The Hong Kong Pages:
Facts, trivia, history and more
If you’re not from HK, that moment when you first set eyes on the place – whether it’s from the window of a plane, a taxi or the Airport Express – is one to remember. The same applied for travellers in the 19th century (though their first glimpse, of course, was always from a boat). Here, in their own words, are a couple of descriptions of Hong Kong from first-time visitors.
Author: Lilian Leland
Book: Traveling Alone. A Woman’s Journey Around the World
Year: 1890
To begin with, it has one of the prettiest harbours in the world, and secondly Hong Kong itself is very pretty and pleasant. Whenever I have mentioned Hong Kong to other people, it has been disposed of in the one expressive word, “hot”. I confess to its having been rather warm the day of my arrival, but after that was pleasantly cool.
The first morning, Sunday, we went to the summit of the Island of Hong Kong, which appears to be nothing but a mountain thrown up out of the sea. From the summit – and in fact all the way up the road – is to be seen one of the loveliest views of sea and land conceivable. The harbour is truly a beautiful one.
The journey up was represented to me as extremely fatiguing and there were serious doubts expressed about my being able to go all the way, but as a matter of fact it turned out to be a ridiculously smooth, well kept, level road, considering it led to the top of a rather abrupt mountain. After my mountain travels in Japan I laughed its difficulties to scorn.
Despite the derision that New York native Leland aims at all who doubted her ability to get up to the top of the Peak, there’s one caveat worth mentioning. In her own words: “We were carried up in chairs by Chinese coolies.” That might explain the lack of fatigue…
These streets exhibit strange local pictures. The shoemaker plies his trade in the open thoroughfare; cooking is going on at all hours in the gutters beside the roads; itinerant peddlers dispense food made of mysterious materials; the barber shaves his customer up on the sidewalk; the universal fan is carried by the men, and not by the women.
The men wear skirts, and the women wear pantaloons. The dressmakers are not women, but men. We uncover the head as a mark of respect; they take off their shoes for the same purpose, but keep their heads covered. We shave the face; they shave the head and eyebrows.
At dinner, we begin the meal with soup and fish; they reverse the order and begin with the dessert. The old men fly kites while the boys look on; shuttlecock is their favourite game; it is played, however, not with the hands, but with the feet. White constitutes the mourning colour, and black is the wedding hue.
In short, these people seem to be our antipodes in customs as well as geographically.
Hong Kong clearly gave the Boston-born Ballou a rather strong bolt of culture shock. Still, there was at least one place where he felt at home. “On and about the lofty Victoria Peak are many charming bungalows, or cottages, with attractive surroundings, which enjoy a noble prospect of the harbour and country.”