Tsui section at the tip of the Kowloon Peninsula and within a five-minute
walk of the Star Ferry terminal. Nine-tenths of the Kowloon hotels and
luxury shops are strung along Nathan Road, the central thoroughfare, and
its intersecting streets. At its best, Tsim Sha Tsui is a tourists’ Happy
Hunting Ground; at its worst, it is an outrageously over-priced deadfall.
The refugee resettlement estates spread across the upper end of the
Kowloon Peninsula, several miles north of Tsim Sha Tsui. Visitors
who want to see what has been done to help the colony’s refugees—and
to appreciate how much must still be undertaken—should visit the
resettlement estates and the remaining squatter shacks with either a
guide or an experienced Hong Kong welfare worker. The terrain is too
irregular and the estates too extensive to be covered on foot.
Visitors with an archaeological turn of mind may want to have a look
at the Li Cheng Uk tomb in Sham Shui Po, about a mile north of the
Kowloon-New Territories boundary. Workmen excavating for the Li Cheng Uk
Resettlement Estate discovered the tomb in August, 1955. Its T-shaped
chambers and barrel-vault roof containing pottery and bronze objects from
the Later Han Dynasty (A.D. 25-220) and Six Dynasties (A.D. 220-589)
indicate that the Chinese may have settled in Hong Kong and neighboring
Kwangtung Province many centuries earlier than had been supposed. The
colony government preserved the tomb by encasing it in an outer shell of
concrete, built a small garden and museum around it, and opened it to the
public in 1957.
A guided motor tour, probably the best way of seeing the New Territories,
carries the visitor through the manufacturing center at Tsuen Wan, then
west past the beaches and eroded hillsides to Castle Peak. The tour
proceeds through some of the colony’s best farmland to the marketing and
shopping center at Yuen Long.
Brown cattle and water buffalo are the only aids to human labor on these
farms, and every square foot of land is fertilized, weeded, irrigated and
tilled with unsparing diligence. Walled cities, such as Kam Tin, appear
along the way. Once they were fortresses to protect the farming families
against marauding bands; today they are packed with poor people living in
cubicles.
If border conditions are stable, the driver may continue to Lak Ma Chau,
a hillside overlooking Red China’s farming communes on the far side of
the Sham Chun River. The return route is through the fishing settlement
at Tai Po, with a view of Tolo Harbor, one of the finest in Hong Kong. In
the Shatin Valley, with its intricate pattern of terraced rice fields,
the sightseer may catch a glimpse of Amah Rock, a natural formation
resembling a woman with an infant on her back.
Chinese legend depicts the rock as the survival of a woman whose husband
left to fight in China many centuries ago. For days and months she
climbed the hill and looked out to sea, awaiting her husband’s return.
Their child was born before she at last caught sight of her husband’s
ship, and she was so overcome by excitement and joy that she died on the
spot. After her death, her neighbors were astonished to see a heap of
rocks take on the appearance of a woman carrying a child on her back.
As the car passes through the reservoir area above Kowloon, a wild rhesus
monkey of the surrounding forests may be seen begging for a roadside
handout. Game of any kind is not abundant in the colony, but there are
a few ferret-badgers, civet cats, otter, barking deer, rodents and an
exceedingly rare leopard. There are 38 kinds of snakes, including the
banded krait, king cobra and pit viper, although deaths from snake bites
very seldom occur. Over 300 species of birds have been identified.
Hundreds of kinds of tropical butterflies, including the Atlas Moth, with
a maximum wing-spread of nine inches, present the brightest specks on
the countryside, sometimes covering a forest grove like an extra set of
leaves.
Since Hong Kong embraces 237 islands besides the Kowloon Peninsula and
the mainland portions of the New Territories, a tourist must take to the
boats if he is to see more than a fraction of its varied topography. Boat
service to the larger inhabited islands is frequent and cheap.
Every Saturday afternoon at 3 o’clock an excursion boat leaves the
Vehicular Ferry Pier for a three-hour circuit of Hong Kong Island.
It cruises east along the waterfront, through Lei Yue Mun pass at the
eastern harbor entrance, then turns south off the island’s east coast.
The rugged coast and fine homes of Shek-O are at the right, with the
outlying islands of Tung Lung and Waglan at the left. The course swings
past the south shore resort coast, around the west end of the island
and back to the starting point. This trip, at 50 cents for adults and a
quarter for children, is the seagoing bargain of Hong Kong.
