Letters from China No 17

7^th December 2008

…and YES, the ballet was fantastic. Our first visit to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Lyric Theatre was not only a delight, but an exposure to the hugely varied art scene in Hong Kong.

It’s a strange feeling coming out of a wonderfully professional performance to find ourselves waiting at the Star Ferry pier to take the last but one hydrofoil across Victoria Harbour to our hotel. Even after landing in Mui Wo in South Lantau we have a fifteen minute walk along the beach to our bed. A footpath takes us from the ferry pier past a dragon boat, beached and waiting for its annual outing later next year. The nice thing about this hotel, apart from it being a few meters from the beach, is the footpath that takes you there – no cars, only the occasional bicycle. So we fall asleep to the sound of lapping waves and little else – bliss.

The next day sees us on the train back to the mainland. It never fails to surprise me how simple the procedure is. Arrive at the station in Kowloon, pass through HK immigration in about one minute, two hours comfortable ride in the train and two minutes to pass through the Chinese immigration with a polite nod from the officer. All this tranquility is disturbed by the customs man deciding that we might be smuggling in some floot (fruit) and demanding we place our bags in the X-lay machine for a second look. All’s well and the floot turns out to be the cherry liqueurs we bought at Marks and Spencer’s in Queen’s Road on Hong Kong Island. Again, the retention of the old names is always a bit of fun, and part of the “colonial heritage” that the Central Government try very hard to remove, but the HK people are having none of. Believe it or not, many of them liked being a British colony and Chris Patten, the last governor, is an honoured guest every time he returns to publicise his latest book. His hotel room is inundated with the mini custard cream pies he adored when governor, to the extent that he could be eating them for ever if he chose to do so. It’s not without reason that the Chinese government described him as a “devil of ten thousand years” for introducing democracy to Hong Kong just before the hand over, plus the legal framework of the Special Administrative Region that it became. So now we have a legal system still based upon English common law in Hong Kong, even barristers and judges in wigs and scarlet robes – not much changed there. So it’s a bit like going back to Britain every time we visit, but in the fifties rather than the 2000’s, or the noughties as I’ve heard this decade described.

Back to reality and our last two weeks of term, one week of exam preparation and then testing followed by seven weeks of holiday. It isn’t that bad after all……..