Saigon to Superior: Hong Kong Handover

Insomniac Dragon

Yesterday, my wife Melissa and I landed in Hong Kong for a three-day flight layover and the start of our honeymoon in Southeast Asia. Having landed at a sparkling new airport and rode an ultramodern train to our hotel, we were giddy to get out of our posh digs overlooking the harbor and jump face-first into our first immersion in this part of the world.

Being in China, I guess I expected some exotic oriental experience to jump before me on the first sidewalk. Instead, we rounded a corner to find beer tents as far as the eye could see and folks of all stripes merrily lifting yard glasses of ale. We’d landed in the middle of July Fest, the annual celebration of Hong Kong’s handover from England to China.

Visions of egg rolls and Tsingtao brew flashed through my mind, yet vendor after vendor was peddling Carlsberg and sausage, with wide smiles above t-shirts that proclaimed, “Hand Over…The Beer!” A Chinese girl jumped from her pack of friends with a hearty, “Cheers!” Just beyond, an African American guy in an Alpha Phi Alpha cap led a throng of revelers in an impromptu step dance. Inside an Irish pub, soccer fans from all corners of the world were hooting at the Asia Cup finals while English and American Navy men arm-wrestled each other over good-natured pints of ale.

Were we truly in China? Queen’s English from the subway intercom instructed us to “Mind the gap” and “Alight to the right,” while blinking maps informed us in real-time that our train was approaching Causeway Bay. Yet round another corner, we found ourselves passing by Chinese medicine shop after medicine shop, display cases pouring over with shark fins, rhinoceros horns, antlers, shells, and… 100% Certified Wisconsin Ginseng. Badgers, fear not those happy California cows—a whopping new market awaits your bounty!

I asked our expat bartender from Manchester how the place had changed since Hong Kong’s handover: “Not a bit.” I asked another Brit who had just returned after fifteen years: “It’s the same really, though they did get rid of the mosquitoes, the rats, and the cockroaches.” We’d have asked a few Chinese their perspective on the subject, but they were so happily engaged in hoisting beers and shopping bags it just didn’t seem the time to inquire about anything but good fun.

6/24/07