Hong Kong and Shanghai Show Different Side of China
After less than a year in China, I have seen only a fraction of this huge country. Each time the kids have a break from school here in Beijing, we try to visit some place new. While the heart of China remains in its vast interior, which I have only begun to explore, I considered it unacceptable that I had yet to visit the nation's two other major urban centers. So it was that on our kids' recent spring break, we set off for Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Beijing is a city of over 12 million people, with a wide array of amenities growing by the day. Yet almost from the minute we landed in Hong Kong, I felt like I was leading a pack of country mice lost in the big city and awed by their towering, glittery surroundings. It seemed as if we had leapt from the mid-twentieth century into the mid-twenty-first.
We landed at the airport and took the train into town, lugging two big bags, three young kids and an assortment of carry-ons. At the central station, we took the elevator up two floors, ready to catch a cab to our hotel. Before we could head out, however, my wife, Rebecca, spied a bookstore on the other end of the floor and we all ran toward it like Bedouins spying an oasis on the edge of a desert.
With our luggage stacked up in the hallway all five of us were grabbing books and games and throwing them onto the counter in a mad frenzy. There was a huge display of Jacob and Eli's current favorite series, Geronimo Stilton, big board books of Elmo and Dora for Anna, and rows and rows of novels and nonfiction books for Rebecca and I to peruse. There even was a prominent display of "Mao: The Unknown History," a biography banned in mainland China.
Afterward, I was taken aback by the eagerness with which we had plunged into the store and filled the shopping bags. I don't generally feel like we lack much in Beijing but our excitement at this simple train-station bookstore said otherwise. I can only imagine what trips to Hong Kong must have seemed like 15 years ago, before Beijing began opening up in earnest.
We spent two days tooling around the island, riding the tram to the peak and going to the lovely Hong Kong Park. We had a great dim sum lunch, with 5-year-old Eli thoroughly enjoying a bowl of shrimp and fried rice -- he would say "I'm sorry but now I'm going to eat you" before popping each little crustacean into his mouth. Eight-year-old Jacob, our picky eater, didn't want anything to do with the food, but he was simultaneously grossed out and fascinated by the restaurant's fish tanks, which included several species of marine life I have never seen, notably hairy snail clams. The hulking, multi-pound clawless lobsters also gripped Jacob's imagination. That evening we rode a double-decker bus to the more remote south side of the island to have dinner with friends at Stanley Beach, which felt more like the Italian coast than China.
In the morning, I left our cramped little adjoining hotel rooms and set out for a cup of coffee. Walking a few blocks, I was struck by the energy of the city. It has a street-level feel reminiscent of Manhattan but in a much more physically striking locale. Though generally overlooked by people focusing on the capitalist and commercial whirl, Hong Kong is a tropical island with towering green peaks surrounded by the glittering turquoise South China Sea. Dry and dusty Beijing seemed a world away.
After two days in the city, we headed out to Hong Kong Disneyland, where we stayed at the Hollywood Hotel. I have a long-time antipathy toward Disney, which is well-known to many friends and family members who delighted in mocking my capitulation to the Mighty Rodent. Truthfully, I really enjoyed it there. Eli was blown away by the Disney characters
