SCRAPING THE SKY
Number of buildings taller than 150 metres: Hong Kong 317 New York 257 Dubai 177 Joburg 3
From just above street level in Central, the economic heart of Hong Kong Island, the towering facades of buildings form a captivating tunnel that gives rise to an unexpected sense of space. It’s far from oppressive: the perspective of the streets evokes a curiosity that draws you deeper into the city.
Despite its glossy appearance, the soul of this leading global financial centre is an old one. Before the mid-1800s, when the words hong kong (Cantonese for ‘fragrant harbour’) still held some truth, the area was home to a handful of fisherfolk. But when the trading port flourished under British control and the Japanese invaded China, emigrants from the mainland rushed to Hong Kong, bringing ancient beliefs and traditions with them.
These days, those practices are reflected in the glitzy facade of modern life. In temples around Hong Kong, photos of cars, cell phones and ‘ghost money’ (fake notes) are burnt alongside incense as offerings to the spirit world. The intersection of Hennessy Road and Canal Road, below the Causeway Bay flyover, might well be the last place on Earth where ‘petty person beating’ – the act of symbolically pounding someone who has wronged you – still takes place. On Hollywood Road, 170-yearold Man Mo temple is tightly squashed between towering modern apartment blocks. One – more than 30 storeys high – is completely wrapped in neat bamboo scaffolding, engineers’ material of choice in a region that is fast learning that the old ways are often still the best.
In the shadow of the world’s longest outdoor escalator system, city residents haggle with stall
owners over the price of fresh fruit and dried seafood. While there are lavish malls all around Hong Kong, small stores still do brisk business selling traditional medicines, and intriguing places like the bird, goldfish and flower markets in Mong Kok still attract thousands of shoppers daily.
When you look from The Peak, the highest point on Hong Kong Island, across Victoria Harbour to Kowloon, the tunnels of streets disappear and flat walls create a subtle backdrop to ribbons of windows. In the early mornings as those buildings empty, trails of people and buses and trams and taxis flow and stop and flow and stop between grids of bold yellow lines. The energy here is tangible – visible – and, although some seven-million people are channelled into narrow spaces throughout Hong Kong, life seems to flow effortlessly.
While the movement of people is directed by human creations, much of what humans have created has been influenced by what we cannot see. The principles of feng shui – which include positioning objects and buildings in harmony with nature – play a major role in shaping Hong Kong, as the belief is that good feng shui will attract prosperity. According to Chinese folklore, dragons need to pass each day between their mountaintop lairs and the sea, so many structures have been designed to accommodate their movements. Some buildings have great holes – dragon gates – in them, while others have been carefully oriented or shaped so as to not disturb the dragons’ paths.
Feng shui filters through almost every aspect of life in Hong Kong: architecture, business deals, relationships, the arrangement of furniture. Even the goldfish market reflects the principles. Most fish sold here tick one of three boxes: they’re long and thin in shape (to cut through your troubles), round and red (like a coin, to attract wealth) or small and black (to take your bad luck with them when they die).
I’d snapped a photo to send Anja – the reflections and swirls of black and orange a reminder of the goldfish she once had. I added it to an album, along with one of flowers bulging from a tin on a street corner; glass facades that turn the cityscape into abstract illustrations; spirals of incense and smoke brought to life by shafts of sunlight. Circular doorways. Shapes and rhythms of gates and signs and walls and street art. ‘Finding beauty in unexpected places’ I’d labelled the album. A title and a life lesson.
Anja never saw these photos: she passed away shortly after I returned from Hong Kong and I never got the chance to say, ‘How right you were, my friend.’ There is beauty in this concrete city, and the deeper you look the more astounding it becomes.
‘Much of what humans have created has been influenced by what we cannot see’