Imprint

© Emons Verlag GmbH // 2016
All rights reserved
Text: Kathrin Bielfeldt and Raymond Wong
© Photographs: Jürgen Bürger, except Beef & Liberty (place 4): Beef and Liberty Ltd; Central Market (place 13): Chan See Ting; Opus Hong Kong (place 67): Swire Properties; Sammy’s Kitchen (place 82): Mogens Andersen; Tsui Wah (place 102): Raymond Wong; Wang Fu (place 105): Chan See Ting © Cover icon: supakitmod/depositphotos.com
Design: Emons Verlag
Maps based on data by Openstreetmap, © Openstreet Map-participants, ODbL
ISBN 978-3-96041-172-7
eBook of the original print edition published by Emons Verlag

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111 Places in Hong Kong That You Shouldn’t Miss

Kathrin Bielfeldt and Raymond Wong

emons: Verlag

Foreword

On January 26, 2016, Hong Kong turned 175.

To really see behind the façade of this young and magnificent city, you have to look back to the very beginning. So, imagine the following situation: in 1841 a handful of British and a couple of Europeans, most of them merchants, plus some military troops, founded a colony on a relatively barren island, thinly populated apart from a few small fishing villages. None of the occupants ascribes any real importance to this belligerently acquired island; in their eyes it is only a stopover for the merchant vessels on their way up the coast, heading to China’s harbours, which had been recently (and forcibly) opened for trade.

But contrary to their expectations, a growing number of Chinese, mostly craftsmen and merchants, have a very different view. Their home country is in rapid decline, ruined by wars, rebellions, opium addiction, and corruption. Hong Kong offers them the chance of a new beginning and they grasp it in their thousands. Hong Kong’s history will be significantly shaped by the waves of refugees that follow until the 1960s. Within a couple of years, 90 per cent of the population of Hong Kong is Chinese. Just as Chinese speak no English, so hardly any European speaks Chinese. Their cultures and traditions couldn’t be more different.

In this way, two parallel societies develop, with only a limited amount of racial interaction. However, although the British are in the driver’s seat, they grant a great deal of freedom to the Chinese population and abusive exploitation of Chinese labourers is kept within limits. The Chinese make dramatic use of this freedom, maintaining strong links with their roots in China, but taking the best from both worlds to create, in an amazingly short time, the most fascinating and likeable megacity in the world.

1_Arch Angel Antiques

Better than a museum

If you are interested in relics of bygone days, there are always museums where objects are usually protected by glass. Or you could go for the real thing and do what curators from museums all over the US and Europe are doing - take the direct route to Hollywood Road in SoHo, the source of many museum exhibits.

At SoHo you’ll find a row of well-organised antique shops, like Arch Angel, opened in 1992 by Koos and Bonnie Groot. This massive emporium of more than 500 square metres and stretching out over three levels comprises an exhibition space that contains only the finest collectibles, pottery figurines, porcelain, and Asian art. Arch Angel’s managing director is a member of the Antique Board of the Hong Kong Art Craft Merchants Association, which assesses antiques and issues a certificate of authenticity.

To check the authenticity of a pottery figurine, a small, drilled sample is taken from somewhere inconspicuous. The samples are dated using the scientific technique of thermoluminescence, or the radiocarbon method. Depending on the amount of radioactivity accumulated in the material over the years, the age can be determined.

But collectors need to be cautious, as counterfeiters are clever - they buy large fragments of broken old figurines, explained Ms Groot, and turn them into new smaller ones. Or they modify a work by reattaching a foot or an arm in a more interesting and therefore more valuable pose. Another indication of the authenticity of a piece is the documentation provided by the antique dealer, where red lines show the location of fractures before restoration, as it is rare for pottery to survive undamaged for hundreds of years.

A reliable antique dealer is an expert who knows the provenance of the pieces offered and who should have been in the business for a substantial time, trading under the same shop name.

