Zonghan Xie

University of New South Wales, Australia
Exchange to City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Not long after I settled in Hong Kong with my wife and our two years old son we started our exploration of this mega oriental city. On a Saturday morning, we got up early in our two bedroom flat in a high-rise. Looking out of the window, the blue sky seemed to be covered by a thin white silk, a typical Hong Kong day, which reminded of air pollution threat to this beautiful harbour. The temperature of February in Hong Kong was pleasant, which was a great comfort to us who just came from down-under (hot summer!). Quickly packing up, we came down to a street restaurant, where we ate rice porridges with fish meat, and tasted 1000-year-old eggs, which were actually just a month or two old. From time to time, I saw people dressed like secretaries and other office workers came in and grabbed a bowl of soup noodles. In Hong Kong most people had to work on Saturday morning. Thirty minutes later, we saw ourselves sitting in an underground train heading towards to the city centre, where we took a 100-year-old tram up to the peak, a highest point on the island, for a panoramic view of the city. It was fun riding the peak tram on a mountain slope over 45°. We were amazed to know that since its opening in 1888 there had never been an accident on the tramway. On the peak, the views of the city below and harbour were spectacular. Lord Palmerston would have deeply regretted for his rage over 150 years ago to Captain Elliot, the man responsible for the Hong Kong deal “A barren island with hardly a house upon it! It will never be a mart for trade.”

The Hong Kong people have created a miracle in a short history by making Hong Kong an international financial centre in Asia and turning the wild land one of most expensive properties in the world.

After stretching our legs on a summit circuit we came down to a dim sum restaurant for a yum cha lunch, a most popular lunch for us on weekends in Australia. The restaurant was very large and noisy, we saw, like in Australia, dim sum delicacies steamed in small bamboo baskets before being served. Typically, each basket contained three or four identical pieces. It is said that there are about 1000 different dim sum dishes! Facing large varieties of dishes, we chose what we most liked “my wife got crispy beancurd rolls, steamed barbecued pork buns”, my son went after steamed rice flour rolls with shrimp and I, of course, grabbed fried chicken feet. When we came out of the restaurant, we competed for the biggest belly with each other and my wife won partly because she was pregnant. I was also wondering if that little one inside her belly enjoyed. Passing through the crowds on the street, we arrived at pier 4 of Outlaying islands ferry terminal, whereby we headed for Lamma, the territory’s third-largest island.

Lamma is home to an estimated 5,000 fisherfolk, farmers and foreigners, and the hills above the main village are strewn with small homes and apartment blocks where we found a world of peace and quiet in a striking contrast to the busy and noisy city just next door. We followed the 4km-long (Family Trail) and took a short rest at an idyllic bay at the bottom of a steep hill, which reminded us of our old home near La Perouse in Sydney. When sunset came in, we reached the end of the Trail, and we knew it was time for seafood, one of the finest attractions the island offers. Enjoying the most delicious meal we ever had since coming to Hong Kong while watching the sunset on the horizon, I remembered a sentence from the opening page of a guide book of Hong Kong, which would best describe my feeling about Hong Kong, crowded and deafening, its peaceful and deserted. Hong Kong “a place that simply shouldn’t be but is.”

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