WHETHER YOU LIKE TO ADMIT IT OR NOT, HK’S CONCRETE JUNGLE ACQUIRES A SEDUCTIVE CHARM AS IT IS BEJEWELED WITH LIGHTS, CREATING A FUTURISTIC SKYLINE THAT ENAMOURED EVEN BATMAN! WITH A 24/7 BINGE CULTURE, A RICH COLONIAL LEGACY, WITH INFRASTRUCTURE THAT SUPPORTS HUMAN POTENTIAL EXPONENTIALLY…AND GLOBAL TRADE SHOWS…SANGEETA WADDHWANI REFLECTS ON HER RECONNECT WITH HER SHINING, BOISTEROUS BIRTH CITY
Once upon a time, there was a port city with an inherent power to generate great wealth. But ironically, it was not self-governed or independent. Strangely, as an offspring of British Imperialism, HK developed into a star of the Asian firmament…a shopper’s paradise, foodie’s paradise, trekker’s challenge – for her mountains compete with her skyscrapers… showing you the heights of possibility!
HK boasted 56.91 million tourists a year, in 2019, till the Pandemic struck. India attracted a high of 10.93 million in 2019…a country so rich in art, culture, sacred sites and immortal temples and monuments. We stand at one fifth of tourist footfalls with so much to offer!
HK: HISTORY’S PRODIGY CITY
Britain occupied the island of Hong Kong on 25 January 1841 and used it as a military staging point. China was defeated (thanks to the evil Opium Wars orchestrated by the Brits to balance their trade of Chinese tea. Britain used to buy tea with silver coins, which over time, made it expensive to import. So, they got the Chinese addicted to Opium and before you knew it, profited hugely from China’s purchase of Opium. Then, Britain waged a war on the opium addicted Chinese military forces. When China lost that war, the nation was forced to cede Hong Kong in the Treaty of Nanking signed on 29 August 1842. The island became a Crown Colony of the British Empire. What an unlikely Foundation for a mega city that today, has global business footfalls and every luxury brand in its posh mega malls!
WANTON MIEN, WANCHAI AND MY BIRTH
It was in the later years of the Vietnam wars that my father set up shop in Wanchai, (today an iconic district where the film The Life of Suzy Wong was largely shot, and also the area where we see the awe inspiring Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre. Wanchai was then a sort of pitstop for sailors to get suits stitched up, often in 24 hours…and so our business boomed. In fact, the legendary Harilela family learned tailoring from the Muslim tailors in HK, built up a mail order business, and purchased their first hotel from the fortunes generated by this humble venture. They also got exclusive contracts to gather essential supplies for soldiers from the British…owing to their reputation of being honest and well priced. In the 90s, it was a known fact that Sindhis generated over 10 percent of ALL trade revenues for HK.
HK AS A MODEL SMART CITY FOR US
Hong Kong today, may lack the contemplative, spiritual vibe of a Mumbai, but at a worldly level, thanks to its bulletspeed psychology, it offers you days packed with infinite choices. In Mumbai, an excursion out of the city grid would eat so many hours of commuting, that it would take up a full day. In HK, we had the capacity to visit a serene, larger than life Buddha at Lantao, an island far away from the main city, and return to keep many other appointments through the day.
So imagine one minute you are a tourist, floating above a lush carpet of foliage and water bodies enroute to a Buddha…having a very cinemascopic experience thanks to the translucent glass bottom of your Crystal Cable car! We climbed to the top of the hill, offered our prayers and headed back down, rested for a bit and kept our appointments…all on time thanks to the world’s finest Mass Transit Railway.
THE SERENE BUDDHA OF LANTAO
WHERE TIME IS MONEY
The value for TIME is ‘central” ..(no pun intended about the Central shopping lanes)….to life in HK. It is literally spelled out on iconic, digitally lit sky scrapers …which present themselves as sleek canvases playing out the zeitgeist. Come Xmas time… the harbour skyscrapers offer you light displays filled with Xmas visual motifs!
