A Tale of Three Cities

When in China, you need to know your SARs from your SARS and indeed your SERs. The middle one is a rather nasty disease from an alien spore that took out hundreds across Hong Kong alone. The former are Special Administrative Regions such as Hong Kong, Macau and Tibet. “One country, two systems” according to the authorities in HK. But they feel like different countries, and you get a passport stamp when you go there. The latter are Special Economic Regions, where inward investment is very much welcome. So now you know!

We started off our China odyssey in the former Brit colony of Hong Kong, which is I suppose the gentle introduction (in some ways!) for us Brits to China. For a start, we can still get in without a visa, just one of the concessions since handover in 1997. English is still widely spoken. It is a world-class city by anybody’s reckoning, and it’s mental. Bustling doesn’t even begin to describe it … crazy traffic, high rises as far as the eye can see, neon signs that make you weep for the environment piled haphazardly, sky high, one above another, pollution to (cough, splutter) die for – probably literally – and a harbour full of gin palaces and old sampans. It’s wonderful. It’s big and brash and beautiful and stuffed to the gills with life and light. Ridley Scott gave more than a passing nod to HK in Blade Runner.

Our guide in Hong Kong was Matthew, and we loved him from the start. He looked after the kids while we smoked at the airport and they were yabbering away to him when we got back (they are excellent judges of character). He was laid back, funny and happy to go at our pace. He is also master fixer of all problems from visas to dirty laundry. When we asked Matthew what his Chinese name meant – a popular preoccupation for guides – he shrugged “not a clue”. When Joe talked to him about the Hong Kong police being world renowned as ‘tough but fair’, he quipped “hmmm … tough but fat.” Joe thought it was a language barrier but no, it was simply humour. With Matthew, we toured the city in the cold and damp, but nothing could subdue it or us, and when the night fell Hong Kong comes into its own. It puts on a son et lumiere that is amazing (and shocking to those concerned for our planet) with scores of buildings on Hong Kong Island flashing their gaudy neon wares in time to plinky plinky music – the biggest and richest joining in with laser displays. Surreal and much loved by the kids. The city has a skyline to rival any in the world, but not enough room to swing a cat.

Then to Macau. Those who have read recent Terry Pratchett will understand the kids pleasure in reciting “Where’s Macau? That is not Macau. It goes baaaa. It is a ship.” Macau is a bizarre Sino- Portuguese fusion handed back to the mainland later than HK, in 1999. A ferry ride across the South China Sea takes you to a strangely European setting with forts and cobbled streets. But Macau is not relying on its undeniable quaint charm for revenue. No, it has positioned itself far more lucratively as the South East Asian equivalent to Las Vegas. And it brings in twice as much revenue as its American counterpart. Seriously. And had you ever heard of it before? But that is China all over. Cities of 8 million people generating staggering amounts of revenue that you’d never even heard of. In Macau, vast swathes of land are being reclaimed from the river and here are built the largest casinos in the world. The newest one is an almost full-size recreation of the heart of Venice that will sap the incomes of and sleep over 4,000 people at a time. The Sands in Las Vegas had 350 gaming tables. The Sands in Macau has less floor space, but 750 gaming tables. They are utterly serious, and very un-Marxist, in their pursuit of the gambling dollar. It’s a huge eye opener.