can take photographs? Do they heck! Badly behaved is the only way to describe them. They deserve to be behind bars.

You think this one is posing? Not a bit of it - he's teasing; just when you get your camera focused he's going to do a backward flip and tear off to the back of the cage - and shake his bottom at you! No upbringing I tell you, his parents clearly failed to discipline him when he was growing up back in Brazil.

Mind you, there are only 70 of us mammal here; lemurs, monkeys, sloths, tamarins, raccoons and the big boys, orang-utans and gibbons. There are four times as many birds, about 300 species in total they tell me, so you might be forgiven for thinking they were better-behaved, quiet and respectful.

Not a bit of it. I'm not surprised that the reptiles, especially the tortoises, spend much of their time sleeping and have never run for a bus in their lives.

But the birds...well, honestly, sometimes I find it hard to tell if they are alive or not. They just stand there or perch like stone statues. Lifeless. Dead as a dodo. I know human performers do the same thing in squares and people are impressed, they give them donations. Maybe that's where the birds got the idea?

'Hey Philippe, that's not fair!'

What do you mean parrot-face?

'First, I'm a macaw and not a parrot. Second, you're unfairly tarring all us birds with the same brush. Many of us are really active, preening and trying to look good so we photograph well. We also pose and try to be photogenic...

What? What?

Preen, pose? Rubbish! Just because you've got nits and go scratching yourselves all day don't try and pretend you're making yourselves pretty for the photographers. And don't try and tell me you birds are active - just look at the flamingos.

Active? They're too lazy to use two legs for standing half the time! Case closed!!!

One, Three, Ten, Twelve...Fourteen

Sometimes we just get out of the wrong side of the bed...The day after a Turkish jet shot down a Russian warplane I had my own - much smaller - international incident.

Waiting at a bus stop in Wan Chai for our bus to Stanley Mrs R was engaged in conversation by a tall middle-aged American. 'You going to Stanley Market? Going to shop?'

Since he was not content with just talking to Mrs R and since I had ignored his overtures so far, he decided to try and goad me. ' Don't be so uptight. Are you going to Stanley for your honeymoon?'

I turned and looked at him. We were at least several decades overdue for a honeymoon. With a crisp 'Give me a break!' I deliberately turned my back on him and gazed in the other direction.

American lip meets British reserve. He got the message and there was no further conversation. On the other hand Mrs R was shocked at the rudeness – mine. In fact I was a bit shocked myself as I'm not naturally grouchy but just wasn't up for a conversation at that time, particularly with a pushy stranger...

After the 25 minute bus ride to Stanley, as ill-fortune would have it, for the next hour we kept bumping into that American couple; they were just ahead of us as we strolled through the market, they were already seated at a table in the restaurant that I planned to lunch at (so we ate at the yellow-painted Boathouse Restaurant; tepid scallop starter, decent beef ragout - and a couple of glasses of cabernet sauvignon; weather and mood improved together!).

Stanley, on the south side of Hong Kong Island, is a tourist Mecca for several reasons, attracting hoards of organised groups, huge crocodiles following flag-bearing guides, threading their way through the narrow lanes, looking for cheap clothing and souvenirs. It is also quite beautiful, arranged around a horseshoe bay, restaurants and pubs lining the wide promenade, the blue panorama of the South China Sea open before it, sprinkled with small green islands.

I had visited Stanley half a dozen times before, most recently four or five years ago, and was surprised (shocked) at the amount of new building. Dozens of new houses - most of them costing a few million pounds each according to estate agents' windows - had sprung up. Vast tower blocks, twenty or more storeys, stuck out from the green shrubbery like concrete toadstools. There were even housing blocks on the top of surrounding hills.

Murray House, the British colonial officers' quarters built in 1844 in Central 17 kilometres away was dismantled stone by stone in to make way for the new Bank of China Tower – and then reassembled in 2001 at Stanley waterfront. Some feat! Now it holds the H&M fashion store and some up-market restaurants – which were quite empty as we passed by. Similarly, Stanley Market was rather quiet, the fall in the number of mainland tourists has had quite an impact.

Another relic of colonial times, the oldest remaining police station in Hong Kong, Stanley Police Station, built in 1859, is now a Wellcome supermarket.

One place I had never visited before and was keen to see was the Stanley Military Cemetery, final resting place for hundreds of Commonwealth armed forces and civilians killed during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945. Out-thought and out-fought, the defenders of Hong Kong suffered a couple of thousand deaths and an estimated 11,000 were sent to prisoner of war camps where they endured almost four years of privation, many dying.