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2_Art Supermarket

Pick up a picture

Until the late 1960s, Hong Kong had just a single gallery. Today there are countless art venues and major players like Gagosian and White Cube have been represented in Hong Kong for many years. Art Basel has even responded to the increased demand for contemporary Asian art with the opening of a local presence.

In Hong Kong just about everything revolves around money. Money needs to be cultivated in a way that makes the most sense economically, and those who already own an electric lawn mower as a status symbol often invest in art. (This, in fact, is no joke, as someone who needs a lawnmower has a correspondingly large lawn. And at prices of €10,000 per square metre for a building plot in fringe areas, gardens don’t come cheap.)

The Art Supermarket at Mid-Levels takes a new route. The idea is to integrate art into everyday life and to allow a wider audience to surround themselves with it.

Everybody is familiar with the concept of the supermarket, so the space is unintimidating. The gallery hopes that customers’ curiosity will overcome some of their inhibitions. Even the name implies that paintings and sculpture don’t have to be expensive, just as exorbitant prices don’t inevitably express a high appreciation for the artist. And it is not unusual for high-priced art to end up in vaults as sober investment decisions.

A native of Switzerland, gallery owner Michael Manzardo, who sees himself as a curator rather than an art dealer, focuses on emerging Chinese artists, many of whom have never been exhibited outside China. The mixture of contemporary paintings and sculptures at the Art Supermarket is unconventional and relaxed - pictures in stacks lean against the walls, or pile up in a shopping cart, and the inauguration of a new exhibition is often accompanied by a life art performance.

The only thing you won’t be able to do is pay with the Octopus Card.

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3_Avenue of Comic Stars

The hands that created them …

There’s a rather beautiful and sizeable park in what could be called the heart of Kowloon, right at Nathan Road in the frenetic surroundings of Tsim Sha Tsui. Although the entrance is wide, you might not notice it as you pass by, as the steps leading to the park begin in a shopping plaza. The shops here have a living green roof and they form a kind of an embankment that shields the park area from the busy street.

Established in 1970, Kowloon Park is located on the grounds of the old Whitfield Barracks. Since 2012 a new attraction has been added: the Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars.

Comics, especially Kung Fu comics, are as much part of Hong Kong’s popular culture as Mickey Mouse is to America. The avenue consists of 24 larger-than-life figures of local comic stars and 10 bronze casts of their creators’ hands.

One of the figures is Tiger Wong, from Tiger and Dragon Heroes (formerly Little Rascals), a Kung Fu comic about the lives of young people living in the rundown surroundings of housing estates in a big city. They are drawn by the originator of all Hong Kong comics, Tony Wong Yuk-long, also known as Huang Yulang. Born in 1950, he began drawing at the age of 13 and in 1969 he hit the bull’s eye with Little Rascals, of which the first edition alone sold 7,000 copies. In 1987, almost 20 years later, he was the most important comic artist of Hong Kong. In the 1980s, a veritable comic boom developed, triggered by the movies of Bruce Lee.

Together with his student Ma Wing Shing, who is himself represented with a figure of his own on the avenue, Wong established two companies that evolved into two of the major comic publishers in Hong Kong.

During the 1980s, fighting between Chinese heroes and Japanese gangsters were the predominant theme. Then Kung Fu comics were replaced by Japanese manga, which unlike the Kung Fu comics became very popular even in the West.

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4_Beef & Liberty

All about burgers and gridiron buttons

A juicy, grilled burger, accompanied by country-style fried potatoes with a homemade sauce, or a crunchy bun filled with pulled pork … whose mouth wouldn’t water at these mental images? In a side street of Wan Chai you get exactly this, and much more.

Somewhat confusingly, to reach your goal you’ll need to cut through the pizzeria on the ground floor to make it to the lift that will transport you to the first floor. Upstairs you’ll find a modern but comfortable restaurant with an open kitchen and a lot of glass.

