Kowloon - It's like Chinatown, only bigger...

I must sound like a walking cliche, here...  But that's really the first thing that struck me about today's excursion across the harbor to the markets of Kowloon!  Well, really, I was only in the Mong Kok section of Kowloon, which is known for its street markets where you can find anything and everything you need, and quite a bit more things you don't need (and when I say anything and everything, I mean it...).  Picture Chinatown (In New York or San Francisco, not the "China"town of DC that's really just a district for trendy restaurants now), then add many, many more neon lights and signs and make it about 5 times bigger.  That's the Mong Kok district of Kowloon, where this afternoon I walked through 1.5 miles worth of street markets!

A view of Tung Choi St in Mong Kok, commonly known as the Ladies Market due to the preponderance of womens' clothing stalls and shops

Mong Kok is very different than Central Hong Kong and the Wan Chai area where my hotel and the conference center are.  These areas are very modern, full of glass skyscrapers, and clearly cater to an international crowd of visitors, with restaurants from all over the US and Europe.  You can tell how Western it really is when you see this sign pointing visitors to the "Chinese Restaurant" at the convention center...

Oh look, a Chinese Restaurant!  I would have never expected to find one of them here!

And yet, they're both so very different from the Tsim Sha Tsui section I visited this afternoon before Mong Kok, with it's nice promanade along the harbor and museums of art, science, and history!  Basically, Hong Kong is one giant mixing of Eastern and Western cultures into an entirely unique kind of city.

The harbor-front promenade in Tsim Sha Tsui region of Kowloon with its historic clock tower

Perhaps a brief history lesson, courtesy of the Hong Kong Museum of History, which I perused this afternoon (made even better by the fact that they offer free admission on Wednesdays!), might help explain this:

Hong Kong as the city we know today didn't exist before the 1840's.  During much of China's history, there was actually nothing here but a few small fishing villages, and later some small naval garrisons.  But by and large, the Chinese didn't settle Hong Kong and its islands all that much.  That changed when the Portuguese showed up!  We all know the Portuguese liked to explore and trade, and they were the first to find their way around the Cape of Good Hope and discover a sea route from Europe to India and Asia.  Now, being such a long trip, naturally the Portuguese wanted a place to dock their ships after voyage for repairs and to let the sailors off for some leave.  China, being China, was fairly reluctant to have a sudden influx of foreigners into their cities, and so generally limited where the traders could go.  The Portuguese weren't thrilled about this, but being diplomatic, they somehow convinced the Chinese to lease them a small island named Macau near the Chinese port of Gangzhou on which they could build their own port to facilitate trade.  That settlement because a major center for European countries wanting to trade with China.

Of course, no good colonial era maritime story is complete without the British Empire showing up!  After a while, they were growing discontent with being pigeon holed into a tiny Portuguese city and not really being allowed to freely come and go from Chinese ports like they wanted.  In addition, while British citizens were eager to buy goods and wares from China, the Chinese had significantly less interest in the goods the British were trying to sell.  So there was a huge trade imbalance that favored the Chinese.  Until, that is, the 1800's, when the British realized they could export Opium from nearby India to China, and Opium has that pesky addictive quality...

China, for some reason, was very unhappy with the British getting all of the local population addicted to Opium, and outlawed it, seizing cargo from trade ships and destroying it, then levying heavy fines.  In retaliation, Great Britain did was Great Britain did best in the 1700's and 1800's, invade!  The Chinese were caught by surprise, and couldn't put up much of a fight.  The British marched almost all the way to Beijing before a peace treaty was signed in 1841, in which the Chinese ceded the island of Hong Kong, finally giving Great Britain the trade port it wanted all along.  But of course, one war was never enough, so after the First Opium War came, naturally, the Second Opium War, which ended with China ceding Kowloon to the British.  And in one last move, in 1897, Britain signed a treaty to lease the rest of the Islands and a large piece of land north of Kowloon for 100 years.

So Hong Kong as a city was founded under British rule, and was wholly British for many years.  During World War II, the Japanese attacked and occupied Hong Kong while trying to invade China.  After it returned to the British at the end of the war, the cultures began to gradually mix as more and more immigrants from Mainland China arrived, continuing further as China became the socialist country it is today.  Then, in the 1970's, with the British lease of much of the colony's territory set to expire, the UK and China reached an agreement, where in 1997, Hong Kong would return to being under Chinese sovereignty, under the condition that for at least 50 years, Hong Kong be allowed to continue its style of democratic, capitalistic government free from interference from the Chinese socialist party.  And so, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was created, and the city pretty much rules itself independently of the Chinese government.  In fact, it's actually harder to cross the border form China to Hong Kong than it is to fly to Hong Kong from the US (I didn't need a visa to come to this conference).

At the end of the night, I headed back to the promenade to catch the famous Star Ferry back across the harbor from Kownloon, which at night provides spectacular views of the city all lit up by the LCD's, LED's, and neon lights that adorn every shiny glass building Hong Kong has!  So I leave you with this amazing view...

Panorama from Wan Chai (left) to Central Hong Kong (right), as seen from the Kowloon Star Ferry terminal