City Profile: Hong Kong

Hong Kong, People's Republic of China.



Once the shinning pearl on the Queen's colonial crown, Hong Kong has forever been a world within itself. The freest market on the planet has brought people from all over the globe, enchanting visitors with its forever expanding skyline, illustrious mountain ranges and of course, its food. With a population of 7 million, Hong Kong is about as world-class as they come.

Prior to the Opium Wars of the 19th century, the islands that now make up the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong were little more than a small collection of Tanka and Hakka fishing villages scattered along the Pearl River Delta. The British were quick to make their mark, however, establishing what would become the world's second largest container port as the social elite imposed their Victorian era customs on the islands first inhabiters. Hong Kong's population soared after British colonization, with an influx of Chinese immigrants seeking refuge from floods and famine in the mainland, further exacerbated by Mao's Cultural Revolution in the 1960 and 70's. The new immigrants were often met with legislative and cultural limitations, however, with colonialists ensuring the racial segregating of Hong Kong's population, institutionalizing a British style class system which continues to persist even under Chinese control.

Subsequent to the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the outpost rapidly industrialized with the colony's economy growing 180 times from 1961 to 1997, moving from a manufacturing centre to a financial powerhouse towards the end of the 20th century. The transfer of sovereignty from the British to the People's Republic of China in 1997 saw the implementation of a 'one party-two systems' framework of governance, allowing the people of Hong Kong to maintain a level of personal and economic freedom beyond those of their mainland counterparts. The arrangement has been fragile at best, however, with the Chinese government gradually tightening its grip on Hong Kong's media and judicial entities, sparking widespread protests across the region as promises of universal suffrage in 2017 become subject to Chinese discretion.

Today, Hong Kong is an enchanting mix of past and present. The colonial and Chinese influences are strong, personified by the culinary hybridity of the islands cuisine, with a dim sum breakfast standing in harmonious contradiction with an afternoon milk-tea, in what can only be described as something uniquely Hong Kong. Traditional street markets have been moved to multilevel cooked food centres, symbolic of the British penchant for control over local populations in the region, whilst enabling the culinary delights of successive waves of Chinese immigration to flourish. Hong Kong is in many ways a place of contrasts, in a city where a short train ride can take you from the dense shopping meccas of Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kok, to the illustrious solitude of the MacLehose Trail, where the homes of billionaires and cage dwellers can be seen lighting up in unison from Lion Rock, whilst bamboo scaffolding maintains the structural integrity of new developments in The New Territories behind the range. 

Hong Kong is the personification of a globalized world, a place where international businessmen ride the elevators of the island's Central district, whilst low-level entrepreneurs coax budget travellers into their restaurants and secondhand electronics stores in the Chungking Mansions. In spite of this, Hong Kong has maintained a distinct identity of its own, a place where people identify themselves by their city rather than their country, where the cultural divide between the island and the mainland seems to grow by the day, as Chinese investment flows into Hong Kong pushing the cost of living higher and higher for the local population. The ongoing protests in Hong Kong are an expression of disillusionment with the current system, a collective cry for control over a destiny that has forever been shaped by external forces. Regardless of the outcome, Hong Kong will forever be a city belonging to the world. 

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