May 2008
So, once again far removed from Ibn Battuta’s footsteps, I find myself in Hong Kong. I was last here 30 years ago, which even as I write seems to be quite impossible – how can this be? The city has changed enormously – for one thing, half of the harbor has disappeared and is now filled with
glamorously tall skyscrapers. The energy of the place reminds me of New York even if the view of Hong
Kong Island is more San Francisco with its steep hills and twisty stairways. I stayed on Kowloon side in a small boutique hotel called The Luxe Manor www.theluxemanor.com which was both charming and quirky. I am here because due to the Olympics in Beijing, Hong Kong this year is the starting point for the northern Silk Road trip I am leading, over the Turugart Pass.
View of Hong Kong's skyscrapers built on what was the harbor.
The city is a dizzying hybrid; creamy frangipani, vibrant red poinciana, bougainvillea, dangly-podded tamarind and fluffy kapok trees are the colorful lungs of the city’s impossibly tall and skinny glass, steel and concrete skyscrapers – supermodels of the architectural world. Some of them give the intensely superstitious Hong Kongers the heebie-jeebies because the feng shui is so not right – all these hard angles and seismic X’s soaring heaven-ward….but many of the buildings like their analogous, humanoid supermodels are head-swiveling nonetheless.
Skinny skyscraper viewed from the bus ride over Hong Kong island
Old Hong Kong in the form of steep and crooked alleyways now gives way to broad ring-roads flanked with designer malls, hotels, offices, banks - and everywhere the mandatory symbols of the newly-moneyed classes; the ubiquitous sleek black or silver, latest model, ruinously expensive German car, opulent restaurants silently shrieking hedge fund expense account, and men and women clad in exquisitely-stylish designer clothing, jewelry, and shoes. I have just flown in from Dubai, a city often called the “Hong Kong of the Middle East”, and as I wander around a beige marble mall indistinguishable from the one I just left in Dubai, I am struck by the notion that for the young and uber-rich who dally in such malls here or in Riyadh, Beijing or Moscow, a handbag costs several times more than the annual salary of most of the people in the countries I am about to visit. There is something repugnant about that, and I reflect as I set out on the 21st century’s Silk Road that nothing much has really changed since its beginnings in 138BC; the rich are still obscenely rich and the poor are still exploited - myriad yet invisible.
And so the textiles and electronics industries being respectively the first and second sources of revenue for Hong Kong, it was only fitting that I should buy clothes and a phone. The clothing was a success, the phone which I bought at Global Star on Nathan Road rather less so. I denounce them because they are both thieves and liars - twice over in my case. I bought a phone which I was assured was a 2008 model. I took it back to my hotel where the feeling that I had been completely ripped off was so pervasive that I went on-line to check, only to discover that I had paid twice the RRP for a model 2/3 years old. I took it back. They did not even argue but offered me an exchange - I asked for my money back which was refused. I realized I probably had nowhere to go with this, stupidity being no excuse, so I bought another phone which I liked better - and paid more for - being once again assured that it was a 2008 model. Back on-line once more I found that it was a late 2006/2007 model with a RRP of $150. I paid $310. I immediately contacted my bank and challenged the transaction. Back in Yemen I went to one of the manufacturer’s registered dealers from whom I now have a stamped paper attesting that the phone is sold here for $135.
I have contacted the Hong Kong Tourist Authority - I thought perhaps I might suggest they paint the window of this den of thieves with a giant red ‘X’ which is what the authorities did in medieval times to a house whose occupants had been blighted with plague, to prevent the unsuspecting from entering…… In the Khanate of
Bukhara they painted the gates and doors of debtors with white limestone, advertising the occupants’ fiscal shortcomings to the entire town, this is always another possibility if red gloss seems too extreme……
Caveat emptor, there are plenty of places in Hong Kong where you can buy electronics from
honest vendors, Global Star on Nathan Road is not one of them. For my part I shall in future buy my electronics right here in Yemen – there is a large selection, the price is right and as an ‘honorary’ Sana’ani, I will not be ripped off – well perhaps a little, and in the event in my basement is a large can of whitewash………
View of Hong Kong from The Peak
Despite its brittle glamor and its rip-off merchants, I love Hong Kong. Its diversity encompasses a vibrant arts scene, wacky, off-the-wall markets where you can buy absolutely everything and anything, and little forested islands where cars are not allowed. Three decades later I took the rickety tram back up The Peak which is now thoroughly commercial and touristy but still affords staggering views, even if the skies are polluted with factory output from Shenzen on the other side of the New Territories. I took a double-decker bus several times to Stanley another tourist jaunt but worth the frequently nerve-racking ride for the glorious, hilly scenery passing Repulse Bay, so-named for the British ship which was sent to rid the bay of pirates - and its restaurants can sate the most jaded and demanding of palettes.
But Hong Kong, centuries-old entrepot supreme, has a looming challenge. It is having to compete with the newly–dazzling and pulsating Beijing, as well as the once-again chic and sexy Shanghai. In addition, the city has long been the go-between for Taiwanese wishing to fly to China, as there are no direct flights between the two, but that is all set to change
as of July, which will mean a considerable loss of revenue for the city. But for all that, you cannot travel anywhere in Asia these days without seeing and feeling the lightning pace of change - in our new millennium the focus of the world has clearly shifted once again to the East.
