A Return to Hong Kong in 2024
Hong Kong holds a special place in my heart. The city evokes deep sentiment within me, and it will always be more than just a second unique stamp in my passport.
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It was my first week at a temporary job in Shenzhen, China, in the summer of 2014. As a Taiwanese-American, I found myself surrounded by Chinese colleagues in a world-class, albeit brutal, manufacturing environment. While they were nice people, they not only had different accents in Mandarin but also different colloquial styles that were intimidating.
The person who made the biggest impact on me that summer was Steven, my Taiwanese friend, who was also working in the same temporary job.
He recommended visiting Hong Kong, the bordering city-state to Shenzhen, because it was a subway ride away. He had really close friends from his university.
Hong Kong - A Place Unlike Any Other
I got off the subway at Futian Checkpoint station in Shenzhen, walked a few hundred meters, went through immigration and crossed the border to Hong Kong for the first time. I immediately felt the aura as I stepped into the subway station at Lok Ma Chau. The words on the signs and walls were switched from simplified Chinese to traditional characters. The feeling of the communist influence was immediately suppressed by the feeling of a century long British culture implementation.
Steven and I ended up visiting Hong Kong almost every weekend that summer and typically stayed around Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po areas on the Kowloon side. I was impressed by the breathtaking views of the skyline at night.
Fast Forward - 2024
I wanted to go back to Hong Kong just to see it again.
I only had four days over a Chinese New Years holiday to experience it, so I’m not sure the accuracy of my impressions. But I noticed much more tourists from mainland. I have been told that lots of locals have moved to the UK and other places for political reasons with mainland China.
The food was just as incredible. I had roasted goose for the first time since the mid-2010’s.
A Note About History
I grew up watching Jackie Chan movies when it was still the Golden Age of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the top 3 financial and banking hubs in the world, with the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong being the fastest growing in Asia. The Hong Kong Dollar has been consistently the ninth most traded currency in the world (remember that Hong Kong is a CITY - incredibly impressive economic growth in the last few decades). In my opinion, people from Hong Kong are known to be smart, hard working, open-minded, and wealthy.
Hong Kong has had a recent history of fierce protests (most notably the one in 2019 with the proposed extradition bill). The “one country, two systems” is set to expire in 2047, so who knows what the future holds. But while I was in Asia, I had to see Hong Kong like it was a familiar ex.
Hong Kong was the One…
That changed my perception about almost everything. After the summer of 2014, I discovered my love for international cities and the alluring mix of cultural influences.
I started solo traveling shortly after - going to places like Singapore, Israel, Germany, South Africa, and Uganda. To me, the experience in Hong Kong was the gateway to traveling the world that propelled me to collect a plethora of passports stamps in the years to come.
I had no idea that the moment that day when I exited the subway at Fujian Checkpoint in Shenzhen and crossed the border to Hong Kong would end up becoming the start of this thing we call traveling the world. But I love it.
Thank you, Hong Kong.