that magnificent entrepôt
the winding history of Hong Kong
One of the best places in the world is a library, followed closely by a bookstore. The primary difference, of course, is that you borrow (thus return) books from the former while the latter allows you to keep the book in exchange for your hard-earned cash (actions create consequences, of course).
My spouse and I don’t usually go on dates to the library but we sure do go to bookstores. In Manhattan last week, as the heat and humidity climbed, we promised each other we would not overdo our outside activities so we ended up spending a morning at beloved Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue. Why? Because they allow you to buy coffee as you read. Hard to imagine a better combination in some ways. It’s a risky proposition for B&N as we have been known to read for a couple of hours over two cups of coffee but not buy anything else.
However, I came across a most intriguing title on the new non-fiction table: Vaudine England’s Fortune’s Bazaar The Making of Hong Kong. I first went to the colony in 1970. I found it on that trip and each subsequent visit to be utterly enchanting so I could not walk past the book. I first saw Mao’s Little Red Book piled up four feet high in a book stall on the way across Kowloon, the mainland portion of the British Crown Colony.
The city conjures up the past under a Britain ruling the world, mysteries of alleyways, the harrowing landings at the old Kai Tac Airport, certain smells in the open-air restaurants, the rows of apartment flats that were occupied unlike the miles of ghost apartment complexes across the mainland today, the danger of absolutely packed streets with hundreds of people busily moving through their daily lives, and a magnificent focus of global trade.
Sure, Hong Kong’s harbour remains magnificent with countless ships coming and going. I have been on a ‘junk’ which was a recreated junk for tourists (I was travelling with a group in March 2007 so appropriately we took a two hour ride in the coldest temperature I ever felt there) but I missed the high mark of real junks in the nineteenth century, of course.
I absolutely loved the Star Ferry, an anachronistic reminder of British power. It still covers the mile or so between the Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon mainland, though the constant gobbling up of the harbour by land reclamation for the insatiable demand for land reclamation means it’s a far cry from the ferry passage of generations past. I expect that eventually it will end as they pave the entire harbour but I can hope it doesn’t happen as the sailors on the ferries still wear the white (dingy in most cases) uniforms of a bygone era. Ok, so it’s a romantic memory of a time I never saw.
It was always a treat to watch the other people board the ferries as this illustrated the wide variety of peoples who populate Hong Kong, even if it’s merely for a day or so. One could spend more than a few minutes thinking back to John LeCarré’s visit to the island when he researched The Honourable Schoolboy or traders in 1868 going from one part of the city where they attended Church of Scotland services to their opium-laden vessels carrying the drug into Chinese ports along the coast.
Where are these people from? Are they native born or escaping from some other life? What are they doing on the island? What are they hoping to achieve?
Fortune’s Bazaar nicely breaks down the history of the building of this island. She unflinchingly discusses the ethnic intermarriage, the few acts of outright acknowledgement of the contradictions across communities, and how the colony evolved over its 155 years under British control. It feels as if I am there as she goes through several social questions in describing the community transforming across generations.
What, if any, are your Hong Kong memories and stories? If not stories or experiences, what would be your Hong Kong dreams?
I haven’t finished the book but am delighted I plunked down the money for it. England provides a superb bibliography following copious citations on her work. Many of the other handful of recent ‘popular’ publications on the dying days of pre-Communist Asia focused on a single ethnic group (Jews or British) or a particular person (the associates of Chiang Kai-shek who ended up in Hong Kong rather than in Taiwan).
Fortune’s Bazaar is a terrific read, reminding us that this island has always evolved, not merely over the past quarter century after the ‘reversion’ to mainland control. That very fact sounds obvious but far too much of our current angst about the future for the 8 million residents rests on assumptions that the British experience was a uniformly positive one for people in Hong Kong or that the city and its environs would have been on an entirely positive trajectory forever. Maybe, maybe not.
We don’t know whether the future can become kinder than it has been the last few years for the population of Hong Kong; for many, it’s become a frightening place as Beijing imposes its will more overtly. England reminds us that Hong Kongers never completely controlled their future. But, it’s been a fascinating place ever since the city became an international entrepôt almost two centuries ago.
The rain finally came this afternoon to help our parched grounds. It was a cloudy day but the sun peaked out occasionally this afternoon.
#thezenoflight
Have a great week. Don’t forget AMB Smith’s presentation on Wednesday evening at 5 pm eastern on Saudi Arabia!FIN
Vaudin England, Fortune’s Bazaar: The making of Hong Kong (New York: Scribners, 2023)
John LeCarré, The Honourable Schoolboy (London: Hodder and Stouton, 1977)