Beef & Liberty is the spinoff from a young enterprise based in Shanghai, and as well the restaurant in Wan Chai there is another in Stanley. Top points are scored with ethically produced Tasmanian beef, excellent craft beers, and a rooftop garden. Al fresco restaurants are not easy to find in Hong Kong, and Beef & Liberty’s rooftop even comes with a football table and a weekly open-air cinema.

The name of the restaurant derives from London where in 1735 the actor John Rich from the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, founded a club called The Sublime Society of Beefsteaks. Here, the upper class met to eat beefsteaks with onions and baked potatoes and to discuss current events. The meal was followed by an ample amount of port. In 1785 even the Prince of Wales and the Dukes of Clarence and Sussex were members of the Sublime Society. Women were not admitted, though.

At their weekly meetings, the members wore a blue coat, a buff waistcoat with brass buttons, and a badge bearing a gridiron motif and the words “Beef and Liberty.” They sat together on a single long table, sang songs and addressed the club steward and all waiters as “Charles.”

In 1708 Dr William King wrote a poem, the “Art of Cookery,” dedicated to “the Honourable Beef Steak Club.” It includes the couplet:

He that of Honour, Wit and Mirth partakes,

May be a fit Companion o’er Beef-steaks.

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5_Betsy

Homecoming of an old lady

In New York in 1945, former Air Force pilot Roy Farrell bought a DC-3, a war-surplus World War II plane. The sturdy little aircraft is said to be the most successful aeroplane design ever, with more than 10,000 planes being produced between 1935 and 1945.

He nicknamed her Betsy, and shortly after opened a trading company in Shanghai, where he was soon joined by another former Air Force pilot, the Australian Syd de Kantzow. Just over six months later, they resettled in Hong Kong, where they officially registered their new airline on September 24, 1946. The registration fees were negligible – both had to pay HK$1 each.

Betsy’s maiden flight from Hong Kong was to Manila, and on board was a somewhat special cargo: 2,000 live chicks, only a day old. During a stop, mechanical problems kept them on the ground for a while, and the aircraft became hot and humid. Worrying that the chicks could suffocate, the crew did something they would later regret - they let the chicks out of their crates, inside the aircraft. After take off it took them quite a while to get them all back in.

Maybe this was the reason they decided to haul people rather than freight. They switched to passenger operations and gave their new airline a name that would become a global brand: Cathay Pacific Airways.

Being in the right place at the right time, the company grew. In those days check-in was a noble affair: all airlines had their counter right in the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel, something that nowadays is hard to imagine.

With Cathay Pacific’s steady growth and the need to invest in a new fleet of aircrafts, Betsy was finally sold in 1955.

More than 25 years later, Cathay rediscovered the aircraft in Australia, where she was still dutifully doing her job, and bought her back. On September 23, 1983, the old lady landed safely in Hong Kong where she can now be admired in the Museum of Science.

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6_Bibo

Art picked off the streets

The brass-coloured sliding door to this extraordinary restaurant on Hollywood Road doesn’t open for everybody, but those who are admitted find themselves amidst a stupendous collection of top-class street art. Images, wheatpastes, and objects by artists Shepard Fairey (Obey), Jeff Koons, Space Invader, and KAWS, to name just a few, cover all the walls.

In 2003 when Banksy slipped one of his paintings secretly into the Tate Britain gallery, the world immediately became aware of street art. Today, even garage doors are dismantled when they hold a graffito someone deems valuable, or the world holds its breath when, in a YouTube movie, a street vendor in New York’s Central Park offers real Banksys, while passersby think these must be copies at best. So, the Bibo is more than just a fashion statement. For the restaurant’s opening in May 2013, Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto, aka Vhils, used jackhammers to create a large wall relief that now adorns the main dining room. Bibo is given local colour by a scooter, which is plastered with the iconic Chinese characters created by Tsan Tsou Choi, the “King of Kowloon.” The owner of Bibo started collecting street art in its early days, so he’s able to rotate exhibits every few months.

