An island of diversity and the unknown

I was recently asked to write up a bit for an internal corporate publication about my impressions of Hong Kong. This was an opportunity to summarize all those things that used to be new, different or shocking and ...are not anymore. I have not posted much here lately for lack of time, so let me just share that little summary in several pieces...

 “City of contrasts” has become way too commonplace to be descriptive of any city. Yet, I cannot think of anything that would better portray Hong Kong. You get to see a luxury hotel next to a slum, the high-rise jungle beside a natural park, a Lamborghini swooshing by the elderly crouched over trash they collect for recycling.

I had always thought Hong Kong was an island. Well, it is, but a much larger part of the city is located on the Mainland across from the Island: Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories. The truth is, at some point it was fully confined to the Hong Kong Island, but ended up growing as a colony. The British, who were in control since 1840s, leased the New Territories in 1898 for 99 years from China to offset the growing influence of other European powers in this part of Asia. When the lease expired 13 years ago and New Territories had to be passed on back to China, the city would have ended up broken apart, had the handover to China not included the Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.

Several people asked me why addresses in Hong Kong do not cite China as the country: isn’t it part of China? It is. It is a Special Administrative Region (S.A.R.) with a very special status. Following the “one country, two systems” principle, Hong Kong has different governance and economic system from China, a different currency, separate phone country code, internet domain, etc. Even immigration regulations are different: more often than not, one would need a visa to China, but not to Hong Kong.