Hong Kong Style

Hong Kong Style

Report Serge Barret Photos Alain Parinet.

And indeed, it works! As soon as we thought we would only find the seen and the reviewed, we expected the nth postcard; since a little snobish, we valiantly tried to decline the Victoria Peak excursion on the pretext that we wanted to discover a trendy Hong Kong; even if all this and more, we will not regret for a moment to have been convinced.

Because the Victoria Peak, in other words the mountain which dominates Victoria Bay at 554 m, is to Hong Kong what the Corcovado is to Rio. Simply stunning! It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful maritime-urban landscapes in the world, a marvel that can be reached in about ten minutes via a deliciously retro funicular crossing, on 30° inclined slopes, tropical undergrowth. highly prized by the ultra-rich.

At its feet stretches a forest of slender, extremely concentrated skyscrapers, some of which, veritable masterpieces of concrete and glass, are designed by the greatest architects in the world, such as Norman Foster for the headquarters of the HSBC bank or IM Pei for the Bank of China.

Mythical star ferries

We will especially marvel at the hyper activity of Hong Kong Bay crisscrossed by dozens of cargo ships, overloaded container ships or the mythical green and white Star Ferries. Beyond the channel, which you can cross in just ten minutes, juts out the Kowloon peninsula, also bristling with side-by-side towers...

For the moment, and still from this Peak, let's choose to remain visually on the island of Hong Kong and zoom in on the magic of the scene – a real theater stage – to better identify the places of the future discovery. It's actually quite simple: below and straight ahead is the Central District, the historic heart of the island today a kingdom of business and finance. Attached to its west is Old Town Central, the area where, on January 26, 1841, the English flag was planted.

It is there, around Tai Ping Shan Street and Po Hing Fong, in what was once the favorite neighborhood of sailors, sky-high riders and repeat traffickers, that settle today – or dream of to settle, rents in Tai Ping Commons being unaffordable as everywhere on the island – young urbanites most often working in creative sectors.

So, let's descend from the Peak and enter the dance with a very trendy urban trek, crisscrossing uneven alleys, tumbling down stairs on the fly, discovering buildings of four or five floors hardly more, schools and children, mini parks and potted plants on the street.

And in the middle of all that, here comes a contemporary art gallery and there an antique Chinese grocery store, then a fashion boutique, unless it's design, next to an improbable garage, a real post-war decor, and elsewhere a hype café-bar adapting casually to the proximity of a coffin merchant. The cold, clean, sanitized design, clean to the point of boredom, and ultimately the same everywhere in the world, has not yet killed the warm atmosphere of the area. At least not too much, shall we say to be more fair…

suzy wong's hong kong

Undeniably, life is good in Tai Ping Commons. And walk there, then! Let yourself go, for example, to go from a very trendy florist to a temple, the Man Mo, the oldest Chinese temple in the colony (1848); then, almost opposite, push open the very confidential door of Mrs Pound, a restaurant designed on the discreet model of a Chinese-style speakeasy, or cross the street to taste some Spanish ham at Reserva Iberica, a branch of the famous Barcelona house; then buy Chinese tea at Teakha; finally, and almost by chance, discover the beautiful architecture of the former YMCA, a 1918 building – a Chicago school all the same – renovated and transformed into a community center and workshops.

Hong Kong Style

Going down the hill, you come across Hollywood Road, one of the biggest avenues in the city where a good part of the film The World of Suzy Wong was filmed in the 1960s. Today it is the street of antique dealers who, or almost all of them, display marvelous overpriced Tang horses in their windows. We will then benefit from falling back on the parallel street, Upper Lascar Row, both for its atmosphere and for its items on offer. In fact, it's the Hong Kong flea market. You can therefore find everything and anything there, from posters and propaganda objects from the time of Mao to opium pipes from the time of the English colony.

By hunting around a bit, you sometimes come across little marvels, especially porcelain, which it is fashionable to haggle over. In any case, it will make much better taste souvenirs and ultimately not much more expensive than the usual garish trinkets sold in tourist shops.

If the physical form is still there after all that – it's exhausting, all these false flats, these climbs and descents interspersed with clumsy stairs – we will descend to the canyons of the business district, a mini Asian Manhattan. The crowd is young, no doubt in a hurry, a little formal in their dress and inevitably installed around multicolored cocktails at happy hour.

We will notice in passing the omnipresence of the language of Molière, which also does not escape the ears of the Hong Kongers who conclude, a little too quickly perhaps, that “French youth leaves their country for lack of work”.