The cemetery is set high on a hillside amid green shrubbery overlooking popular St Stephen's Beach and the South China Sea. Entering via several sets of steps, past a large white memorial cross, the beautifully tended cemetery stretches for several hundred yards in every direction, following the gentle slope of the hillside.

Ranks of white gravestones stand in neat lines. Most are standard stones erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission after the war. Some were erected by prisoners of war 70 or more years ago, the lettering crudely etched. Quite a few are unusual, strangely shaped, looking like small white half-cylindrical concrete Nissen huts; it took me a few minutes before I realised that each of these graves held the remains of a child or infant.

Then there were gravestones simply marked 'a soldier of the 1939-1945 War.' There were individual graves holding the bodies of one...of three nameless dead...or ten unknown bodies...or twelve...and in one case, fourteen unnamed soldiers.

There can hardly be a more beautiful place for the fallen to rest in peace.

A Tale of Two Houses

For some years the Hong Kong government has been acquiring and renovating grand houses built in the first half of the 20^th century by the first Chinese entrepreneurs and merchants to accumulate sufficient wealth and status to compete effectively with the colonial worthies on their own terms – at least as far as domestic arrangements went.

King Yin Lei was built in 1937 for a Mrs Shum, and sold on in 1978 and 2007. The house looks spectacular from the outside, a blend of the best of traditional Chinese and Western styles, and employing advanced - for that time - building techniques such as beams and columns of concrete and a lightning protection system. The style is referred to as 'Chinese Renaissance.'

However, this being Hong Kong, architectural merit does not always guarantee protection from demolition and in 2007 the stripping of glazed roof tiles and decorative fittings took place. Fortunately, there was a public outcry that led to the government taking steps to have the building declared a protected monument. The owner eventually agreed to fund and carry out restoration of the house (under government experts' supervision) in exchange for an adjacent empty plot of land of equal size.

Because the fabric of the house had deteriorated badly the restoration was a huge task, taking over two years. In addition to glazed roof tiles, the team had to produce plaster moulding, mosaic floor tiles, cement tiles, marble tiles, teak flooring and terrazzo. To source the materials they had to search across mainland China – and in some cases there were no skilled craftsmen available so the team had to experiment until they succeeded.

The house is situated in the Mid-Levels, marking out a Chinese-dominated upper-class residential area, and is well known in the city from appearing in several films and tv series (including Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon).

Quite spectacular on the outside, the inside seems cramped, smaller. Design-wise, there is much to impress and the renovation work required was extensive, based on the before-and-after photo displays. However, paradoxically, the two features that stay in my mind are the outdoor animal pens for holding animals to be killed and cooked - no popping down to the supermarket for a frozen chicken breast - and the wonderfully garish and quite over the top all-pink bathroom of Mrs Shum!

 

 

 

 

 

Kom Tong Hall was built even earlier, in 1914, and it is also a fusion of Chinese and Western styles. However, it is not so much famous for itself but rather for the use to which it has been recently put. Our bus driver did not recognise the name Kom Tong Hall when we enquired – but once we mentioned Dr Sun Yat Sen the light dawned and he was suddenly a mine of enthusiasm and information. Kom Tong Hall is now a museum to the memory of Hong Kong-educated Dr Sun Yat Sen.

 

When we arrived at the Hall a school teacher was trying to persuade her excited class to pose for a class photograph in front of the statue of Dr Sun at the entrance.

The well-preserved Kom Tong Hall was built for the wealthy Ho family who were the first Chinese family permitted to live in the Mid-Levels in the early colonial period. The two main brothers were compradores (local managers) for Jardine Matheson, the main trading house in Hong Kong. Subsequently the building was owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) who agreed to transfer it to the government.

Photography is not permitted in the Hall. My predominant memory is of the extensive use of dark teak wood; teak staircases to each of the three floors, teak panelling for whole walls and for half the wall in many rooms. There were also quite a few stained-glass windows and floral decorative scrolls to the balustrades. The interior is vast, much larger than the exterior suggests (the opposite of King Yin Lei).

But the story of the house has been overwhelmed by the presence of Dr Sun.

Dr Sun Yat Sen is considered to be the 'Father of Modern China' and appears to be hugely respected by all Chinese, whether from the mainland, Taiwan or the Chinese diaspora. A brilliant academic, doctor of medicine, inspiring politician, author, he is remembered for his overwhelming love of China and her people that led him to fight against the corrupt Qing government and, after the 1911 revolution ended the monarchy, he founded the Republic of China. Sadly, Sun's life was marked by constant struggle and the latter part of his life was spent fighting warlords so that he did not live to see the whole of China united, dying in 1925 in Beijing.