A more leisurely round-island voyage, taking 4½ hours, leaves the Kowloon
and Queens piers every morning, and includes a close-up of the Yau Ma Tei
Typhoon Shelter on the west side of Kowloon Peninsula. Going west around
the island, it sails as far as Repulse Bay, turns back toward Deep Water
Bay and stops at Aberdeen for lunch before returning around the west end
of the island to its starting point. A variation of the trip permits the
excursionist to leave the boat at Aberdeen and complete the tour with
a motor trip via Stanley, Tai Tam Reservoir, Shau Kei Wan, Tiger Balm
Gardens, Wanchai, and Victoria Peak. Lunch and soft drinks are included,
but this is not a low-price attraction.
A two-hour afternoon water tour offers tourists a view of the harbor,
including the island waterfront, Kai Tak airstrip and the harbor islands.
If one prefers travel in a craft rather loosely resembling a junk, he may
cover most of the same harbor points visited by the regular launch.
The brigantine _Wan Fu_, in addition to its evening cruise to Aberdeen,
puts on a plush inter-island tour lasting five hours, with cocktails,
canapés and a catered buffet luncheon served aboard. The _Wan Fu_ sails
through Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter, westward past Stonecutters Island,
Lantau, and the little island of Peng Chau before tying up at Cheung
Chau for an informal walking tour around this fishermen’s settlement,
scene of the annual Bun Festival.
Cheung Chau is one of the pleasantest islands in the colony, with neat
vegetable gardens planted in its interior hollows, a long stretch of
sandy beach and a cluster of English summer homes on its low hills. The
village shopping area is a busy place, with narrow, crowded streets, an
old temple and a sidewalk shrine to a tree-god. Cost of the _Wan Fu_
cruise is in line with its luxurious accommodations.
Ferry services to Cheung Chau, Peng Chau, Tsing Yi Island and Lantau
are operated by the Hongkong and Yaumati Ferry Co. Excursion boats may
also be hired at fixed rates for reaching any of these islands. Once the
visitor gets to the islands, he will have to depend mostly on his feet to
get around. As a matter of course, he should determine in advance when
the next boat is scheduled to return to Hong Kong Island; otherwise, he
may spend the night in some rural retreat with no tourist hotels.
Peng Chau, with a population of about 4,000 persons, has several small
industries typical of an earlier day in Hong Kong, such as tanning and
lime burning. It was an important match manufacturing center before Macao
competition overshadowed it. It also harbors small farming and fishing
settlements.
Hei Ling Chau, a nearby island, houses the colony’s leprosarium, run
by the local auxiliary of the Mission to Lepers. It has 540 patients,
including refugees from Red China who were turned out of a leprosarium
near Canton when the Communists closed it down. A visit to the island
may be arranged through the Mission in Hong Kong and is worthwhile on
two counts; it will clear up many common misconceptions about the
disease and show the visitor how far medicine has progressed in treating
a disease that was once considered fatal. When a Chinese became a known
sufferer from the disease, he was, until a few years ago, driven from the
community and his family were subjected to abuse by their former friends.
Hei Ling Chau conveys no sense of hopelessness today. Its well-kept
stone cottages, workshops, hospital and chapel are arranged around a
thriving vegetable garden cultivated by the patients. The unsatisfactory
chaulmoogra oil treatment has been replaced by streptomycin, sulfones
and other new drugs. Surgery has helped to restore the function of hands
crippled by the disease. It is not true that the fingers of lepers drop
off; the bones shrink if the disease is not checked.
Most cases on the island are infectious, but chances that a visitor
will catch the disease are almost nil. Its chief victims are the
undernourished poor. Although leprosy is not hereditary, children may
contract it from parents. About 30 young victims of leprosy presently
attend a primary school on Hei Ling Chau while being treated. Their
chances of recovery are excellent. Early, mild infections can often be
cleared up within a year; advanced cases may take many years to cure.
Under staff instruction, many patients have become competent tailors,
embroiderers, carpenters, cabinet makers or basket weavers. Very few are
bedridden, unless they have an additional disease such as tuberculosis.
About a third of the patients are women. Everything concerned with the
operation of Hei Ling Chau reflects intelligence and devotion in helping
lepers to find their way back to useful living.
