Observations

Northern Advocate, 29 October 1938, Page 1 (Supplement)

Observations

fjpHE Japanese conquest of Canton and Hankow, but especially the former, has thrown into bold relief the position of Hong Kong, which is Britain’s Far East outpost. This has led a Northlander to send me a most interesting story of what the tourist finds in Hong Kong, which is a city of contrasts. The same Northlander it was who supplied me with a literary pilgrimage in England, dealt with a fortnight ago.

Kong stands, with its ridge of hills rising 2000 feet above the city, the article says, affords practically no space for cultivation. But terraced on those hills are beaqtiful homes. Every night with the coming of dusk the hills become radiant with light, a fairyland of colour like the Chinese jewel trees in the curio shop windows.

jgVEN before the Japanese-Chinese conflict the city had become one of the great ports of the world and England had leased the New Territories on the shore to protect it. Now with the money-making which accompanies war the city is even more prosperous

fpHE visitor is reminded many times a day that this is not China. In a sense, of course, it is not. The British administrators have instituted many reforms which are western, and underneath my windows at the Peninsula Hotel is the starting point of the longest continuous railway line in the world on which you might travel to the English Channel in three weeks. That is, you might if the way were not blocked by fighting in the north. ,B UT in another sense the city has much Chinese atmosphere. The foreigners are definitely in the minority. There is the constant clop, clop of heelless shoes on the pavement. Rickshaws are the popular means of con-

by “The Man on the Look-Out”

veyance. The harbour is thronged with golden sailed sampans and junks, some of them floating kitchens like the Xochimilco boats purveying food to the pleasure boats and to the people from the swimming clubs, of which there are many. For the Chinese, both men and women, have taken to the water, together and in western suits, some of the clubs having as many as 5000 members. FEW of the Chinese wear the oldtime dress. But for the most part the men have doffed their long robes for trousers, and the women their trousers for ' long straight dresses, slashed on both sides half way to the ( knees. < A FEW blocks from the big tourist ( hotels are typical Chinese quarters, crowded streets lined with open shops .

and hung with masses of posters. The letter writers do business along the pavement, as do the dentists with their booths hung with long strings of the teeth they presumably have pulled. The fortune tellers elbow the chiropodists. Artists display their wares along the walls like the open-air markets in

Greenwich Village. With their characteristic disregard for the sidewalk,

crowds of Chinese strollers throng the pavement making motor traffic a difficult business. POSSESSION Point where the English flag first was hoisted on the island has become a little Coney Island with palmists, food shops and amusement places lining the point. YOU can buy everything from jade to live snakes in the quarter and if you like to step into the flower market you can choose between clumps of fragrant white ginger, lotus, wild gardenias, and the tiny pink flowers strung on long curling branches called the chain of love.

rjpHEKE is another bit of old China over on the mainland where the New Territories jut toward Canton, Kam Tin, a walled city where pigs and chickens jostle hordes of dirty children and the muddy tatters of the grown folk are in great contrast to the immaculate whites of the men and the gay flowered di’esses of higher class Chinese.

A s a contrast to the state of things which must be' causing anything but amusement seeking among the people of Hong Kong to-day, it is interesting to hear of a Chinese play in one the theatres of the Eastern city: “The property man wearing a singlet trotted ibout, the actors addressed the audience in long dialogues, one of the <vomen players in a chiffon robe embroidered with sequins flourished an

American cotton handkerchief striped in gaudy sport colours, the orchestra from one corner of the stage squealed and banged away, the wings were crowded with watchers (some of them crying babies), the audience cracked pumpkin and melon seeds, and a small boy stood for hours down in front of

the stage intent on the performance.”

F is all very Intriguing, as is the description of a meal which was declared to be just a little snack. It began with “sharks’ fins in combs, fried prawns, and eastern melon in which a soup had been steaming all day, and went on with fairies delight, snow fungus, and chicken soup, roasted chicken with crisp skin, mushroom and cabbage and shellfish, walnuts and chicken, ginger and duck, sweet and sour pork, fried Wan Ton, and fried rice. The sweet was paste buns containing black bean jam and after the noodles in soup, and almond tea we had fruit including dragon’s eyes from dishes made of gold dust, their lovely imperial yellow sides carved by hand.”