Viewed from Victoria Peak, Hong Kong rates as one of the most
stunning cities in Southeast Asia, if not the world. In the foreground
rise the skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island, numerous, dense, and
astonishingly tall. Beyond that is Victoria Harbour, with its incredibly
busy traffic of everything from the historic Star Ferry to cruise liners,
cargo ships, and wooden fishing vessels. On the other side is Kowloon
Peninsula, growing larger seemingly by the minute with ambitious
land reclamation projects, housing estates, and ever-higher buildings,
all against a dramatic backdrop of gently rounded mountains.
If this is your first stop in Asia, Hong Kong will seem excitingly
exotic, with its profusion of neon Chinese signs, roasted ducks
hanging in restaurant windows, colorful street markets, herbal medicine
shops, fortunetellers, and crush of people, 95% of whom are
Chinese.
If you’re arriving from elsewhere in Asia, however, Hong Kong
may seem welcomingly familiar, with its first-class hotels, restaurants
serving everything from California-style pizzas to French haute
cuisine, easy-to-navigate transportation system, English-language
street signs, and gigantic shopping malls.
Hong Kong’s unique blend of exotic and familiar, East and West,
is due, of course, to its 156 years as a British colony — from 1842,
when Britain acquired Hong Kong Island as a spoil of the first
Opium War, to its 1997 handover to the Chinese. As a Special
Administrative Region (SAR), Hong Kong has been guaranteed its
capitalist lifestyle and social system for 50 years, and for the casual
observer, little seems changed. English is still an official language,
the Hong Kong dollar remains legal tender, and entry formalities are
largely the same. Although Hong Kong is pricier than most other
Asian destinations, the long-standing Asian financial crisis has made
it more affordable than ever, with reduced hotel rates and competitive
restaurant prices.