Lintel of the Great Mosque in Xi'an with Chinese character-inspired Arabic calligraphy.
Xi’an traditional starting point of the Silk Road and now best known as home to the Terracotta Warriors has a long history. Ibn Battuta did not come to Xian and I have to wonder why. It had an important Muslim community from the 9th century, and still does. Xi’an Great Mosque beautifully combines elements of traditional Chinese architecture; upturned
eaves, courtyards, glazed roof tiles and octagonal forms, with the function of a mosque. It is said to date back to 742AD during the Tang dynasty, and year of the first Arab Emissary to the Chinese Kingdom, although it was much renovated under later dynasties. Islamic purists would be shocked to find carved dragons, and on the eaves of the minaret, traditional symbolic
animal figurines.
The minaret of the Great Mosque, Xi'an
Chinese Muslims, known as Hui, are the product of intermarriage between medieval Muslim merchants who traded with China and stayed in the ports for the monsoon season while they awaited favorable winds. Over time they assumed Chinese names, and while largely integrated into the Chinese community, kept their Islamic habits and became a significant ‘minority’. It is estimated that there are approximately 10 million Hui in China. This does not include the Muslims of Xinjiang province who are not ethnically Chinese, but Uighur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek or other minority.)
Like most other major Chinese cities, Xi’an is hurtling meteor-like towards modernity with all its attendant ills; traffic jams that would vex the patience of Job, roads being dug up for cables of this and pipelines of that, construction cranes, cement mixers, blocked streets, poor air quality – why does ‘progress’ entail so much destruction? It is not that the Chinese are more destructive than we are, it is simply that we have had decades to become ever more gradually destructive (and we are not replacing our crumbling, aging infrastructure), while theirs is a straight line from 0 to oblivion. But going back to a different time, the city’s Ming dynasty walls crested with Chinese red lanterns are a delight, and an evening stroll along their ramparts to walk off several helpings of the city’s famous jiaozi dumplings, is a soothing end to the day. (The northern part of China grows wheat not rice, and wheat products; noodles and dumplings, are its staple.)
Qin Shi Huang, First Emperor of the Qin dynasty, was buried in a lavish tomb near Xian along with 8000 clay warriors in 210BC. It is said that he had all the artisans who worked on his tomb killed so they could not reveal its location. This extreme measure worked rather well as it
was not discovered until 1974 when a farmer was digging a well on his land. Live burial of servants when a king or notable died had once been common practice as it was expected they would continue to serve their master in the afterlife, but by the 3rd century BC, this practice had been discontinued, and perhaps the Terracotta Warriors were representatives of the men who would otherwise have died because no two are exactly alike, although there are identifiable groupings; archers had a topknot on the left, (to be able to grab arrows and shoot unencumbered), infantrymen had a topknot on the right, while generals had 2 knots or a cap, Mongolian officers had a beard and Han officers sported a goatee. The site has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/441 since 1987.
Pit 1 of the Terracotta warriors
Xi'an is also home to the lovely old Tang dynasty ‘Big Goose Pagoda’ which seemed to me to be tilting more than before which could be, as since the recent earthquake it is no longer possible to climb it. Men are again able to take up monastic life in China and their brown or yellow clad silhouettes can be seen gliding silently along temple porticoes between red-lacquered columns and smoky clouds of incense. Buddhism always imparts a great feeling of serenity I think – perhaps it is due to the
association of beautifully-manicured gardens, cloistered courtyards, the arrangement of buildings which not only imposes order but soothes the soul due to their pure geometry – lines which we are not, most of us, even aware of except when they jar uncomprehendingly. Silence, that precious commodity which is increasingly hard to find in the tinny, all-pervasive jangle of our electronic age, hangs perceptibly in the air. I quite frequently despise the age in which we live – it seems so often crass, so mediocre, shallow and
tawdry. Being at the Big Goose pagoda temporarily restores a long-gone sense of propriety.
Stolen moment at the Big Goose Pagoda
If ever proof was needed of the “new” China – en route to the airport at precisely 1427, we stopped along with all other street traffic to observe 3 minutes of silence for the earthquake victims of exactly a week before. Wait-staff stood to attention outside restaurants, spruce in their uniforms, gleaming red fire trucks were parked outside fire stations, their klaxons ready to announce the start of the silence, pedestrians stopped at the curbside, bicyclists, truck and tram drivers pulled over and policemen directing traffic at intersections took off their caps, heads bowed - it was, not to invoke a pun, very moving and among the crowds many were reduced to tears. The Chinese are not an overly sentimental people but the earthquake has been devastating, and while most everyone agrees the authorities have been swift and decisive in their response, there is tremendous national grief and anger at the unexplained collapse of so many schools with the subsequent death of so many children. China has a strict one-child policy, so for parents who perhaps can no longer have another child, their loss is all the more poignant.
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The calm-inducing Big Goose Pagoda.
