Hong Kong was home to us for nearly 15 years: we embraced the city, fell in love with it, lived happily with it, fell out of love with it, went through a reconciliation with it and eventually, like the torrid end of a bad love affair, finally moved out, not only to another country but another continent! 15 years is long enough for any relationship to have a deep impact and wistful thoughts, like those of a fondly remembered lover, occupy our minds daily – Captain Wong waving madly at us from the driving seat of the 97 Wong Shek Bus, the dirty mechanical smell of the Star Ferry's old engines, seeing distant Macau glisten in the evening sun from the very top of Victoria Peak...
Sipping coffees in the many wi-fi friendly cafés of our new home city in the Czech Republic, we have been able to maintain a steady review of the on-line lives of our good Hong Kong friends that we bade farewell to earlier this year. Their weekly, even yearly, routines are so familiar because they were the habits we had ourselves adopted and then found difficult to release; the kids' morning bus runs, hurried lunches with colleagues, experiencing the relief of school holidays, waiting for the release of the end of term and pouring all remaining life into desperately mad weekends. Six months on from the final completion of all of our work contracts and academic requirements we found ourselves living in the city still half-clinging to these modes, more out of habit than affection.
When reflecting on the long hours at work and the desperate weekend playtimes that emerged from such a poor and widespread work-life balance (the deleterious effects of which we continue to see in the lives of friends, colleagues and acquaintances), we came to realise that it was decision time: for to accede that if health allowed our lives would continue in the same old way until retirement was a dreadful prospect, one that would eventually prompt either of us to reach for the revolver. Getting out of Hong Kong was, therefore, not simply to change the scenery or career or to merit some other excuse – it had become a necessity.
From our breakfast terrace balcony we daily observed the hurried departure of ex-colleagues and their children for busy desks and noisy classrooms. It all seemed to become stranger and more distant from us, particularly so when for the rest of the day there remained an enjoyable, placid calm in the Sai Kung Country Park. We had already seen many attractive alternatives to the established frenetic Hong Kong lifestyle we had hitherto led, but most of these were inevitably linked, one way or another, to the pursuit of the dollar in other money-oriented places – Dubai, Saudi, Singapore, Bognor. In the end we felt that in order to make an honest and genuine change in our lives we would not only have to leave Hong Kong but also change our lifestyle.
It is not difficult to love Pearl of the Orient, the fascinating magical kingdom of glitter and gold, of filth and squalor, of daily chances that permit amazing opportunities. It is, however, an extraordinary city that exists in a bubble of its own making, where it is always safe to walk the streets at any hour of the day or night, where there is minimal interference in personal affairs from government, where the accountants are good and the taxes really low. No doubt it is possible to get as rich in other cities, but Hong Kong’s famous and somewhat nebulous quality is its Midas touch that enables those with the merest whiff of entrepreneurship the means and opportunity to create and achieve success: ‘it's all about the money’. Money talks in this town and enables a very pleasant and pleasure-dependent lifestyle. Surely, then, it would be foolish, if not crazy, to leave such a place of great opportunity? The answer is, of course, ‘yes’, yet that’s exactly what we did. Doesn’t that then make us foolish (if not crazy)?
I gave a rather convoluted works leaving speech to a receptive but somewhat puzzled bunch of fellow-teachers in which I briefly discussed this decision, one that seemed to lack good sense. I admitted that to leave a well-paid place of work with only a very vague conception of our income and future lives seemed the epitome of commonly accepted notions of folly. And yet realising all this, and with sadness in our hearts, we upped and left the magic kingdom, its opportunities and freedom, its protection and safety, its lovely people and the streets that we know so well. Why?
In recent years it became evident that the development of a teaching career and any pecuniary rewards that came with it were neither sufficient nor possible (nor desirable). Both of us were well aware of short-sightedness and ineptitude in Education management decision-making that, coupled with work environment issues (and the rewards that such extra responsibility held), yearly soured any appetite we had for career advancement within the system. It was not that we belittled or disdained Education, nor the enjoyment of earning good money. No, it was more that we could no longer swallow the bitter pill of a life that we no longer believed in.
Actually, it was even more than this. For me, crunch time came one Friday night in Wanchai when I realized that I had been short-changed: lots of good money had been spent on travel into town and on drinks with friends in a noisy and familiar bar, but the usual pleasure promised by this investment failed to materialize. My friends were happy and we continued the revelry, as before, well into the night, but the price for my pleasure had suddenly risen and I was not sure the next time would be any better. Before me, therefore, were several options: drink more (and spend more and therefore earn more), seek yet other diversions, find an all-consuming perversion or just stop! I couldn’t continue like this forever. I wanted to get off the merry-go-round.