And then it's back to Kowloon, on the other side of the bay, where there are a number of luxury hotels, even very luxury ones, that can accommodate business tourists. It wouldn't happen to anyone, especially not to a corporate group which is generally not there to save money, to take one of the tunnels drilled under the sea to reach the continent. They prefer, in 99% of cases, to try the mythical experience of the Star Ferry, these chubby green and white boats that have been shuttling between the two neighborhoods since 1888.

The current models date back to the 1950s and 1960s and Hong Kongers are so attached to them that they do not change the look of the new boats which, like the double-decker trams, offer two floors, second class on the first, first class on the second. The patinated benches are made of wood, and this adds to the charm of the crossing, offering just enough time to admire the fabulous Hong Kong skyline on the back of the water bus. At night, all these multicolored lighted buildings, all these gigantic advertising signs perched high in the sky, are downright part of the fireworks display.

Food getaways

And as long as you set foot on the Kowloon peninsula, you might as well set foot in its authenticity by browsing, far from the images of Épinal, the district of Sham Shui Po. Why there? Firstly, because a small company, the Hong Kong Foodie Tasting Tours, organizes foodie getaways there, definitely very trendy all over the world. Then because this same district is renowned – everyone goes there, it's a real specialized shopping center – for its involvement at bargain prices in high-tech equipment, whether computers, smartphones or the latest gadgets .

And finally because here we discover the other side of the Hong Kong scene, the colorful and noisy world of ordinary people, 170,000 of whom live, despite rents at the level of those in the beautiful Parisian districts, in tiny apartments of 6 m 2 and even less. As a result, most of their existence takes place outside, which transforms the street into real chaos. This fooding tour is therefore also an original way to discover a district far from the beaten track, passing from one market to another, from a sector devoted to high-tech to another specialized in fabrics. Three birds with one stone, in a way. In total, six restaurants will be visited during a three-hour tour, from nine a.m. to noon.

Six unfussy establishments, Chinese through and through, noisy even to the earplugs, caring little for the decor in favor of their specialty. We go from the pineapple soufflé – extraordinary – to the rice roll, from tofu with soy milk to roast pork – magnificent – ​​or lacquered duck, dry cakes with egg noodles… Between each restaurant, the guide goes there of his commentary, showing here the discreet shop of a pawnbroker, there a building specializing in the game of mah-jong and elsewhere, supporting photos of the interior, a building housing what are called apartments - cages, in other words spaces of 3 m 2 , sometimes even less, with a wire mesh door effectively like a cage and without the slightest external opening. The hidden side of Hong Kong.

However, this district which was once also that of factories, textiles in particular, is also in full swing. Creators and artists settle there, in particular near a former youth hostel, the Wontonmeen, transformed into a nursery for young talents. For their part, contemporary art galleries follow this evolution, like 22 Degrees North.

Return to calm

In the evening, still in Kowloon, you can't escape one of its must-sees, the Nathan Road, a long avenue crossing the peninsula from north to south which lights up with hundreds, perhaps even thousands of neon lights. multicolored, laid lengthways, widthways and crossways, perfectly matching the image we have of Hong Kong by night.

Line up in bulk, and the word is weak, popular shops, tourist stalls, malls, bars, restaurants, Chinese fast food outlets, diners, bespoke tailors, nightclubs , sounds, banners, lights again, and the crowd, the crowd, the crowd… There are also museums, the history museum or the space museum, as well as hotels of all categories, including the historic, very luxurious and very glamorous Peninsula which offers strong British afternoon teas in the absolute calm of its whispered lounges.

But true calm can be found in a whole other world just half an hour by double-decker bus from the center of the crazy city. Because we too often forget it, but the most vertical of cities on the planet is not just this explosion of buildings perched on the seafront. You can go green on the island of Hong Kong itself and discover a that one would think, at times, almost Provençal. Like this “back of the dragon”, a round mountain which offers a very easy hike, from 45 minutes to three hours, crossing what looks like the scrubland of the south of France. Better ! As if to echo it, the sea below is adorned with all the blues of the Mediterranean.

And, to add to the unexpected, the hike leads to Shek O, an unassuming fishing village now converted into a casual seaside resort, with tin roofs, hanging lanterns and plastic flowers. Out of season, it's a pleasure. Few or no cars, a white sand beach, informal bistros and café-restaurants with terraces. Delightful quiet days by the China Sea just half an hour from the city lights.

China: Hong Kong Style