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Hong Kong's riches
By ROBERT N. JENKINS, Times Staff Writer
HONG KONG -- Even as they step toward the smog-stained, low-rise building with the roof of emerald-colored tiles, worshipers and tourists alike can sniff the odor. One step inside Man Mo Temple and the burning incense -- simultaneously sweet and pungent -- congeals from scent to cloud. Enormous coils of incense, the ropes at least an inch thick, hang from the ceiling, smoke drifting toward walls painted a brilliant red. Long after the eyes stop watering, the smell lingers on clothes, stirring memories:
The devout, trailing smokey wisps from incense sticks bought in Hong Kong move between statues of deities in colorful garb. The worshipful bend gently and repeatedly from the waist, or they kneel before a broad central altar. They place the smoking sticks by the statues and altars, which hold other gifts: oranges, apples, bottles of water. People pass a large ceremonial bell and a larger drum. These are sounded to alert the gods that even in this technological age, someone with a cell phone in his pocket or her purse is invoking a blessing for their children or loved ones.
Outside Man Mo, decades-old apartment buildings largely obscure the view of Central, the financial district with skyscrapers that soar like a garden of bean stalks beckoning Jack. Throngs of workers emerge from a subway station and hurry past the board fence surrounding the excavation for yet another of these office towers-to-be. From across the street, it becomes clear that the fence is cleverly covered with photo murals of Hong Kong's waterfront over the decades. The first panels show an early 20th century view of British colonial warehouses, architecturally different but uninteresting. The most recent image includes an artist's rendering of the building under construction. But this peek into the future is already out of date, for it fails to show the 88-story building -- its 5.6-million square feet to be filled by offices, hotels and stores -- that is scheduled to open in September.
Yet, trade papers carry articles about Hong Kong's economic slowdown. No longer the only portal to mainland China and its billion-plus potential customers, the islands and mainland suburbs that make up Hong Kong have lost tens of thousands of residents since Great Britain relinquished this jewel in its Empire crown at midnight on June 30, 1997. One estimate is that 60 percent of the British who were then living on the island of Hong Kong and in its cross-harbor sibling Kowloon and the neighboring New Territories have departed. Untold numbers of them, having arrived during the 20th century to make fortunes, despaired at what they saw as inevitable: Mainland China's anticapitalist rulers would take the golden goose that they had controlled and, if not chop off her head, at least put up a high fence around her yard. And the Communists would tightly grasp the only key. That sort of economic suicide hasn't occurred yet. Instead, Hong Kong remains a free-wheeling place where the wealthy and status-conscious go to invest and scoop up designer everything at ridiculously low prices. For years it reportedly has had the highest per capita ownership of Rolls-Royces in the world. In 2000, Mercedes-Benz accounted for 10 percent of all new-car sales in Hong Kong. An advertising executive in Hong Kong was quoted last year in the Times of London as saying that Hong Kong accounts for 13 percent of the world's wristwatch sales, compared with about 16 percent for the United States, which has roughly 40 times Hong Kong's population. The article also quoted a romance novelist who was finishing an etiquette book aimed at the island's continually growing, but culturally uninformed, nouveau riche. They practice conspicuous consumption by shopping at numerous, spectacularly large, swank malls. The directory for the five-level Pacific Place, for instance, includes Gucci, Chanel, Christian Dior, Ferragamo, Hugo Boss, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Versace, Alfred Dunhill, Bvlgari, Montblanc, Georg Jensen, Cartier, Bang & Olufsen, Royal Daulton and Tiffany & Co. The even-larger Sogo, one of the huge Japanese-owned department stores, lists most of those and adds Coach, Brooks Brothers, Mikimoto, Baume et Mercier, Laura Ashley . . . Not far from this high-fashion commerce is the establishment of Mak Ping Lam. He, too, is in the brand-name business, sort of: Mak hand carves chops, which for centuries have been accepted in Asia as a stamped version of a legal signature.