Tsing Yi Island, off Tsuen Wan, has a few minor industries such as lime
burning and brick making, and its steep hillsides grow an especially
sweet variety of pineapple. There is also a community of fishermen and a
small village with stores where one may purchase food and soft drinks.
Chickens and chow dogs, unmenaced by autos, roam its streets. When cold
weather comes, some of the chows will vanish. Many Chinese regard chow
meat as a delicacy that will keep the consumer warm in winter, increase
his strength and fortify his virility. Killing chows for food is illegal,
but every winter the police arrest dozens of dog killers, and the courts
hand them high fines and jail sentences.
Lantau Island has only one stretch of paved road in its 55-square-mile
extent, but it is a favorite spot for hikers and religious pilgrims.
There is a good bathing beach at Silvermine Bay, where the ferry stops,
and the paved road, traveled by a new bus line, connects it with the
dam-building site at Shek Pik.
Some years ago the island was so isolated that its people built stone
towers as redoubts against the forays of pirates. By government
permission, residents were allowed to keep arms to defend themselves
against raiders. Several of the old towers still stand.
The Buddhist monastery of Po Lin Chi, on a mountain plateau two miles
north of Shek Pik, is inhabited by a small community of monks and
nuns living from the produce of its fruit trees and gardens and the
contributions of pilgrims who struggle up a mountain path to visit
the retreat. Visitors are welcome and may stay overnight at a guest
house on the grounds. Meals are prepared on wood fires in an ancient,
smoke-stained kitchen. Surrounded by its orchards and with two or three
massive tombs on the surrounding hills, Po Lin Chi is a quiet echo of
James Hilton’s _Shangri-La_.
There are other monasteries on Lantau, with the Trappist Monastery at Tai
Shui Hang, in the northeast part of the island, perhaps the best-known.
In the last decade its community of 22 priests, lay brothers and novices
has planted and redeveloped its large farm acreage.
Tai O town, on the west coast of Lantau, is its largest settlement, with
nearly 8,000 inhabitants. Tai O has a community of Tanka fishing people
living in wooden huts raised on stakes over a muddy inlet. A regular
ferry service brings hiking parties from Hong Kong Island to toil up
the hillsides to Po Lin Chi. They stay overnight at its guest house and
descend on the opposite side of the mountains to catch the ferry at
Silver Mine Bay for the trip home.
For a completely different kind of scenery, the inquisitive traveler may
visit Tap Mun Chau, an island at the eastern edge of the New Territories.
The Kowloon-Canton Railway takes him to Tai Po Station on Tolo Harbor,
where he may catch the Tap Mun Chau ferry. The boat nudges up to the
foot of Ma On Shan, a craggy, 2,300-foot peak, unloads a cargo of pigs
and a few Hakka farmers, and pushes east through Tolo Channel, bordered
by round hills. Three Fathoms Cove is the boat’s second stop. It is just
south of Plover Cove, the deep inlet from Tolo Channel which colony
engineers propose to seal off, pump out its salt-water contents, and
replace with a fresh-water reservoir.
Most of the stops along this six-hour run are made offshore, disembarking
passengers reaching land in small sampans. The boat turns south at the
seaward end of Tolo Channel and travels the length of Long Harbor between
high, barren hills. Looking at these hills, the passenger may understand
how easily Chinese pirates of the last century could slip out of this
hidden harbor, pounce on passing ships and make their escape behind the
sheltering mountains.
Villages are strung along the water’s edge at intervals, but their
shallow harbors and small docks cannot handle the ferry boat. The usual
sampan, sometimes adroitly propelled by a pair of half-grown boys, rows
out to meet the larger boat. There is a dock-side stop at Tap Mun town,
where the harbor is crowded with fishing junks, but the layover is too
short to permit a walk ashore.
Darkness comes on slowly while the boat heads back, non-stop, to Tai Po,
but there are bright patches of light along the water—fishermen using
gasoline lanterns to lure their catch into a net spread between two
boats. The stars look down from a cloudless sky, and through a gap in
the bulky hills, the lights of Hong Kong Island glow in the distance. By
early evening, the traveler has gotten his train and is back in Kowloon.
There is so much to see in this colony that no one can compress it into
a single visit. Many tourists have returned a dozen times, knowing that
each trip would bring some new revelation of unsuspected beauty, some
fresh insight into the character of Hong Kong’s people.
