hong kong
arriving in hong kong, i am blown away. i don’t know what i was expecting, but it wasn’t this.
hong kong is unabashedly everything that mainland china is not: modern, efficient, brash, stylish. the skyline is a daring testament, a statement: we’re brave and powerful, and we’re putting our stamp on the world. it’s less conservative than new york, less traditionalist than london. hong kong has chutzpah and moxie – it’s chasing the cutting edge with abandon.
drawing near to the city, there’s that feeling of excitement when anythign is possible – there’s an energy beneath the neon, an undercurrent, a buzz given off by people doing big things.
physically, hong kong is like manhattan mashed into san francisco – the funky hills and character filled districts. there are still vestiges of the colonial times (”mind the gap”, double decker buses, driving on the left, Mr. softee ice cream) but hing kong is asain through and through, make no mistake. it’s what london could have been if londoners were’nt so damn provincial. it’s bold, it has vision – things happen here in the way that only people with money and drive can make them happen. the people who inhabit the city by day are urbane and sophisticated. they like their $20 coffes and imported cuisines. but they develop, they deal, they sell. they’re fast movers bringing the city right along with them. and that hum? it’s the kinetic energy, the force of forward motion, of people pulling a city towards the 22nd century, creating a beautiful electricity that’s altogether something dazzling to behold.