For about 35 years, Mak estimates, he has been making chops. He writes the customer's name and reproduces it by carving it -- in reverse -- into the bottom of a stick of soapstone, horn, wood or even metal. The finished chop is held in the fist and pressed into either ink or colored wax, then is pressed on a document. In Hong Kong, China, Korea and Japan, this colored impression is accepted as the equivalent of the owner's signature on legal and commercial documents. Because each chop is handmade, the impression is considered authentic. The block of chop material is usually 3 or 4 inches tall, perhaps an inch thick. The top may be carved into shapes such as animals; various cultures attribute values to the different creatures. Mak learned the craft from a brother-in-law, who learned it while living on the Chinese mainland. Mak has maintained his tiny stall, about as wide as an office desk, in an alley in the heart of the Central district, within a chop's throw of a Bvlgari jewelry store. Though Mak can create 10 to 15 chops a day, "this year not so good for business," he said last month. As he finished describing his work, a man walked up and ordered a set of contemporary business cards. This work helps Mak pay for his daughter's college. She recently moved to San Francisco as an apprentice to a fashion designer. Mak finished taking the card order, then peered over his eyeglasses and acknowledged that demand for his traditional work is lessening. But, he added, "I can't change my work. I can't understand what else to do." Mak's craft was more in vogue when the British followed the Portuguese and other European traders into the region in the 1700s. The Westerners saw the island as a portal to the Chinese mainland with its limitless opportunities to cheaply buy silk and tea. Chinese rulers, in turn, were eager for the payments in silver, with which they could buy manufactured goods. But by the late 1700s, the British also were smuggling in opium, purchased in India, as a trade medium. The Chinese were then paying for the opium with the silver they had earned. Chinese rulers were alarmed by the spread of addiction and by fiscal problems. Though the rulers briefly forced foreign merchants to give up thousands of chests of opium and to leave their coastal warehouses, the British simply brought their enormous naval forces into play. The Chinese capitulated and, in addition to opening five port cities to trade, ceded Hong Kong to Great Britain in January 1841. The British insisted on even more rewarding terms, granted the next year. The result during the next 155 years was to make Hong Kong into China's richest, most Western city. When the British took over, the island was distinguished by its numerous green mountains. Now the mountains are merely a lush counterpoint to the changing skyline.
Long gone are the opium dens and brothels that once characterized the neighborhood. Now men and women clutter the sidewalks with tiny stands selling newspapers, lottery tickets and cans of juice. Whole shops sell just mah-jongg sets, of plastic or bone. (You can get a set in plastic for less than $14 U.S. The dollar is also the name of Hong Kong's currency, with an exchange rate of about 7.8 Hong Kong to 1 U.S.) Restaurants no wider than a one-car garage have three or four small tables; these places are open to the sidewalks, so busy workers can dash in for a bowl of rice or soup. Smaller-still produce stores squeeze oranges for juice ordered by customers without the time even to sit down, while other people rest in tiny shops selling only tea. The parallel Li Yuen Streets, East and West, are filled with the stalls of vendors selling cheap clothing, pieces of fabric, toys, decorative covers for cell phones and an amazing array of wristwatches. The merchandise covers every centimeter of the card table-sized display areas. Chinese and accented English are the languages that fill the air: "Is waterproof -- WATER-proof!" a watch seller tells a potential customer. "Makes music. Lift lid: music. Wind six time, work all day," his cross-the-alley competitor instructs another shopper. If a passerby pauses too long, touches an item or makes eye contact with the salespeople, the eager sales pitch begins: "Scarf is pure silk, 28 dollar," one woman says to a shopper who pauses. But as she turns to go, the seller calls out, "Twenty dollar!" "Ten dollar with battery, 5 dollar no battery!" says a frustrated salesman at still another wristwatch-covered table. Pressure is less at the "wet markets," the booths that sell produce and freshly butchered meat or filleted fish. The odors in some of these areas may not be identifiable to Western shoppers. About 2 miles to the east, past the skyscraper bank buildings, similarly sidewalk-sized lanes near the parallel streets of Jardine's Crescent and Jardine's Bazaar specialize in women's clothing, from stockings on up. These outdoor markets are so narrow that if customers stop to inspect goods on either side, passage is almost impossible. Crowds are especially thick on Sunday, the sole day off each week for the island's tens of thousands of Filipino women working as maids. Known as amahs (AH-mahs), these women gather at small parks, near the major subway and bus connection areas and on downtown streets that are closed to traffic on Sunday.