The museum is spread over several floors, includes photographs, videos, artefacts, wax displays of prominent figures, documents, books and dozens of individual displays with narrative in both Chinese and English. It's definitely worth more than one day's detailed browsing if you hope to absorb much of the information.

Alexander Grantham and the Northern Emperor

It was one of those rare days in Hong Kong; little smog or haze, blue sky and a force four breeze from the north that kept the temperature in the low 20s. We set out walking along the Eastern Promenade from Quarry Bay towards Tai Koo, a 30 minutes (very) gentle stroll.

 

The occasional jogger passed us, eyes fixed on the horizon, breathing heavily. Anglers were out in force and we paused to watch them. Their equipment was much lighter than I'm used to; slender 11-foot rods with fixed spool reels, mono-filament lines of only a few pounds breaking weight and a single tiny hook on a twelve inch snood below a round weight. Clearly they were after small fry. Indeed, we passed one angler with a plastic bag of small fish, none more than four inches in length – I'm assuming they were his catch and not his live-bait! Other anglers had simple hand lines but seemed no less successful at catching fish.

Former fireboat Alexander Grantham was housed in a small dry dock museum beside the Promenade. Built in 1952 she saw service for 43 years when she was 'one of the world's most advanced fireboats' according to the museum's description. Visitors could walk onboard and inspect most areas (except the crew's sleeping quarters and, sadly, the bridge). She undoubtedly made a huge contribution to Hong Kong, fighting fires at sea, in docks, on the waterfront where there were no fire hydrants, rescuing people from typhoons and floods etc.

Probably the two most famous incidents she was involved in were two fires that took place on successive years; the 1971 fire at the Jumbo floating restaurant (just before its official opening) that killed 34 workers; and the 1972 fire that destroyed the British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth in Victoria Harbour. The QE had recently been renamed Seawise University and was completing a major refit to equip her as a floating university before several mysterious fires broke out simultaneously and she was soon completely destroyed and capsized and sank in the harbour despite the fireboats' best efforts. 

The museum has a number of interesting displays of photographs, equipment, models, insignia etc as well as videos and is well worth a visit. During the hour that we spent there it was almost deserted, less than a handful of visitors; shame really, it should be better advertised.

In the afternoon we went to the Blue House, a 4-storey balcony-type tenement block pained blue colour, a Grade 1 listed building from the 1920s, one of nine Chinese-style pre-war buildings in Wan Chai that was recently preserved and renovated by the government. Unfortunately, little of it was open to the public – and the little that was open was not open today!

Not to waste the opportunity we walked on 100 yards and visited the Pak Tai Temple, also Grade 1 listed, the largest temple on Hong Kong Island, just over 150 years old, and with two large and impressive ficus (Chinese banyan) trees outside.

Pak Tai or the Northern (or Dark) Emperor was supposedly a prince of the Shang Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago who successfully commanded 12 heavenly legions against the Demon King. Even though the Demon King enlisted a large tortoise and a huge snake to help him, they proved no match for Pak Tai (and images of him often show him crushing a tortoise and a snake under his feet). He is still worshipped by people for his power, courage and devotion and is believed to be able to avert disasters and fight evil.

Inside, there are three halls and two of them have large images of the main deity, Pak Tai, the main hall also has giant size effigies of four of Pak Tai's soldiers, ready to do battle.

Although Pak Tai is a Taoist deity and most of the images are Taoist, Hong Kongers are not averse to a 'pick and mix' approach to their religious observances and I was not surprised to see other images, such as Kwun Yum, Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. 

 

 

New to me where the 60 'year' gods. Apparently, there is a particular god assigned for each year so the idea is that people worship the god of the current year and also the god of the year in which they were born, in the hope of enhancing the future...

As with most temples in Hong Hong, red and gold colours predominate, incredibly intricate lanterns hang from the ceiling, coils of incense burn incessantly, dozens of small lamps flicker, bamboo jars of fortune telling sticks stand ready, bells toll, supplicants bow three times holding burning joss sticks which they place in a holder before the god, attendants replace the food offerings before the shrine...and so on.

Pearl of the Orient

It's been almost two months since I last updated the blog – apologies! A mixture of serious infections chased away by multiple doses of antibiotics (one month) plus extra-busy commitments to various volunteering roles (another month) explains the gap.

Now, I'm on extended holiday in Hong Kong, true pearl of the Orient (the other contenders for the title are Manila and Sri Lanka). No question, Hong Kong is my favourite location on planet earth.

My last visit to Hong Kong was nearly two years ago and there have been a few changes, including two unfortunate developments in areas that particularly interest me – books and photography. Before every trip I salivate at the prospect of browsing in the city's excellent range of English-language bookshops and window-shopping at the dozens of excellent photographic stores, freshly stocked with the latest offerings from Japan.

