An Epistle to Hong Kong – Chapter 1 'In the Beginning' - Richard Peters -in the Sai Kung Country Park

This is the first of three open epistles intended with the heart in mind. In these I make appeal to that which moves a person, the inner stirrings of awareness, conscience and pity. The intention is that my thoughts should strike a resonating chord and provoke discourse and action.

The subject is Hong Kong, our experience here, our expectations and departure. Having thought on these things for a time and, knowing my days in the city are numbered, I have decided to give them form and to cast them, for good or ill, into the electronic ether. It begins with our entry to this far-eastern metropolis.

Our lives in Hong Kong began by fluke. Just before Christmas 1996, on business I cannot recall, we visited the Royal Bank of Scotland in Sandbach, Cheshire. Waiting for the Memsahib, I completed a simple promotional flyer that required a few ticks and a sentence – the prize being £3000 of Thomas Cook Travel Vouchers. The Mem saw this as a waste of time: I shrugged. A few days into the New Year someone claiming to be with the RBS phoned and congratulated me on winning the first prize in the bank’s national competition. Assuming this to be an elaborate wind-up, I came close to slamming the phone down after a few choice words, but hesitated. Days later, smiling for the cameras, we received an enormous cheque and pondered what to do with all that cash.

We concluded we should go to a place we were unlikely to visit again in our lifetime, the place our dear friend Gethyn had recently emigrated and whose concluding words to us was to be sure to come and see him. Our vouchers became two Cathay flights to Hong Kong with cash to spend...

That Chinese New Year week of 1997 was an incredible novelty. Spectacularly flying in over the streets of Kowloon we arrived at the old Kai Tak airport and filled the week doing the touristy things that all wide-eyed visitors do, the Big Buddha on Lantau, the sweaty market in Stanley, the bouncy Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui. Our gracious host took us to view the night city from Stubbs Road and to view a misty China from the Robin’s Nest helipad. The first trip to be taken without our little girls, we enjoyed the differences of culture and the ease with which we could get around. It was all so very exciting – a noisy and bright world away from the silent and dark streets of Northwich.

We took time out to visit the special needs Jockey Club Sarah Roe School where the Mem’s ex-colleague and friend, the late Jenny Doke, had recently began working. Limbering out of the taxi I peered down the long drive next door to what clearly appeared to be a long-established educational institution, the King George V^th School, its grand Art Deco frontage with clock tower overseeing a green sports field. As a trainee teacher, I thought at the time, if I could teach anywhere then it would ideally be here.

The night of our departure we spent in a Mexican Restaurant in Times Square with a gaggle of English Schools Foundation teachers – a birthday party. With one eye on the clock, we drank salty margaritas and ate nothing but nachos all evening. The party continued and we politely made excuses for our 11 pm plane. No, don’t go! voices clamored. But we have our kids… we replied. Bring ‘em over – we’ll get you a job! This flippant remark was not without weight in the days leading up to the handover of 1997.

At 10:45, and with a “Fi-dee! Fi-dee!”, our host bundled us into the back of a red taxi. Sliding across the back seat, we sped at the highest of speeds through the Central Harbour Tunnel to Kai Tak to the awaiting return flight, but it was all too much and before immigration hot, orange, sticky nachoey sick splashed over my black jeans. Such was my state, the Mem threatened to fly without me if I was refused on board. I promise I'll never drink another!

Such a world had never existed for us: teachers with money, regularly polishing off bottles of wine in a school staffroom after work, regular international travel to hot, sunny destinations – it would surely remain a sparkly dream, a nice idea, but something we would forever want. Before the end of the year the Mem had applied for a post at the very same Sarah Roe School.

Deciding to move to Hong Kong was easy, although saying our goodbyes to friends and family was painful, but the opportunities that quickly arose in the Pearl of the Orient made our first few months a joyful adaptation. Our apartment began to look like an IKEA showroom and we watched DVDs during typhoon days. We began to go native – the English expat native – taking on a domestic helper and enjoying sausage, mash and a pint of Tetleys at the Railway Tavern in Tai Wai (in those days you could get gravy and mushy peas with your pie and chips). We loved giving Chinese New Year red lai see envelopes containing money to employees and children, but perhaps I over-reacted to the slang term for westerners, gwailo – was I really a foreign devil? On my way to work I could see down the entire length of the MTR train: I was the tallest soul anywhere without westerners, something that just ain’t so anymore.

Our landlady, undoubtedly mindful of her losses in the property price crash that accompanied the Asian financial crisis, tried to keep us happy in our 600 square feet Tai Wai apartment (including lift lobby). With her we experienced our first dim sum and hotpot, but the flat’s size and price was our rude awakening to what may be the most over-heated property market in the world. Hong Kong being such a perfectly placed travel hub, we took ourselves off for holidays in Thailand and Bali, but a few weekends in choky Chinese cities made us think twice about the mainland.

The many islands of the New Territories beckoned with gazetted beaches, clean sand, lifeguards, butterflies and cold beers in the cafés. It proved such a great attraction that we couldn’t help but call our poor friends Rachel and Bob to tell them how wonderful it all was. Unfortunately, they failed to share our enthusiasm on a dreary, dark British five o’clock in the bloody morning...

We frequently took to two or even three nights out each week, clubbing, barhopping and dancing our way through the crowds of Lan Kwai Fong. Competing bars would often give away drinks to attract punters. We even took up Salsa! Regularly quaffing champagne on Wednesday ladies’ nights at Carnegies in Wanchai often meant dancing on the bar until well into the wee small hours... only to get up and go to work at 6 the next day. But we thought nothing of it. We had the cash (and the energy), we lived a mere HK$100 taxi ride from Central and we loved it!

It became quickly obvious that Hong Kong was all about money. Any Hong Konger becomes conspicuous only by his or her spending. There’s little else this town takes seriously. Having disposable income can bring a level of transient happiness only dreamed of by the rest: the power to walk into a shop and buy anything – ANYTHING! (well, almost)

The vast majority of people are still relatively poor by comparison, particularly older people and women and trends indicate that the numbers of poor have increased. Only the very richest (and very poorest) have had their lot improved.

But as for us, we spent it all. There couldn't be a better place to live than Hong Kong. Outside work, our lives were almost entirely devoted to pleasures: electronic gadgetry, cinema, clothes, holidays, restaurants and nights out. We must have helped many-an entrepreneur on their way to their current fortunes, and lost ours in the process, but at the time we just didn't care.