The women sit down wherever there is space; they eat, talk, sing songs and buy from vendors who carry knockoff goods in large plastic shopping bags. Asked about the hundred or more women squatting on one street beneath an overpass linking two modern buildings, a policeman said, "They don't get paid much, so they cannot do much (on the day off). They are sitting there because they are out of the rain, having a chitchat." In late December, the gatherings took on another flavor: peaceful protests against the government's plan to levy a monthly tax of about $66 U.S. on their earnings of about $500. The women typically send some of their income to their relatives in the Philippines. Hong Kong faces a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall this year, and the leaders figure on hitting the least powerful residents rather than crack down on the tens of thousands who dodge the tax that begins on incomes of about $1,000 U.S. monthly. Kowloon boasts a special Western touch: the Peninsular Hotel, this month named the finest hotel in Asia by readers of Conde Nast Traveler. (Locals advise that even if visitors don't stay in the hotel, they must at least visit the men's room at its top-floor restaurant; the urinals face floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking Victoria Harbor.) Kowloon is famed for ethnic specialties. Of particular interest to visitors are: The Jade Market, where hundreds of small dealers sell jewelry and polished pieces. The market is not designed for souvenir buyers, but for those knowledgeable in the stone, though small, relatively cheap items are available. The Yuen Po Street Bird Market, to which residents take their beloved caged pets to chirp to each other while the owners sit a spell. All the things a bird could desire, other than freedom -- a companion, a nicer cage, a porcelain water dish, a nice fresh cricket to eat -- are for sale. But Kowloon also is powered by retail commerce. Nathan Road, which stretches north from near the harbor, is noted for its discount electronics, camera, jewelry and clothing stores. Touts stand on the sidewalks and in doorways, calling insistently to passersby to "come and take a look." Though bargains can be had, and prices are lowered significantly "if you buy now," the area also has earned a reputation for bait and switch. There are merchants who will box up inferior merchandise or discontinued versions of what was selected. Guidebooks repeatedly advise visitors to know the prices back home, or on the Internet, for the exact item they want, and to be sure that a warranty is good worldwide, not just in the nation of sale or manufacture. For a different cultural experience, wait until the late afternoon or evening and head north on Nathan, about three-quarters of a mile from the harbor. If you raise your eyes above street level, you are likely to notice that above the storefronts or restaurants are dreary apartment blocks. Their facades are dirty, and drying laundry hangs off tiny balconies or from bamboo poles poking out of windows. When you reach Jordan Road, turn left for three blocks and then turn right on to Temple Street. This is the famed Night Market. Store signs at the Night Market are more likely to be written in Chinese, or perhaps in Hindi, for the smidgen of Indians living in the neighborhood, than in English. But most everyone speaks English, enough to invite you to consider their stall of merchandise, which has been erected in the street starting about 3 p.m. each day. The action starts about 7 p.m., when local workers stop by on the way home. Most of these vendors are less aggressive than those in the narrow marketplaces of Hong Kong and the touts on Nathan Street. Bargaining is expected, but do remember what the exchange rate is and don't fixate on saving a few more HK dollars. Displayed on crowded tables and hanging from wire racks are all sorts of manufactured goods: embroidered silk, nylon luggage, electronic gizmos such as lipstick-sized video cameras. Other stalls sell traditional herbal medicines. Interestingly, there are posters of earnest-looking men wearing health-professional-looking white smocks and holding small bottles of the recommended item. The odors of dried fish and squid waft from the produce stands, and other smells come from restaurants behind the stalls. Tiny food booths, often with just a couple of hot plates, also compete to serve busy shoppers. For more on the Night Market, see the related story. A block over from Temple Street, on Shangai, a sign in a window advertised in English and Chinese, Braised Snake Soup; $25 HK. I entered the restaurant, empty but for its four tables. Another sign also advertised the specialty of the house. I called out, and a tiny, wizened woman emerged from the back. I pointed to the sign and told her, in English, I did not want any soup but wanted to see the main ingredient. She seemed to understand, for she quickly shook her head and went behind the back wall of the restaurant. I waited a couple of seconds, but she did not return. I took a closer look at that back wall. To one side it was some sort of chiller case, the kind that might display ice cream bars in a convenience store. But this one held a large plastic bag, and zipped inside it was a long coil of pale pink. It looked like what I believe a snake would resemble without its skin. Snake soup is considered less a delicacy than a dish to ward off the cool air and to make the consumer stronger. Back across the harbor, at least one shop specializes in snakes for consumption. Shoppers can pick one out and take it home alive or have the staff kill it. A few blocks from the store in this neighborhood is Man Mo Temple. Even before you reach it, you can smell the incense.
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From the Times Travel page
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