...However, Dymock's, the Australian-owned chain of English-language bookshops, has closed down, as has the massive Singapore-owned Page One bookshop in Times Square mall. Why? Because expensive up-market restaurants and fashion retailers have offered more money – up to 30% more allegedly – for the rental space when the bookshops' current leases expired...and that's the story of Hong Kong, money talks - in fact it roars.

To compensate, the Taiwanese-owned chain Eslite has opened two massive bookshops, in Causeway Bay and TST. The vast majority of their stock is in the Chinese language, which guarantees a much better footfall and is also in line with the city's gradual Sinoization after 1997. The stores also house a variety of third-party merchandise, such as fashionable crockery, high-end luggage and niche electronics in a bid to attract the wealthy illiterate or those whose money is burning a hole in their pockets. (Those searching for new English-language books still have Bookazine, Kelly& Walsh, Hong Kong Book Centre and Swindon Books...but that's about it.)

The other sad development is the decline of photography outlets. Camera sales have fallen off a cliff since people discovered that their mobile phones could take perfectly decent photos. The latest data on Japanese camera exports that I have seen from the Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) is for September 2015, when 3.2 million units were exported, which is less than the same month in 2014 (4.0M) 2013 (5.9M) 2012 (7.4M) 2011 (13.6M) and 2010 (12.9). Imagine: in five short years camera exports during September have fallen by 75%.

That fact is not particularly evident in Brighton where camera shops continue to sell a variety of cameras. However, in Hong Kong many camera shops have closed down; there used to be several in Stanley Street in Central - now there are just one. The large department stores near where have I live (APiTA and Sogo) have given up selling cameras, the Broadway and Fortress chains no longer sell compact cameras, numerous other independent camera shops are gone and the malls that specialised in photographic equipment now only sell high-end DSLRs or the like.

Nevertheless, there is hope for the industry in that CSCs (compact system cameras) continue to innovate and introduce new technology at a bewildering rate that has flummoxed the complacent duopoly of Nikon and Canon. (No mobile phone can hope in the foreseeable future to match the output and convenience of the new Sony A7R ii).

Apart from these two 'blips', Hong Kong is functioning quite well. Tourist numbers are down and the mainland tourists' propensity to fill suitcases with expensive watches has been tempered somewhat by President Xi's war against corruption. Rental prices are slowing and there are warnings of a pending housing 'correction' in the mainland but that has not quietened Hong Kong's national bird – the jackhammer; construction continues at its usual frantic pace.

A housing correction is overdue. PwC's recent 'Building Better Cities' report of 2015 ranked Hong Kong only 11^th out of 28 cities in the APEC region that were evaluated for 'livability.' The telling statistic was the comparison of housing costs versus income; incomes have risen by 42% since 2007 but home prices have soared by 154% over the same period. Someone has done well – but clearly not the one million of Hong Kong's 7.1 million population who live in poverty.

While, for many, the city is a materialist heaven where any conceivable desire can be met – at a price – for others, particularly the elderly, unemployed and homeless, it must be hell. I am reminded of these lines from Charles Kingsley's poem 'The Buccaneer':

'Oh England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high;

But England is a cruel place for such poor folk such as I...'

There is a trend to renovate shops and restaurants to make them increasingly up-market and appealing to wealthy mainland tourists but, at the same time, there is resentment of the mainlanders' voracious appetites for housing and schooling, driving up prices and reducing supply; for consumables such as baby milk, causing shortages; and for creating mayhem, trailing their suitcases and failing to queue politely in the Hong Kong way.

What do you do when the mainland authorities forbid dissent and demand compliance as proof of patriotism? Well, the Hong Kong response was Occupy Central, an audacious but naïve student-led mass demonstration for freedom, democracy and the Hong-Kong-way-of-life that lasted for about nine weeks, morphing into the Umbrella Movement before it petered out. The spirit of Tiananmen Square inspired many but, as the demonstrations dragged on, the transport gridlock infuriated others, particularly businessmen and taxi drivers, dividing the city into two camps. The city is increasingly divided as this week's District Council elections showed with pro-democracy and pro-mainland parties both making gains at the expense of arguably more moderate parties.

So, is the rebellion completely over, have the mainlanders steamrollered all visible dissent? Not quite...this week the Chinese national team played the Hong Kong football team in a qualifying match for the World Cup. Officials let it be known that there should be no repetition of previous occasions when Hong Kongers had loudly and unpatriotically boo'd the Chinese National Anthem. This time all was quiet as the anthem played...except that quite a few Hong Kong fans held up placards that read 'Boo!'  

This is a city and a people to love, like no other!