Hong Kong in October, 9

   

Room With a View

                 The view of Kowloon from the room. 




Back to School

October 24

We went a little farther afield today. We took the underground train a few stops north to Mong Kok and Kowloon City, which are sections of the broader area also called Kowloon. There used to be a Walled City of Kowloon, that was inside Kowloon City, which is part of Kowloon.

It's like Manhattan: the County of New York in the City of New York in the State of New York.

The flower market is in Mong Kok. Bonsai is very popular, reckoned by the number of pots on the sidewalk. 

So is Christmas. At the head of Flower Market Road there is a store specializing in Christmas gear. I don’t know if this is one of the world’s Christmas-all-year-long stores or if it is a custom to push the season here.

I think it’s the latter case. We later saw an inflatable Santa by the side of the road near an overpass, and a lighted wall of Seasons Greetings down by the harbor.

The flower market area of Mong Kok is Joanna’s old neighborhood, and she wanted to visit her old school, St. Rose of Lima. We came out of the subway, and I had brought a tiny plastic compass along. We wanted to go east from the station to find Flower Market Road, I said. And so we set off in the wrong direction. I found out later that every time I set the compass down, north was in a different quadrant. Moral of the story: Test your compass before you leave home.

Mong Kok is filled with towers and divided roads now, but it used to be fairly open, with fields and bungalows, so Joanna had to ask for directions to the school.

On the way, we passed the bird market. This is where they sell the pet birds in cages that guys take to the park. But in addition to the little finches and blackbirds, there were full-size parrots, parakeets from Australia, and grasshoppers sold in plastic bags. I don’t know if the grasshoppers were bird food or pets. Maybe both.

Sparrows and a few pigeons come to the market to pick up stray bird seed.

The lacy foliage of several flame of the forest trees gave the place a mildly jungle-like feel.

The school is still there. We spoke to a security guard, who called the headmaster’s office. Joanna explained why we were there, so they gave us an OK to look around the playground.

At one end of the playground is a statue of the Virgin Mary in a little stone grotto. Joanna told me that her sister Monica, playing there one day, kicked a ball that took the head right off the figure. I looked close and couldn’t see a repair line, so this may be a newer one.

Joanna was looking for a spiral staircase that has been removed.

Today’s photo is Joanna Meets the New Mary.

Down the street is St. Teresa’s church, which has been remodeled since Joanna was a parishioner there. The red marble columns have been replaced by white pillars. Pieces of the red marble are used to decorate some of the flowerbeds at the school and the churchyard.

We went to the parish restaurant, the Caritas Cafe, for fried rice with dried fish.

It seems, however, that Caritas only extends so far. A sign on the wall tells patrons that they must spend at least sixteen Hong Kong dollars to sit at one of the tables.

The manager gave us directions to the next stop, the old Walled City of Kowloon. We picked up the No. 1 bus across the street and it took us to the north gate.

Before I made this trip, Joanna gave me a history of Hong Kong. It was published in 1963, so it was a little out of date, but it was still useful. There was one passage that particularly struck me.

The author, Gene Gleason, wrote: “The flavor of disaster became a regular part of Hong Kong history. Its own four horsemen—piracy, typhoons, epidemics and fires—raced through the colony at frequent but unpredictable intervals, filling its hills and harbor with debris and death. There is still no reason to assume that they will not return, either singly or as a team, whenever the whim moves them.”

It was a place I wanted to see. Of course. that was 50 years ago, and one of the landmarks of disaster was the old Walled City of Kowloon.

The walled city was a notorious slum, less than a square mile packed with refugees from Red China, junkies, dope dealers, slavers, pimps, prostitutes, and triad kingpins. You wouldn’t know that by looking at it now, because it was demolished and replaced by a park in the 1990s.

There was effectively no law in the place. In 1948, the British tried to exert some kind of legal authority there, and that sparked riots in Canton that burned down a British consulate.

Joanna knew it as a place to be avoided at all costs. One night, after she and Monica had stayed out very late, their father said he was convinced they had been kidnapped and taken to the slum to be sold.

The walled city was originally a military base, with barracks, cannon, gunpowder factory, and other cool stuff.

Eventually, the military withdrew and then in the 1940s refugees poured in from Mainland China. The place became home to tens of thousands of people.

It was already legendary as a seat of the triads before the influx of refugees.

Speaking of triads, we may have seen a bit of that back near the flower market. A group of cars was parked conspicuously outside a restaurant in a no parking zone. Of course, with a vanity plate like “Boss Li,” maybe you can park your Mercedes anywhere in town. Your escort vehicles come along for the ride.

A wall runs around the park, but it is not the original wall. That was taken down during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and the materials were used to expand the local airport.

A model in the park shows what the slum looked like late in its history. Next to that is a mural showing a cross-section of the apartment buildings, with people going about their typical activities, everything from whoring to playing mah-jongg.

Joanna photographed me (and inadvertently herself, as well) while I was studying the mural.

Now the place is a quiet park with shrubs and trees. Near the old wells is a pond with carp and a pagoda. The walkways are still marked with the old street names. My favorite is Dragon’s Blood Back Street. What couldn’t you find in a place called that? Drunks, junkies, hitmen, and missionaries all together.

Speaking of missionaries, the almshouse, which was originally an administrative center, is still standing in the middle of the site.

We went down to the waterfront after dark to see the light show. We sat outside the Deck n Beer bar in the park and waited. The boats were going by under strings of lights. The Hong Kong skyline was lighted up. I had beer, a couple of Stellas and a Guinness. It was a great time.

The light show consists of white and green lasers from the tops of a couple of the towers on the Hong Kong side of the harbor.  It reminds me a little bit of disco, but it’s not like the spectacle over the lake at Epcot Center.

But then, it doesn’t need to be. This is Hong Kong. They have their own Disneyland on Lantau Island.

For dinner I ordered pork jelly with udon at a Japanese style restaurant. Wow, pork jelly. What the hell is that? I had to try it to find out.

Joanna read the Chinese description, which didn’t have a typo: it was pork belly. Good enough, and so was the Asahi, but I’ll have to look elsewhere for pork jelly.

It was after 10 when we got back to the hotel, and I didn’t have energy to open a beer.