Hong Kong ~ A Love Letter To Liberty.
My heart is breaking watching the conflict in Hong Kong on the news, not only for the wonderful people, but because my heart, therefore my home, is and always will be in a top floor flat in a walk-up on Ki Lung Street in Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, Hong Kong, no matter where I live or die.
Home, top floor, second from the right. Come up and see me some time.
I try not to think about it as much as possible and go about my life knowing I’ll never go back. I’ll never walk down my street drenched in colour, life, sound, people, heat and light. Never reach my familiar gate and check my metal post box hanging on the side of the wall that only I have a key to, proof that I am alive and I live here, it’s my home, I’ve got mail.
Love letters gratefully received.
Never climb the endless concrete stairs that look like a horror film but I know every step, every sound from my families behind each door, the smell of the concrete steeped in history, the fifth floor landing where I always stop to catch my breath, exchanging a Lei Ho with people passing on the descent, the hundred degree humidity that grabs you round the arse and makes your hair stick to your face, my lovely opposite neighbours who have lived there for generations, Old Mr Ko, Young Mr Ko and Baby Mr Ko who arrived just days after me.
There’s no place like home.
The relief of finally arriving at the 9th floor summit in pitch darkness always brought a fulfilling sense of sweaty relief mixed with heaving achievement. Feeling out into the black for the bare switch hanging by a wire for the light to scare off the monsters and get my stick key in the hole to open the sliding gate to my door and step into my flat and air con never ever became boring. This was the first place I ever felt I truly belonged. I didn’t even know what that felt like until I found it. It was like I’d lived there before in a past life, but I’m an atheist.
Lady with a fan, Ki Lung Street, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
I try to put it out of my thoughts, but sometimes when I’m in my kitchen in my house in England I’ll turn to pick up a glass and my mind transfers me to my kitchen in The Po and my head will spin out and an overwhelming yearning for home will rush through my bones. You know one of those true emotions that causes involuntary and unstoppable tears to pour from your eyes. Genuine homesickness is a cruel trick.
I’ve never felt I belonged in England, despite it being my birth place and residence for over forty years. It’s not my first choice, it’s not even even my second choice, but as long as I don’t need a visa to live here, here I’ll live.
Apliu Street. I’m loving it.
It wasn’t until I moved to Hong Kong that I experienced true freedom and it took me a good six months to realise why I felt so happy. It dawned on me that for the first time in my life I could walk down the street day or night and not feel any threat of danger. None. When you have lived your entire life with a constant threat of attack, which as we now know is real and present, to experience that level of liberty is euphoric and unique and a huge part of what makes Hong Kong so special.
It’s not just the mercenary “Special” that greed-freak Jeremy Hunt talks about, it’s the priceless kind of “Special” that Joseph Campbell talks about when he explains the meaning of life “is the experience of being alive”. To be able to walk anywhere and just “be”, just “be alive”, is to truly experience peace.
My favourite building, Nathan Road, Mong Kok, Hong Kong.
I’d always lived for the future or the past, for when I’m this or when I was that, our culture dictates that in the West. I had always experienced great suspicion and aggression from people who don’t have any concept of someone being present without an agenda.
In Hong Kong the present moment is the only agenda. This can cause you unraveling frustration as a boat-fresh foreigner in many situations and was almost the undoing of me when one of my new employers didn’t process my work visa properly and when they realised their mistake and that I was unknowingly working illegally they told me not to come back. I said do you mean tomorrow? They said yes. I stared, trying to process an extremely unfamiliar culture in a strangely un-tense moment. I stared a bit more and said do you mean ever? They said yes. I freaked out, which came as much as a surprise to me as it did to them. Neither of us had experienced that level of emotion before, but it taught us all something about each other. I kept the job.
A stressless Tai Mei Tuk, Hong Kong
Graffiti Hong Kong style at Tai Mei Tuk
Unless you have lived there, I imagine the news reports of riot police and tear gas don’t mean much to you. To be honest that’s a normal night in angry old violent England, but as far away as it is in distance is as far away as it is in culture. It’s intense, it’s controlled chaos, it’s gentle, it’s inherently peaceful - just like me. There are misty mountains at the end of electrified streets saturating the night sky with colour, there are people everywhere all the time but no one punches anyone in the street. There is vibrancy, creativity, art, music swirling through the air, food piled high and spilling over the pavement. There is a fast pace but a slow walk. Markets markets markets. Beaches, buildings, the greatest transport system on earth - no more Panic Attack Line via Embankment. Cats in shops. Shops with open fronts. Piles of stuff.
When it’s a rainy night in Kowloon it’s raining all over the world.
