It’s not on most tourists agenda, but I would highly recommend that if you go to Hong Kong you check out Kowloon Walled City Park.
It’s not the park that’s so interesting, rather it’s what used to be there.
First, some history. In 1841, the Brits took over Hong Kong Island. Understandably, the Chinese were concerned about losing more territory, so they took a small Kowloon fort (dating from 1810) and upgraded it to a walled garrison in 1847. The actual walled area was tiny; only 6.5 acres.
In 1872, the British banned gambling from Hong Kong. The enterprising gamblers simply moved across Victoria Harbour to Kowloon. It was the beginning of that city’s notoriety.
In 1889, the Brits took over the New Territories and gained the land surrounding Hong Kong Island. The Chinese troops were expelled and that was the end of the rule of law in the “Walled City”. Squatters moved in.
In World War II, the Japanese tore down the walls of the city and used the stones to extend the airport runway (the walled city is almost right next to the old airport).
In the 1950’s, heroin boomed and a lot of it was produced in the Walled City and exported throughout the world. Along with it came strip clubs, brothels, casinos, opium dens and – tastiest of all – dog meat stalls.
Since there was no rule of law, hundreds of mom and pop factories opened up in the city. Noodles and candies were made, as well as 80% of the territories fish balls. The tallest smoke stack in the entire city was in the building; 13 stories tall, but you couldn’t tell from the street.
Perhaps the oddest unregulated industry of all was dentistry. In the 1970s, the streets outside were lined with dental clinics:
From the ’60s on wards, the population of Hong Kong boomed and the Walled City followed suit by building up. The whole complex was a giant network of buildings built one on top of the other. At it’s peak, there were 40,000 people living in over 500 buildings on only 2.7 hectares. This entire warren was navigated by 20-30 alleys; there were only 3 working elevators and no running water (It was quite a business to sell water to residents). The tallest buildings were 16 stories tall.
There had been many attempts to tear the site down over the years, beginning in the 1920s by the Brits. In the late ’80s it was finally agreed that it was time to tear the damn thing down as it was becoming a threat/embarrassment to the city. Eviction started in 1992 and in 1994 the site was torn down. Here’s a shot of what it looked like before it was destroyed:
Also, a few years before demolition, a German camera crew shot a documentary about it. Fascinating:
The site is now a park and interpretive center. Where people used to shoot up, locals now do Tai Chi in the morning.
The interpretive center has a few gems in it. Before demolition, the government hired a team of Japanese anthropologists to create a cross section of the site, demonstrating what life was like inside it. Here are some shots of their drawing. Keep in mind that most of these apartments are ~200 square feet in size:
There’s also a bronze model of the site which gives you a sense of how it must have stuck out from the rest of the neighbourhood:
When they were demolishing the site, the wreckers discovered that the original fort, and the cannons (from 1802) next to it, were still there. The entire city had been built around them. They’ve preserved the building (called the Yamen) and it’s now the home to the interpretive center and the heart of the park:
Hong Kong – and especially Kowloon – is a city of markets. You can buy almost anything.
There’s a flower district…
…a bird market…
…and a fish market.
In fact, you can go down to the local food market and the butcher will sell you pieces of an animal that you didn’t even know you want:
This makes for a fascinating trip around the city as you walk from market to market. The first three markets in this post are all within walking distance of each other. If you approached them from our hotel, you’d also find yourself walking through the leather interiors, sewing and building materials districts:
However, all this selling comes at a price. After a while, Hong Kong begins to feel like Manhattan with mountains instead of cultural institutions. You begin to realize that this is a city that exists solely for the sake of commerce. It’s the market for the market’s sake.
As Hong Kongers become very wealthy, they’re adopting some of the shallower trappings of an upwardly mobile society. You can see this in the incredible number of subway ads for plastic surgery:
This country never ceases to fascinate. I’ve noticed many things on this trip; many too short to blog, so instead, here’s a stream of consciousness.