Of course, there are those that do not at heart believe in their religion and yet continue to go through the motions required of them; they attend services or festivals, keep up appearances and, when required, say the right things. But do we not disapprove of such people? Indeed, we are quite keen on pointing out such hypocrisy. Surely it is better to come clean, shake off the dishonesty, lay to rest all that expected doublespeak – even if doing so has a social cost. Wisdom decrees that merely conforming to other people's expectations is a lost cause; eventually conscience wins through, the tension of maintaining such a dishonest position breaks, something has to give.
In a similar way we decided to give up Hong Kong and all it had. It was easy enough to walk away from the constricting work environment and the bad air pollution, but it also meant leaving behind our good friends and the means to acquire good money. We resolved it was time to move on, even with a massive drop in salary (about 9/10ths of our combined Hong Kong income) to another country – the culture of which we knew little and the language even less. Of course we could not have made this move without the good money already earned, but we resolved that our future lives should no longer be constrained by old worries that had brought misery. Our mantra in all this became, ‘It's not about the money’. We certainly needed a certain amount of courage to make that decision and leave all that we had grown to know, but is it possible we can say now that have what we wanted?
So far our new lives are just as rich, if not richer, than they were before, our experiences just as full and our relationship has become deeper. We’ve lost all that damaging stress, have been able to sleep all night and have begun to effortlessly shed weight. Each morning feels like the beginning of a holiday and weekends are simply the days when the city streets are quieter. We have to pinch ourselves that we now free to do the things that we really enjoy and are no longer at the beck and call of anyone. By simply taking the chase for money out of the equation, our lives are better. Do we have what we want? The answer is an emphatic, ‘yes!’
Admittedly we really miss the long rambling walks within the beautiful Sai Kung Country Park (our poor doggies miss running off to chase the naughty monkeys – they still bark at them in their noisy dreams), but it is great to be in walking distance of anywhere in this old city. We ache for the scenic splendour of the cicada-thronged and perfumed forests on mountains that rise from the warm South China Sea, but now live in the midst of beautiful ancient buildings known to Mozart, Mahler and Dvorak. We miss our wonderful old friends, but have met some great people here –friends of the future. We fondly remember the mad evenings of merriment and mayhem in Wanchai, Mid-Levels and Lan Kwai Fong that ended in long taxi rides home, but have already had some great nights out here, at a fraction of the cost, and have been able to stumble through the cobbled streets back home to bed.
We may now have less cash in our pockets, but things are cheaper here. Our Hong Kong acquisitional lifestyle centred on lusting after things that are quintessentially inessential, if not damaging; aspirational luxuries, nice though they may be, are necessarily transient. I cannot deny the enjoyment of shopping in the hallowed air-conditioned malls of Central, but also recall balking at the ever-rising prices and of the glad smugness of being within such a good wage bracket –and all for consumery stuff that we didn’t really need. We are not building empires nor forging dynasties, we are not planning on retiring in a deck chair on a cruise ship or settling into another day's drinking on the same poolside bar stool. Although money may be able to buy love of sorts, it certainly can't buy happiness. So, without the stress that chasing the dollar entails we probably get even greater pleasure from our lives, seek personal growth without opening bottles of wine (nice though they are), and strive a little harder for integrity by talking more and taking a little more notice. The city of Olomouc is by no means a paradise and no-one moves here to get rich. But so far – and in so many ways – our life here has proven, if such a point ever required clarification, that not only is there life after school but there’s also life after Hong Kong. We simply chose Europe over Thailand!
Here then are the reasons we chose to subtract those ingredients in our lives that were not good so that we could instead concentrate on those that we always loved. Reducing our complete reliance and our terrifying dependence on one ingredient, that fearsome jewel of a monthly salary (the security of which we once thought would be impossible to live without and so long the major focus of our lives), has taken some adjustment. For myself, leaving Hong Kong, the city I thought I would die in, and removing to a small provincial city of the Czech Republic has been a great adventure, one that could only have been imagined if tethered to a regular job. Although it is obviously impossible to live without money, we believe that life is more, much more than mere dollars, is more than a job with a good salary or a stellar career with drive and ambition. It's high time we lived according to our beliefs.
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