The Dim Sums

It always feels great to wake up reasonably early and well-rested, eager to experience the coming day. Doing so in one of the world's greatest cities, as the first rays of the sun rise over Victoria Harbour, is about as good as it gets. We left the hotel right after breakfast, with a springy step and a smile on our faces, headed for nowhere in particular, enjoying the seaside walk, the ride towards Hong Kong island on the quaint little Victoria Harbour ferry, and the breathtaking view from the Bank of China tower's observation deck.

In the early afternoon we had lunch at Dragon-i, a hip Dim Sum place, where we were joined by Nicolas and Sayuri, a couple of friends now living in Hong Kong. Around a delicious array of all imaginable kinds of fried, boiled and steamed tapas, including the best Xiao Long Baos of the entire trip, they told us about life in Hong Kong.

According to Nico, Hong Kong is, and has always been, entirely devoted to making money. Of course, I knew he'd say that: he works for a bank. Yet even a little investigation quickly uncovers a lot of evidence to support this view. For example, most cities eventually devote a prominent place in their central square to a character who did a lot to bring greatness to the city. Singapore thus honors Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the British gentleman who founded the town, and for his troubles got a big-ass stinking flower named after him. Hong Kong, too, has a statue like that, standing proudly in the middle of a waterfront square in Central. It's not, however, a statue of Qin Shi Huang, the emperor who made the region part of China; nor of Emperor Xuanzong, who created the first military outpost in Tuen Mun; nor of the aforementioned Jorge Álvares, who first recognized the territory's importance for European colonial aspirations; not even of Alexander Grantham, the man who brought both affordable housing and high-rises to Hong Kong; or any other of the 30 or so men who administered the territory since 1841. Even though these men did on average a remarkable job, and quite a few of them would rank as distinguished under any standard, none of them was deemed as worthy of the city's pride and honour as the man whose effigy now adorns Central's Statue Square: Sir Thomas Jackson, an early chief executive of the bank HSBC.

Another telling example: after the handover to China of 1997, Hong Kong had to decide on a new title for its head of "state", as the old moniker of "Governor" was tainted by its colonial connotation. They could have gone for Prime Minister, or President, or Head of the Council of who knows what. They chose "Chief Executive". When the right won French elections in 2002, most of the French press (certainly all on the left) railed then prime-minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin (who is, if I may here interject my very learned and fully non-partisan opinion, an idiot) for believing that a country could and should be run just like a corporation. In Hong Kong, this same idea is so much a part of the fabric of society that it's the first article of their constitution. Or at least, it would be if they had a constitution. (They have a core set of statutes they call the Basic Law.)

No matter how peculiar their title is, the various Governors and Chief Executives have obviously done a good job. Hong Kong is one of the four "Asian Tigers" (along with Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore), the four nations who earned "fully-developed" status near the end of the 20th century after only a few decades of record-breaking economic growth. This economic miracle has spawned many others in the region, with more recent booms occurring in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and (despite the occasional bombing or military coup) Indonesia. I call these late-comers the "Asian Tiggers", although I've been largely unsuccessful in getting that phrase accepted in economic circles.

Hong Kong, for its part, exudes wealth in prodigious quantities. There may be Maserati dealers all over China, but Hong Kong is the only city where you actually see these awkward and ridiculously expensive cars on the streets. Little more than a city state, it is considered the fourth center of world finance, after New York, London and Tokyo, all much larger cities inside nations wielding considerable international power. With a population slightly smaller than Israel's, Hong Kong holds twice as much foreign exchange reserves as the United States, or more than France and the UK combined.

I found the most striking sign of Hong Kong's wealth in the local newspaper, the South China Morning Post. The Hong Kong government was running a full page ad to bolster citizen support for building a 261-million dollar underground rail link to Shenzhen and mainland China's high speed rail network. They compared the project to the not-much-more-expensive 488-million channel tunnel, linking the UK to France and Belgium. That particular infrastructural investment, which has yet to break even, was barely within the means of France and the UK, two of the wealthiest countries in the world, whose combined GDP at the time was bigger than any country but the United States. Two countries whose relatively small military budgets still enables them to routinely pick fights with sizable nations halfway around the world, and win. But or course, if they can do it, then surely Hong Kong (population: 7 Million) can too. The most amazing thing is: the government's entirely right. It can and should spend those 261 millions. Do you realize now how insanely rich Hong Kong is?

This impressive wealth seems relatively well-used. The unbelievable view from Victoria Peak at dusk is the perfect real-life advertisement for economic success: surreal glitter, draped on a beautiful landscape, prosperity literally beaming towards a sky crisscrossed by cargo planes shipping Hong Kong and Shenzhen products all around the world. It's not entirely a fairytale, of course, as Hongkongese society is both staggeringly unequal and environmentally unsustainable. Workers housed in the drab towers of the Northern Territories certainly don't get around in Maseratis, and the eco-tourist looking for a sustainable way to visit Hong Kong should probably stick to Google Earth. And yet, all things considered, the city's success is nothing short of awe-inspiring.

Even more amazing is how, for all its international prominence and cosmopolitanism, Hong Kong remains distinctly Asian. As we walked down Temple Street Market after dinner, the city which looks so much like New York still felt a lot more like Bangkok. Street markets are impossibly crowded. Vendors display all kinds of useless curio, and buyers intensely bargain for them. The final confirmation that we were still very far from the West came to us very, very late in the night, sipping vodka at a Karaoke bar where, like in all such places in Asia, patrons can actually sing.