1.
This country is obsessed with order, ritual and precision. Everyone wears a uniform. Security guards and cleaning staff are decked out head-to-toe in custom uniforms. The salarymen all wear variations on the same suit. Even the teenagers here all seem to collapse into the same look.
This also manifests itself in odd ways. For instance, the construction sites here are the cleanest things you have ever seen. Note the equally spaced barriers ringing the sites:
Similarly, I watched a security guard at another construction site walking around picking up individual cigarette butts with tongs; no broom for him.
Equally baffling is the habit of staff on trains to bow as they enter and exit each car. The process of selling you coffee or checking your tickets involves endless rounds of bowing.
2.
This country is incredibly safe and crime free.
You see almost no graffiti. There are no guards in the museums (versus one per room in most North American museums). There are fire extinguishers everywhere on the smaller streets (would have been stolen ages ago in Canada). They even print your room number on the key to your hotel room:
3.
When it rains in Shinjuku at night you are forgiven for thinking that, just for one second, you might actually be in Blade Runner .
4.
The toilets here are out of control. Not only do they have bidets and a spray built in, some also make a flushing sound on demand, enabling you to avoid some of the less delicate human noises. Many have warming seats.
Also, one toilet I used actually robotically controlled its lid. I flushed it (lid up) and it closed the lid and then raised it again before flushing it. I’ve no idea why, but, I for one, will work with our future robot toilet overlords.
5.
The Tokyo metro is an experience in and of itself.
No one talks and it is almost preternaturally quiet. People may be listening to music on their headphones, but they keep the volume so low that you can’t hear.
Many people sleep. Others read. Sometimes they read manga porn. That’s okay and no one judges (or, if they do, they’re doing it in their own silent Japanese way). Here’s a photo of a guy reading his manga porn next to a sleeping woman:
The service is also impeccable. We were in the train when a guard ran on and picked someone’s suit jacket off the rack above the seats (yes, they have racks). He asked anyone if it was theirs; upon hearing ‘no’, he ran off the train and began speaking frantically into his walkie talkie.
Seemed like someone had mentioned that they’d forgot their jacket on the train and mere minutes later it was being picked up for them. MTA, you’ve got a long way to go.
6.
There are no garbage cans anywhere. You’re supposed to bring your own trash home – even if you’re at the park. You can find some garbage cans next to vending machines or in convenience stores, but that’s it.
7.
You can eat at any restaurant in Japan and you know the food will be clean. A chef would be permanently dishonoured if one of his guests got sick from his food.
Despite that, just about every restaurant we’ve eaten at would fail a health inspection in North America.
The kitchens are crowded nasty affairs. In a noodle bar, raw food sits in bowls astride the patrons waiting to be cooked. Cigarette smoke ventilates into the kitchen. There’s only one sink in the kitchen and it’s used for everything. And none of that matters.
8.
The alien nature of Japan is hammered home to you most notably when you experience something Western that’s been redone through a Japanese lens. I went into Fedex Kinko’s to print some paper and all was normal until they handed me my printed documents.
In an envelope that was sealed with a special Kinko’s sticker:
I had a similar moment when I saw an ad for Coke Zero:
I’m pretty sure that you will never see Coke Zero positioned as “wild health” in North America (or that anyone would want to see that).
9.
There is more unnecessary packaging here than anywhere else I have ever been. Everything is double wrapped in plastic.
10.
We went in to a supermarket. In an effort to sell different foods, they were sampling salad. Nobody here eats Western food.
11.
People in Tokyo are immaculately put together. There is nary a loose end or a frayed cuff in sight. Even their jeans are perfect: I didn’t see one single rear pant leg that had ever come into contact with pavement.
12.
There is an obsession with labour-saving devices here. If you lived on a tiny island with an aging population, you’d probably think that same way too. The most bizarre example of this so far is a machine that automatically puts plastic sheets over your wet umbrella. I didn’t even know I needed it (see unnecessary packaging above).
