Revisiting Hong Kong

When I was a little girl, my brother Roger visited the Far East and returned with exotic gifts –

a Chinese lantern from Singapore, which hung in my bedroom for many years, and a pair of wooden dolls with heads on springs from Hong Kong, I called them “Ping & Pong”. As a result I always lumped Singapore and Hong Kong together in my mind, imagining these two Asian cities to be very similar. When I visited them both on an extended holiday in 1990, however, I found them to be very different. Singapore was safe and efficient, while Hong Kong appeared to be so much more exciting, chaotic, vibrant and (after seeing a number of shirtless, tattooed men loafing in the doorways of Kowloon) dare I say, dangerous.

In 1997, Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese, ending 156 years of British colonial rule. The city passed from being the residual jewel of an old empire to a component of a new global power.

In the last 14 years I have visited Singapore countless times and watched it evolve into the stimulating, sophisticated city that it is today. This week, I returned to Hong Kong for the first time in 22 years.

My trip was on a whim, my friend Fiona was visiting me in Bali and flying with Cathay Pacific, she was dead keen to stopover in Hong Kong on her way back to the UK and persuaded me to join her. Happily I was able to book myself onto the same flight.

Descending into Chek Lap Kok Airport at night over the South China Sea, I was awestruck by the sight of a city ablaze with lights. I remembered how, in 1990, I had held my breath as the captain navigated the skyscrapers on that famous, heart-stopping, low approach to the old Kowloon Kai Tak Airport.

From the moment we arrived everything seemed so much more orderly, well-organised and glamorous than it had been on my previous visit, and I was surprised to encounter so many rules and regulations. Of course, further investigation and exploration revealed that it is still a wonderfully exciting, pulsating city – a canny hybrid of the old and the ultramodern.

But, in my view, the 21st century Hong Kong is now much closer in character to Singapore than it was two decades ago.