No book, map nor brochure can tell a colony visitor exactly what to
expect. He walks down a street and comes upon the unexpected every day.
It may be a Chinese funeral procession with a marching band playing “Bye
Bye Blackbird.” Or a professional letter-writer, taking dictation with a
stylus at his sidewalk table. Or the clatter of Mah Jongg players as they
slam the pieces on the table.
It may be a visit to Temple Street in Kowloon, with its odd restaurants
and all-night bustle of activity. Or the Kee Heung Tea House at 597
Shanghai Street, Kowloon, where customers bring their caged birds and
discuss them while they sip.
Even the hardiest tourist will be exhausted long before he has exhausted
the sights and sounds of Hong Kong.
CHAPTER TEN
Shopping before Dinner
“The culinary art is certainly above all others in Hong
Kong.”—HAROLD INGRAMS, _Hong Kong_, 1952
Something happens to the spending habits of all tourists when they reach
Hong Kong. Wallets fly open, purse-strings snap and money gushes forth in
a golden shower.
It is a matter of record that in Hong Kong more tourists spend more
money in a shorter time than in any other port of the Far East or the
Pacific west of the American mainland. They shell out $120 a day during
an average visit of five days, and almost 70 percent of the $600 five-day
total is spent on things the tourist intends to take home. (The figures
come, not from Hong Kong, but from an exhaustive study of Pacific and Far
Eastern tourism made for the United States Department of Commerce.)
This $120-a-day spending average is applicable to all the colony’s
civilian visitors except Overseas Chinese. In 1961, the total of such
visitors was 210,000, and it was made up of 72,000 Americans, 67,000
British and 71,000 visitors of other nationalities. The number of
tourists has more than doubled in the last four years. The Department of
Commerce study estimates that the total may climb to 490,000 in 1968,
and that tourists could be expected to spend $270 million in the crown
colony during the same year. If all this comes to pass, it will carry the
merchants of Hong Kong into the full sunlight of a golden age.
But how about the tourist? What does he get for his money that causes
him to run hog-wild in Hong Kong shops? The answers are as varied as the
shrewdness or the gullibility of the individual tourist.
Let’s consider the gullible ones; they are so numerous and vulnerable.
The plump lady stuffing herself into a form-fitting Cheongsam. The
overnight Beau Brummel, swallowed alive by the 24-hour “custom-tailored”
suit he bought without taking the time for proper fittings. The customer
who accepts the first price quoted by a Chinese merchant. The photography
bug who buys a standard West German camera at the most exclusive
department store in the heart of the high-rent district, when he could
get the same thing for 20 percent less at a number of small, reliable
photo-supply shops. The optimist who thinks he can persuade a British
clerk to knock down a fixed price. The lamb who lets a sidewalk “shopping
guide” lead him to a fleecing. The poor soul who buys a Swiss watch, a
Japanese camera, or any other name product without comparing prices of
several Hong Kong shops or knowing the minimum sale price of the same
article in his own country. The woman who buys a particular line of
famous pearls from anyone except the authorized dealer.
Above all, the American who buys a piece of rare jade without a
Comprehensive Certificate of Origin, and consequently has it confiscated
by Customs when he reenters the United States. For that matter, any
American who buys a “presumptive item”—an article which the U.S.
government suspects was made in Red China or North Korea—without a
Comprehensive Certificate of Origin.
This business of the Comprehensive Certificate of Origin is a recurrent
pain in the neck to American shoppers and Hong Kong merchants alike.
Nevertheless, as an item of United States foreign policy, it must be
deferred to by American tourists in Hong Kong. Many reputable shop-owners
will not apply to the colony’s Commerce and Industry Department for the
right to issue Comprehensive Certificates of Origin, because it involves
so much paperwork, red tape, and delay that the shops would just as soon
skip the American market and concentrate on the British and others who
can buy without these pesky certificates.
The list of items considered to be presumptive is by no means clear-cut,
and the items on it may change from time to time, further clouding the
issue. Some of the articles considered presumptive are: brassware,
brocade, ceramics, cotton goods, embroidery, figurines, wood furniture,
greeting cards, handicrafts, ivory ware, jade, semiprecious jewelry,
lacquerware, porcelain ware, woolen rugs, silks and wallpaper.