13.
We were walking through Ginza (Tokyo’s fashionable shopping district) and drifted past an Abercrombie & Fitch store. For those who haven’t seen one, they represent the pinnacle of confused adolescent hormones run mad.
When we were in NYC, the Fifth Avenue flagship shop had a queue outside and inside it was all black with pounding music – meant to mimic a nightclub. The entrance was framed by a huge shirtless black & white photo of a perfect American youth with chiseled abs. Guarding the entrance were two equally good looking all-Americans wearing A&F’s traditional jeans-and-plaid outfits.
They’ve got exactly the same setup in Tokyo. Same queue. Same poorly lit shop with bad music. Same photo of American Boy ™. Even the clothes on the ‘bouncers’ are the same.
Except they’re Japanese and waif thing, making the whole thing even more ridiculous.
14.
Napkins are the garbage cans of restaurants; they are nowhere to be seen. In fact, I have yet to see a Japanese person spill anything while eating. It’s no that they’re perfect at eating, it’s that if you held your bowl to your face and slurped noodles from an inch away you’d be hard pressed to spill too.
15.
There are maps all around Tokyo. North is usually down. It’s hard enough to find your way around Tokyo (what with the medieval layout and non-Latin script), but holding your map upside down to orient yourself with the “you are here” pin on the sign is just punishing (and probably quite amusing for the locals).
16.
Many utility trucks (e.g., the phone company’s service trucks) drive around and broadcast messages continuously from a speaker mounted on the truck. I have no idea what they’re saying, but I’d like to imagine that it’s something like “Remember that the Emperor’s greatest virtue is his filial piety. All Japanese youth should…”
17.
Many Japanese restaurants display plastic replicas of their meals outside their doors:
And it’s not just the main course; dessert too:
I want to bring this tradition to my apartment in North America. When I have guests over for a dinner party, I will prepare a tray of plastic dishes. I’ll walk from guest to guest, showing them the tray and bowing in front of them as they acknowledge the presence of the plastic trinkets.
18.
We went out for dinner at a traditional izakaya (think Japanese pub; lots of wood and sake bottles everywhere). It could have been a scene from 500 years ago, until a couple sat down next to us and whipped out their iPad and cellphone. He placed the iPad in front of him and surfed the web for the entire meal. She did the same on her cellphone.
I think they exchanged maybe thirty words, and even then it was only to show each other stupid things they’d found on the Internet.
Oh to be young and in love in Japan…
19.
This country loves manga. We went to the manga museum (more a library than a museum…) and learned a bit more about it.
Did you know that in 2008, the Japanese spent roughly as much on manga as fast food? That’s a serious commitment to Shonen Jump.
The museum inadvertently betrayed a bit about Japanese culture:
A section describes the varying thickness of mangas in different areas of Japan. They state “the thickness of the books is not unrelated to the reading speeds of readers from each national region“. It’s very competitive here.
There’s a section on fanzines (fans creating their own manga based on popular characters) and the section on fanzines aimed at adults is basically porn. However, the museum shows one group aimed at men (two girls on the cover) and one aimed at women (two guys holding each other on the cover). Come on Japan, I’m pretty sure that women do not want to read about guys making out. It’s for gay people. You should feel comfortable saying that (which, the Japanese are not – I haven’t seen one openly gay person yet).
Another great point learned: manga is not all about samurai, spies or intergalactic travel. Most in painstakingly mundane stuff like tennis or seeing a girl on the subway.
20.
When you arrive in Japan nothing makes sense. When you leave, it all retrospectively makes total sense. It’s because Japan is a cultural and technological Galapagos. They’ve literally created everything themselves and it’s totally obvious to them how it works and they can’t understand why anyone would (or would want to do anything differently).
For example, consider the machine below:
It’s the ticket machine for the subway. It looks bafflingly complex – and it is the first time you use it.
