By Lawrence Boyd

A jet-fresh Englishman talks about his first impressions of Hong Kong and finds there's more than meets the eye.

It is perhaps the measure of the place that in certain respects nothing much has changed in the past 151 years. Hong Kong’s exotic jumble of architecture and flexible morality, along with the obsession with money and its many trappings, have always been the wily bed fellows of the more spiritual and progressive aspects of the hard-working, respectful inhabitants. The old Chinese tenements, more than just shabby and forgotten, but often dangerous and unsightly too, have been rightly overshadowed by any urban developer’s wet dream: the brightly lit skyscrapers of Victoria harbour. They proudly guard the lush hills behind, full of dewy fauna and exotic wildlife, and have come to symbolise the city’s modern financial and aesthetic power.

I.M.Pei’s Bank of China Building being a case in point. It’s sharp, sleek, idiosyncratic surfaces give off an air of modernism and forward thinking - a ‘can do’ attitude that speaks volumes in the increasing negativity and cynicism of old, fusty Europe to the west. No wonder then that the highly regarded Chinese-born American architect supposedly taught himself English by reading, alongside the Bible,the novels of Charles Dickens – a social realist obsessed with the poor, the vagrant and the down-trodden. Dickens’ characterswere packed tightinto a pulsating urban metropolis full of alcoholism, prostitution and corruption. Was he describing London or Hong Kong, I wonder? And perhaps there is no city on this fair planet that more richly deserves the moniker of a ‘living, breathing juxtaposition’ than Hong Kong - what the literary world’s most treasured transsexual female author, Jan Morris,described as a ‘louche and lascivious place.’ It was a place she adored, too.

It seems to me, the newcomer to this ‘fragrant harbour’ (as the city’s name loosely translates), to be a place dripping with a healthy spattering of progress, ambition, respect, energy, vice, guile and, most importantly – sex. The air in Hong Kong, sticky and sweet in the summer, cool and sensuous in the autumn, seems to suggest that with sex, like with everything else here, anything goes. Fresh off the boat from the distant shores of England, that windy, grey barren isle of yore, I was thrust into this gracious arena where anything goes, and everyone comes. From the topless bars of Wan Chai that once served medalled viceroys of the Victorian era, to the lusty, war-paranoid American soldiers in the 50s, 60s and 70s to today’s American, Japanese and European bankers. A welcome retreat from a day’s number crunching or deal breaking, a place to let off some steam and ease the pressure of the very industry heads that keeps the whole place ticking, ticking, ticking along.

As for myself, a writer of some (dis) repute, I sense that wherever you look, wherever you stick your ears, you see and hear the regard for physical pleasure and the finer things in life. Not everything at a cost mind. Casual swinging abounds out in Discovery Bay, an enclave many regard as a sort of early retirement village for ‘stay-at-home’ mothers barely out of their twenties – all lithe and svelte after a day’s reiki and yoga. I can see why so many men become airline pilots. Random days off mid-week, keys in the pot, jump into bed, nothing said.
I’ve been here just shy of two weeks and the same stories of sexual and social freewheeling have cropped up at every barbeque, cocktail party and dinner I have thus far attended. It brings back the idea of the lascivious nature of the place. Even yours truly tasted the sweet pulp barely a day on shore.

It seems things move fast here. And my how they move. For Hong Kong is a city run by high earnings and high libidos, where deep down a seedy underworld exists of expat sexual high jinks rubbing shoulders with an indigenous society keeping the authorities at arm’s length. On the more ‘trivial’ side, illegal betting and prostitution, to the more powerful and unseen racketeering where drug trafficking, contract killings and extortion is the order of the day. Two sunburnt gweilos sweating away in a cramped studio apartment for an ‘afternoon between the sheets’pales in comparison to the well-intentioned civil servant or nosy investigative journalist who receives a severed dog’s head in the post for halting a planned development here, or snooping too far into their businessthere. You see, my first impressions have me intrigued, excited and alarmed in equal measure – just as life is supposed to.

But not everything is quite so appealingly sordid. There was much to genuinely admire as I stepped off the boat that day, like a modern-day Captain Smith surveying his new world. Of course, first impressions are more often than not a combination of one’s early sightings, smells and sounds (for which Hong Kong is a sense-man’s playground) and the hearsay of old-timers, veterans and locals.
 

A hearty jaunt up the peak trail one afternoon can be swiftly followed by a dinner date at one of the more exclusive dwellings in the very same area. With a drawing room that overlooks possibly the finest cityscape in the world, and merlot you didn’t think drinkable this side of the Ganges, your hosts give you addresses of restaurants you should visit, places you should see, and the phone numbers of practically anyone they can think of that can give you this and that and much more.

For one thing that has stuck me above all else – and this applies to everything – is the generosity of time and spirit, and the drive to (net) work. Nowhere else compares when it comes to sharing and to advising. It’s a form of mutual gratification. An ‘I’ll rub your back if you rub mine’ attitude that has oiled the cogs of this place since Captain Charles Elliot first notified his British counterparts of its importance in the 1840s. And what a backrub that could end up being.

Perhaps it is my fresh-faced naiveté, although I am fully aware of the warnings must be heeded and what salt must be pinched, from the curse of the first impression (it may seem exotic, but it is essentially a practical style) to the ever so slightly incestuous nature that pervades here. Knowing everyone is an advantage, but everyone knowing you is not.

All told, my first thoughts regarding this Far Eastern entrepôt, this enterprising port city, is that it is above all else unashamedly captivating and beguiling. It is pulsating and teeming with people, with buildings, with bars, with restaurants, with trees, with beaches, with water, with boats and with passion. It has a heartbeat that is as strong as the sea here is green, and it has a soul that is as at times soaring and wild, and others peaceful and silent. Whether you are awoken by the bright sun of a January morning, and blessed by the soaring hawks around Kennedy Town, or the humid haze that blankets the 235 humped, comatose and supine islands in July – you will not want to leave too soon, and may, in fact, end up staying forever.

Lawrence Boyd