The premises and the illuminated sign above one of the windows belonged to the Compagnie Générale Française de Tramways, which until the 1930s had its corporate headquarters here. The Art Deco furnishings successfully link the atmosphere of that time to the present.

Since the restaurant looks out on to Cat Street (Upper Lascar Row), no one has ever been able to find the front door, so they have had to mount a sign - albeit one at curb height. So, it’s still not easy to find the right door. You don’t have to eat in this high-priced but excellent restaurant if you want to look at the art; there’s also a bar, where you can enjoy a drink or two.

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7_Blue House

Power to the people

In February 2016 Hong Kong was ranked number 1 in the world’s freest economies for the 22nd time in a row. In 2015 Hong Kong’s fifth-richest property tycoon bought a US$48.5 million diamond for his 7-year-old daughter. In contrast, about 95 percent of Hong Kong’s 25-year-olds and younger still live at home, because they cannot afford to rent their own flat.

Against this background, the victory that the residents of the Blue House in Wan Chai have achieved is more than remarkable. The Blue House belongs to a group of buildings from the 1920s and 1930s, whose inhabitants have not only managed to preserve their home from the omnipresent wrecking ball, but also remain there as tenants.

The protests that preceded the demolition of the Queen’s Piers in 2007 had emphasised the significant sociocultural role of architecture in the collective memory of the citizens - even if it concerns buildings from the recent past, which at first sight might not look worth preserving. Feelings and personal memories are linked with neighbourhoods and communities, where social structures have emerged, and far too often are destroyed by progressive gentrification.

The government responded, and in 2008 launched the Revitalising Historic Buildings through Partnership Scheme, a programme to rejuvenate architecturally and historically valuable buildings with the help of partners. Under this scheme they bought the block of flats around the Blue House, in order subsequently to convert them into a hotel. But the residents organised themselves, started up a cultural centre, the “House of Stories,” and submitted counterproposals to the government. Success! The renovation will be kept to a minimum, so that rents can remain at a moderate level; residents will make their individual skills available to the house community and new jobs will be generated by the opening of two restaurants.

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8_Bridges Street

Water, but not a bridge in sight

For most visitors, a tour through Tai Ping Shan ends with the Man Mo Temple and Cat Street. You could, however, turn left immediately behind the temple, and walk up Ladder Street instead. After 30 metres the street changes into the flight of steps that has given the street its name. At the top is Bridges Street, which runs parallel to Hollywood Road. Ladder Street is actually a genuine piece of old Hong Kong, built between 1841 and 1850, and leads all the way to the Museum of Medical Science.

Bridges Street was virtually destroyed in World War II but immediately to the right of the steps lies the only building to survive, the Young Men’s Christian Association. The YMCA building, in the style of the Chicago School (which is rare to find in Hong Kong), has distinctive Chinese elements and was built in 1918 by the architectural firm Shattuck and Hussey, which specialised in YMCA buildings, and financed by donations from the YMCA in Chicago. The basement houses Hong Kong’s first indoor swimming pool where members can go for a dip. Very modern back then, the pool today seems rather small and plain.

Strangely enough, during the Japanese occupation, German was taught at the YMCA, but to whom and why is unrecorded.

Directly opposite to the right is a school building from the 1960s with a noticeable straight-lined Modernist façade, and next to it the Kung Lee Church. Turning left, further up the road, is the former Bridges Street Market, one of the last wet markets in Hong Kong, influenced by the Bauhaus style and now a grade III historic building. It is the former location of the American Congregational Mission Preaching Hall, where Dr Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China, was baptised in 1883.

You can complete the short tour at Yardbird, 33 Bridges Street, a bar in a well-preserved building from the 1950s, where you can enjoy delicious Yakitori skewers.

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9_Casadei

Rediscovering a forgotten artist