Barely 8 hours prior we had been enjoying the final hours of our “Southern Asian” portion of the trip. Nepal and India offered quite similar experiences in terms of culture and local lifestyles, and we had grown somewhat used to it all. They were steps back in time from our usual lifestyles in Europe, and offered a glimpse of how things were in the West in previous generations.
“The West” however, and Europe, are apparently not at the forefront of it all.
It occurred to me; is it possible that our flight had not merely travelled across two time zones, but had actually travelled through time itself? Had we been somehow transported to the future? A future where televisions are everywhere from on the subway, to on the back seat of your cab drivers seat (with touchscreen city maps)? A future where skyscrapers soar higher and take more radical shapes than ever before? A future where all the latest gadgets on sale are things I didn’t even know had been thought of yet, and at ridiculous prices?
The future, it seems, is right here in neon lit Hong Kong.
Our time in this great city was supposed to be my first introduction to the far-east. The presence of an endless number of expats and immigrants however made it quite difficult to experience anything distinctly Chinese. But then, Hong Kong really isn’t Chinese is it? I mean, of course the Poms handed it back almost exactly a decade ago, and when all is said and done they answer to Beijing, but this is where it ends. They have their own currency and they speak a different language to most of China. But then again, it’s not really a Western city so to speak either.
It’s Hong Kong, and it has an ambience and character all of its own.
Once you’ve exhausted the small number of tourist sights on offer in Hong Kong though, there isn’t a whole lot of reason to hang around.
We prepared for the “real” China. First stop Guangzhou.
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