The trick is that you need to put your money in first before it will do anything. This is the complete opposite of how it works everywhere else in the world, so non-Japanese spend most of their time quivering in front of the machine.
Once you put your money in, the black buttons light up to show you which fairs you can choose based on the money inserted. Want more than one ticket? Select the number at the upper right and the black buttons refresh to show you any changes as to what you can pick.
All completely unintelligible to a non-Japanese but retrospectively makes a lot of sense.
21.
Male vanity is everywhere in this country. In Harujuku you’ll see lots of guys lined up for store sales. On the train we saw a guy putting on makeup. In fact, there was even a line of makeup aimed at men. It’s hilarious to see; what would the shogun of yore think!
22.
How much of a premium is space in this super-dense country? Check out these seats at the Mickey D’s in the Kyoto train station:
23.
This country has a real sweet tooth and some of the absolute best candies. I recommend any of the following:
Crunky: think puffed rice in chocolate, not southern hip hop
Lotte Chocolat (sic) Dessert: science has managed to recreate the taste and texture of a chocolate banana crepe inside a tiny marble-sized ball of chocolate
Plus Mint Chocolate: heavy chocolate wrapped in a minty shell
Muji Yogurt-Covered Cherries: simple compared to these other foods, but they do the trick
Characters (line drawings, not humans) are everywhere in Japan. They’ve been around for a long time – artists like Kuniyoshi used to put crazy animals in his drawings to get around censors:
More recently, they’ve been redone to be more kawaii , a term that loosely translates as ‘cute’.
Needless to say, the Japanese never use a picture or words where a cute character could be placed instead.
Here are a couple of government posters:
This also goes for products as well:
There are also many products that are sold on the basis of an anthropomorphized character. This one’s roach-be-gone:
Orange juice:
While we’re at it, why not make construction site pylons into cute characters too?
Every single instructional sign should include at least one cute character if at all possible:
This one’s just baffling:
Cops have pretty characters for their dogs:
And even your local bus has a character:
Hell, you want some pork for dinner? How about this cute and tasty little guy?
In fact, tonight when I sleep I think I’ll be dreaming of characters. Maybe one of the ones from this crazy wall outside the Takadanobaba subway station:
Wen and I were exploring Hamarikyu-Teien garden and went into their oh-so-cute teahouse:
Here’s the view from the other side:
Inside it’s a traditional tea house; just tatami mats on the inside:
They serve exactly one type of tea – green – available hot or cold. I had the hot, Wen had the cold:
For the sake of us foreigners, they provide a set of instructions on how to properly drink the tea. We had fun following it; here’s a synopsis:
Eat the little cake first. To eat it, place it – and the paper – in your left palm.
Use the wooden knife to cut it in half or quarter it. Do not eat anything until you’ve cut it.
Use the knife to spear the halves/quarters and eat each individually.
Then take the tea bowl in your right hand and place it in your left palm. The design on the bowl should be facing you; make sure that when you place it in your palm it is still facing you.
Using your right hand, rotate the bowl – in a clockwise direction – through two 90 degree turns so that the patterned part faces away from you
Rub the lip of the cup with your fingers and then clean it with a handkerchief or tissue paper.
Drink the tea in three or four sips; there should be no foam left in the bowl
We’re starting to get a feel for this city – although by no means do we understand it. Two themes are emerging.
First, Japan is a nation of nerds. Japan’s love of ritual and too high population density seem to have led to people being obsessed with ‘the best’. People express themselves by dressing to the nines (after all, no one will ever see your apartment) and publicly demonstrating their commitment to practices that show just how committed they are to what they do.
Sometimes this is awesome, as shown in this popper in Yoyogi park:
Sometimes it’s a little misguided. These girls are lining up to eat brunch on the patio of “Eggs and things”. They’ve decided that they are committed to recreating the North American preppy look and all its associated social habits:
The other things we’ve realized is that Tokyo is a fully modern medieval city. After the city was destroyed many times in the 20th century (first earthquakes, then firebombs), they could have rezoned all the streets (think New York’s Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 or Haussmann’s renovations of Paris). However, they chose not to, and two things become evident.