…Do see the video below, captured from an evening cruise on Aqua Luna
When I compare this to the three hour journey I had visiting a friend last evening, , leaving South Mumbai for Bandra…I realised why we tend to meet friends here sparingly through the work week. You are literally caught like a spider in a daunting and unmoving web of traffic. In three hours I could have consumed a whole movie! Or flown to Dubai…
Wish we could fast track the new highways and the Metro…life will be far more conducive to staying in touch with people…minus fatigue and frustration.
Truly HK has moved so well with the times that forget the nomenclature of colony…it is a maximum city that grew beyond both what the imperial administrators AND the current HK SAR (Hong Kong Specisl Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China) status ever envisaged.
Yes when you land and see the shipping ports laden with containers yet to be shipped, you do feel sad. There is a marked Post Pandemic recession in mainland China with property prices crashing even in that jewel of a city our politicias seek to recreate – Shanghai.
While I was on my flight talking to Marwari jewellers taking part in the global Gems and Jewellery fair in HK…one of them told me he had lived in Shanghai for a few years and developed such fondness for the mainland city, that he felt sympathy for the economic crisis there!
Clearly business is business, no matter what the geo-political situation between India and China. We all know how betrayed PM Modi felt with Chinese troops continuing to grab Indian land around our Line of Control border. According to google searches. 2,000 sq km of Indian land has ceded to China since June 2020. And of course the Tibetans were forced to surrender to Chinese troops, while His Holiness the Dalai Lama propagates Buddhist values in exile in Dharamshala.
TWINKLE, TWINKLE, HONG KONG!
HK is really a blueprint for us as we build Modi’s proposed Smart Cities. She is Asia’s OG Smart City, because of her efficient administrators, anti corruption stance, hard working citizens and excellent infrastructure.
To be fair, we in Mumbai and India have the brightest range of conversations and truly democratic discourse. This is our truest USP over the Asian dragons. (And of course the notion that we are the 5th largest economy in the world, with the most prolific film industries offering blockbuster global hit songs and truly global spiritual figureheads)
I was also quite taken aback that cash transactions still dominate in HK….my Indian Forex card was a no go at the Jewellery expo! And they were not into G Pay either! Quel horror…when here in India we have so many digital wallets..from your grocer to your auto rickshaw guys…everybody has that precious UPI scan code suvidha:)
INDIAN SOUL AND HK HARDSELL
While I was thrilled to attend the Jewellery exhibition and meet and experience chats with jewellers from Turkey, Thailand, Japan, China, the US and the UK, the agenda felt commercial at its core. Only a Turkish man took me by surprise saying, “I am not married yet…just in case!” He had beautiful mythical gods and Goddesses engraved in chunky gold cocktail rings. And a diamond that once belonged to an Indian maharaja!
And one loved the gentle flamboyance of the Thai jewellers, with elaborate multi-stone settings. But again it was all about trade! What truly felt like a jewellers museum experience was the Vintage and Antiquities Pavillion. This was where the jewels of the world’s RICH AND FAMOUS were on display. Having written many features on the diamond eaters of yore, (Wallace Simpson of Great Britain and Sita Devi oF Baroda for example), I was yearning to listen to Stories of provenance around creations by Cartier, Van Cleef &Arpels, Bvlgari, Boucheron, etc. Sadly a lot of the merchants there were reluctant to mention previous owners and anecdotes! One noticed that New York merchants would only entertain Indian queries where they knew a family member to be LOADED!
THE GRAND CONCLUSION
So the storyteller in me will always have an umbilical attachment to India…ironic because I wasn’t born here! But if you ask me, HK is a multiplier space…you may be poor in democratic discourse, but you revel in being a Material Girl…and of course, I loved the warmth and sentiment of being around my fellow Sindhis! And a big shout out to my thoughtful sister, Meena Chainrai, who made sure we had the finest of experiences!
#hkdiaries #lantau #chowmien #asiantiger
LIFE OF A MAGAZINE EDITOR 