Neville Shute in his novel "A Town like Alice" commented that "It is amazing how little difficulty an unknown language makes between a willing buyer and a willing seller". Thank God this is universally true, as otherwise I would probably have starved to death by now. My hotel in Hong Kong, unlike that in Bangkok, does not offer breakfast so I had to go looking in nearby streets. Despite Hong Kong being saturated with eating places of just about every nation on earth, there are very few open early in the morning, even in the seething hotbed of free enterprise called Kowloon. This place makes Wall Street look socialist, but few seem to see a profit in catering for early feeders like me.I found one less than 100 yards from the hotel, but no one spoke English and the menu was entirely in Chinese. I pointed at Option A and received a fried egg, a steaming bowl of noodles and ham and a cup of coffee. Service was very quick, the cafe was very clean and it cost $HK20 - around $US2.60 or 1.30 sterling. You could hardly complain about value for money and I suppose I could have continued the week by working down the alphabet, but was reluctant to carry on playing Lucky Dip or Russian Roulette with my meals. So the next day I headed downtown to the Island, where the huge mall (is there a small mall in HK?) overlooking the Harbour has numerous eating places. Was there one open? "Pret A Manger", the English sandwich bar with the pretentious French name, was supposed to open at 730, but in the best British traditions of customer service it was still shut at 810. The only one open was McDonalds. Yes, I've seen "Supersize Me", but this was no time to think of healthy eating. McDonalds lacked the view of Victoria Harbour enjoyed by other restaurants, but it employed people who could be trusted to open on time.
I went to 1115 Mass at St Pauls on the east side of the Island city centre. It is a traditional French Baroque building surrounded by the convent, school and hospital run by the dwindling band of nuns. Not easy to find, but well worthwhile. The architecture has been adapted to cope with HK's steaming climate; doors down both walls opened to allow cross-flow of air, assisted by several electric fans. It is much cheaper and almost as effective as air conditioning. An elderly parishioner corrected me when I expressed admiration for his lovely "church" ; it is strictly a chapel, an outpost of St Margaret's up the hill in Happy Valley. I looked for a Sunday lunch venue and noticed an Italian restaurant offering authentic Italian dishes at Central London prices, so I ended up at a Thai restaurant where I was fed for $HK55 - around $US6.60 or 3.30 stirling. In that same street, crowded end to end with Chinese signs, there was a sign in a doorway advertising the British Riding School. Plainly the lessons could not be held anywhere nearby if horse or rider valued their lives, but it was yet another incongruous reminder of Empire days.
After Mass I spoke to one of the elderly nuns who expressed gratitude for everything the British did to develop Hong Kong. A Christian might express reservations at some of the rampant materialism on all sides in the present HK, but British rule plainly had advantages over the joys of Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward, mass executions, mass starvation, Cultural Revolution, concentration camps etc. Of course many current HK residents were so fond of Chairman Mao that they risked everything to swim to the colony - a much more dangerous business than scaling the Berlin Wall.So far I have seen the Astronomy Museum, the Performing Arts Centre, some of the most amazing modern architecture in the world and a tailor to order a bargain suit - another HK tradition. On the evening of 1st October there is a huge
fireworks display over the harbour for National Day; fireworks is a Chinese speciality, so I look forward to that.