The first, is that Tokyo is a series of layers, all piled upon one another.
Highway over train over road:
Building upon building upon building, all trying to reach the sky…
The second interesting aspect of this is that the lack of planning means that experiences simply occur; randomly next to one another. For instance, today’s walk took us to the “super skyscraper” district of Shinjuku, through a park with ancient temples; very different styles of people watching in Harajuku and Shibuya and finally exploring the love hotels of Dogenzaka. All contiguous; all very different.
Here are some photos.
The atrium of the Sumitomo Building.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building; it’s supposed to look like a microchip (obvious, right?).
The view from the top:
We witnessed a Japanese wedding inside the Meiji Shriine of Kamizono-Cho park:
We did a lot of people watching there and in Harajuku and neighbouring Yoyogi park (a surprisingly fun Western-style park replete with runners, skateboarders, saxophone players, beat boxers and dancers):
In Shibuya, we marveled at the wall of people crossing the street. This is probably the only place in the world where its’ fascinating to just watch traffic:
From there, we got a kick out of the different themes and unintentionally inappropriate names of the love hotels in Dogenzaka. You can book them to “rest” for 4 hours or “stay” overnight. They’re actually a legitimate way to stay at a reasonably priced hotel in Tokyo:
Finally, we had a hilarious dinner in Shinjuku, We wandered the streets and found the cutest izakaya on the back streets. There was just one downside: nothing was in English.
We asked the table next to us if they spoke any English. It turned out that the chef could say “meat” and we knew “sashimi” and “sake”, so that was enough for a full meal. The food was amazing; the sashimi below came served with the fish it came from. And after the meal, the waitress (who, along with the restaurant thought it was hilarious that we were eating there – particularly when we ordered a second round of sakes) came out in the street and bowed to see us go.
We also learned a couple of cool things about Japanese eating culture at the restaurant. If you’re a local there, you can buy one of those huge bottles of sake and they’ll put a charm around it’s neck to indicate it’s yours. It’s then on ice (or heated) for you the next time you visit.
Also, the waitress put a sake cup into a box and then poured the sake into the cup, over the brim and filled up both the cup and the box. You’re then served the combination and it’s like getting two glasses in one, refilling your cup from the box when finished.
About a week ago, Wen and I got back from our honeymoon in Wyoming (this blog has been dark for two weeks as the combination of honeymoon + moving to new apartment upon return + crazy work has made it tough to blog). It’s a beautiful – and culturally very different – part of America. Here are a couple of notes for you:
one We were told by some locals that people in “Wyoming” are family-oriented. I’m not sure what this is a euphemism for (likely “socially conservative). After all, I live in the Northeast and people don’t regularly abuse their kids or similar things out here.
Ironically, on our last night in town we sat next to a table of cowboys. Turns out that they’d made the wives and kids eat at another table in the restaurant. And one of the cowboys offered the waiter a chance to sleep with his wife in return for 50% off the bill. Judging by the heavy eyeliner and sagging halter top on her, I’m not sure he was joking.
two Wyoming is the least populous state in the Union, checking in at a little over 500K people. This means that they also have the most unique license plates in the Union. Take a look at the generic plate below. The number on the left represents the county you’re from; the right is a number assigned to you. We didn’t see one that went above 5 digits!
three Montana may officially be “Big Sky Country”, but Wyoming is a close second:
four Continuing on our license-plate theme, when I was a kid, when our parents took us on American road trips, they’d trick us into being quiet by asking us to try and spot the license of every state. The place to do this is Grand Teton/Yellowstone. I’m convinced that I saw every state there; the Lupine Meadows parking lot looked like a governor’s convention, there were so many different states represented.
five the only challenging part of Wyoming is that you quickly learn that people’s ability to drive is inversely proportional to the size of their vehicle-and people in Wyoming like their vehicles big. Now everyone knows that people with SUVs are vehicularly challenged (witness the gravel road that some people took at 20 km/h: people, you’ve got a 4×4!) but Yellowstone was ridiculous. People there had land-based aircraft carriers: 30 foot long behemoths with cars in tow – and they took at least as long as an aircraft carrier to turn (I think I saw little tug boats helping them on tight corners).