The nonpresumptive articles, or those that can be freely imported into
the U.S., include: binoculars, cameras, cashmere items, enamelware,
furs (but not all furs), precious stones, leather goods, mosaics,
mother-of-pearl, plastic articles, rattan ware, sporting goods,
umbrellas, watches, wool clothing and yachts.
These lists are merely indicative; up-to-date and official information
can be obtained in Hong Kong by calling the Foreign Assets Control
division of the U.S. Consulate General. If in any doubt about the
status of a purchase, pay no attention to the merchant who declares that
a Comprehensive Certificate of Origin is unnecessary; if his advice is
erroneous, he will not post the buyer’s bail.
A Comprehensive Certificate of Origin costs five Hong Kong dollars,
or 87.5 cents, and will cover many articles bought at the same store,
provided that their value does not exceed HK $1,500, or US $262. It is
applied for when the purchase is made. The store sends it to the colony
government for official clearance, and when this comes through, usually
in about a week, the articles are shipped to the U.S. address designated.
The amount of duty-free goods an American tourist could buy abroad was
cut from $500 to $100 in 1961, but merchants of the crown colony say it
has not seriously affected their business. At Hong Kong prices, Americans
apparently feel they can pay duties and still have a bargain. They are
still permitted to buy duty-free any number of items intended as gifts
valued at less than $10 each, provided they do not mail more than one
gift a day to the same person.
Colony shops with the right to issue Comprehensive Certificates of Origin
always post a sign in their windows to advertise the fact; it helps to
attract American customers. But there are a few tricksters who will
attempt to palm off a fraudulent or nonapplicable certificate. The only
certificate of value to an American purchaser, it should be stressed, is
the Comprehensive Certificate of Origin.
There are two main shopping areas in the colony: the Central District of
Hong Kong Island, and the Tsim Sha Tsui section at the tip of the Kowloon
Peninsula. Both areas can easily be covered on foot, and the shopper’s
budget is guaranteed to wear out much sooner than his shoe leather.
King’s Road, the main avenue through North Point in the northeastern
part of Hong Kong island, is also a good shopping area for tourists. The
Chinese and knowledgeable Caucasian residents, however, shop over a much
wider area on both sides of the harbor.
Central District shopping for tourists runs west along Queen’s Road
Central, Des Voeux Road Central, Chater Road and Connaught Road Central
from Statue Square, opposite the Star Ferry terminal, to the Vehicular
Ferry Pier at Jubilee Street. The best British department stores are
toward the eastern end of this small zone, such as Whiteaway Laidlaw &
Co. on Connaught Road near the General Post Office, and Lane, Crawford’s
on Des Voeux Road. Both have Kowloon branches as well, and their prices
range from fairly high to forbidding. They are comparable to top-quality
department stores in New York or San Francisco, and their marked price is
unalterable. No dickering. Even so, they undersell many stores overseas
because Hong Kong is with very few exceptions a duty-free port.
The American shopper will need to keep the Comprehensive Certificate of
Origin problem in mind constantly as he branches out to other stores, but
there’s no harm in looking. The larger Chinese stores in the area include
Chinese Arts & Crafts and China Emporium, both on Queen’s Road, and the
Shui Hing Co., The Sincere Co. and Wing On, Ltd., all on Des Voeux Road.
The Man Yee Building on Des Voeux Road has two floors of shops with
radios, typewriters, curios, watches and tape recorders, plus many other
articles; they are well worth checking, either to buy or for comparing
prices. The Japanese have opened a large department store, Daimaru, at
Causeway Bay, just west of the North Point section.
The Gloucester Building at Des Voeux Road and Pedder Street has an
extensive shopping arcade with many quality shops. Alexandra House, just
across Des Voeux, also has its quota of fine shops, and there are other
first-rate stores throughout this area. The streets intersecting with
Queen’s Road and Des Voeux Road should not be overlooked either. Only a
dozen blocks or so are involved, but the shops are so numerous and their
goods so varied that it will take even an industrious shopper a full day
to see them and compare prices. Wise tourists looking for values usually
spend a day surveying the shops and their merchandise before they are
ready to spend a cent. It is a sound procedure, for hundreds of hasty
shoppers have prematurely congratulated themselves on a wonderful buy,
only to see the same article in another shop the next day for 15 to 25
percent less than they have paid.