Note that Yellowstone consists of two lane roads, so travellers: ye have been warned…
six One interesting fact we learned is that Wyoming is Utah’s playground. Everywhere we went, even remote corners like 10 miles into the Targhee forest, we kept coming across trucks from Utah. Apparently the state sport there is heading up to Wyoming on long weekends and set up trailers in the middle of the forest and drink beer.
seven English in Wyoming is a living language. “Buffalo” is slowly transmuting into “Bison”. More worrisome is the pronunciation of “creek” as “crick”. I had a great time asking my cowboy horse riding guide the name of yonder crick.
eight Cowboys in Wyoming are a hearty and dynamic lot; they have had no challenge adapting to the 21st century. We met some who constantly used the air conditioning in their cars and carried plastic water bottles on the trail to stay hydrated. Nothing too fancy there.
Then they started telling us that they want to get satellite tv in their camp because they’re bored of one another (What! No songs around campfires every night?) and that they use Google AdWords to buy keywords to advertise their services. Technology: 1, old way of life: 0. Now we just need to work on the Amish.
nine Wyoming has the craziest weather of any place I’ve been. We were told that there is snowfall on record for every day of the year except August 16th. When we hiked, we came across more snowdrifts than you can imagine; snowball fights on the 4th of July in the mountain are routine.
It thunderstormed every day we were there; the lightning seen across the valley was amazing. One thunderstorm was followed up with some particularly aggressive hail – nickel-sized balls bouncing off the ground.
ten Jackson is home to the National Museum of Wildlife Art. It’s a fabulous little museum with a great selection of wildlife paintings; they feature a lot of American art of life on the plains plus a quick historical tour of how wildlife painting has evolved.
One thing that became eminently clear is that when men paint pictures of bears, they turn into imbeciles. How else can you explain William Dunton calling the following “Monarch of all he surveys”:
Or Charles M Russell calling this “To the victor belong the spoils”:
The museum also reminded me of what a small world it is. The museum has a prized (and fantastic) collection of art by Carl Rungius. In 1910, he was invited by Jimmy Simpson up to Banff to hunt; he subsequently painted many of the hunts. Later in his life, Simpson would build Num Ti Jah lodge – where I had been married less than a week before.
One of the pleasures of living in America is how someone, somewhere, is trying to make your life easier. The locals here balance a notion of rugged individual freedom with a mass market consumerism that is focused on making the average life as easy as possible.
Frequently, ‘making your life as easy as possible’ equates with ‘not having to think.’ One of the ways this manifests itself is in signs. Stupid signs that tell you to do the most mindless things. In fact, sometimes the signs are so truly stupid that it requires thinking about them to ignore their message (thus reasserting our individualism?).
To me, the ultimate example of this are the Icon Parking signs. The image below is taken from the parking lot in my office in the old Port Authority building:
As you enter the well-lit, one lane, whitewashed tunnel to descend into the bowels of the parking lot, you are greeted with no fewer than 11 signs. 10 of them consists of the alternating slogans “pull ahead” and “drive slow”. Recall that you are in a narrow tunnel. By definition it affords no action other than driving ahead. Does one need to be told to drive slow? Presumably the driver has rounded a corner before and therefore can gauge the appropriate speed for turning?
I have no idea (and I’ve never parked there as I don’t drive to work; perhaps it is a truly treacherous corner and cows people in to attempting to reverse), but I can’t help thinking that’s there’s a larger message in the signs…
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