Unlike in mainland China, there is no standard Romanization (or ‘pinyin’) of Chinese words in Hong Kong; some variety of spellings and forms, such as ‘Wanchai’ and ‘Wan Chai’, exist side by side. In this book I have tried to use the most common forms.

Confusingly, the English names of streets and places in Hong Kong are rendered in different ways:

• some are a direct translation from the Chinese, such as Central, North Point and so on;
• some are transliterated to achieve an approximation in English, such as Sheung Wan or Mongkok; and
• some English names have no apparent connection with the Chinese name in sound or meaning, such as Admiralty or Happy Valley.

All figures are expressed in Hong Kong dollars unless otherwise stated. The exchange rate is roughly $15 to the £.

The international dialling code for Hong Kong is 852.

A great many people have contributed to this book, some unknowingly and some who were reminded of the fact all too frequently. I would like to thank everybody who provided information, contacts or personal experience that informed the writing of this book, as well as those who were kind enough to read sections for me and offer insightful and practical comments. These include Sue Dockstader, ex-President of the Women in Publishing Society, and all the women from the Society who shared their tips and suggestions with me, including Kavita Jindal and Carol Dyer.

Special thanks goes to Stanley Ng, who designed the street maps and contributed many of the photographs. Thanks also to Johann Steenkamp (a muse in this life as in many others), Melanie Nutbeam, Jacquelyn Anderson, Gwilym Box, Shiona Mackenzie, Vessela Dimitrova, Mimi Mori, Adrian Wright, Peter and Jeanette Wright, Theresa Neumann, Shelagh and Ethan Heath, Diana Cox, Kate Allert, Ken Deayton, Sharon Russell, Anita Chan, Helen Ko, Leonard Wong, the Community Advice Bureau, www.geobaby.com, Jean Nicol, Victor Yuen at Knight Frank, and Edina Wong and Simon Smith at FPD Savills (Hong Kong).

Hong Kong has an unashamed reputation for hardcore materialism and freewheeling capitalism that may make it seem uninviting and shallow. Money is certainly one of the reasons to come to Hong Kong, but it is not the only reason and certainly not the sum of a working or living experience here.

Hong Kong is the sort of place that does allow weeds to prosper in amongst the cash crops. When I first arrived for work in 1998 – a single woman of 28 without friends, family or contacts in Hong Kong and equipped with a degree in English Literature, a curiosity about China and not a whole lot of work experience – you might have thought my prospects in the business hub of Asia looked bleak. Certainly my adopted company wasn’t bending over backwards to make me feel welcome: no-one met me at the airport, let alone fixed up any accommodation for me in those tricky first few weeks. I found my own way to the office and on my third day had to decide on which pension plan to join, depending on my probable length of service.

I’m not suggesting that reading this book will persuade you whether you’re in for the long haul or going to take the money and run, but it may help you decide if it’s worth coming out here in the first place, irrespective of the financial incentives. I hope you decide in its favour; no-one I’ve talked to in the making of this book has ever regretted coming to Hong Kong.

An ex-colony, a nation of shoppers, a gourmet’s paradise, a cultural desert, the altar of Mammon. The Fragrant Harbour’s reputation always precedes it.

New arrivals immediately pick up on the flagrant incongruities everywhere. In the searing heat of the midday sun an old woman, dressed in black shirt and cropped black pantaloons, laboriously pushes a greasy old bamboo basket along the road. The basket is as big as she is and full of dirty paper for recycling. It’s tricky to steer. The edge of her trolley just misses snagging the sparkling glass frontage of the Armani flagship store downtown. Inside, expensively understated elegance is wafted about by unobtrusive air conditioning. Like a spectacular lotus in a muddy pond, beauty flowers above true grit in this city of 6.8 million souls.

Hong Kong is a densely populated city and, in places, it is squalid and makeshift. Most people work and live in a fraction of the 1,100 square kilometres that make up the territory: more than 900 square kilometres are undeveloped lands and 40% of Hong Kong is designated country park or conservation sites. It’s a jagged mixture of pale rural townships mushrooming in the mountains; quiet back alleys festooned with drying underwear, songbirds in cages and spider plants; prize-winning übermodern architectural displays in glass and light; and old-fashioned trams and colonial trimmings. It’s a city with 17 public holidays, most of them with cultural and religious significance still celebrated publicly in a traditional manner, such as the lanterns in Victoria Park, the fire dragon in Tin Hau or the towering bun festival on Cheung Chau Island.

It is a city constantly remaking itself, updating its image, exploring, questioning and celebrating its identity. Caught between a rock and a hard place on the tides of foreign and economic policies, it remains buoyant through adversity. The Asian financial crisis (which came hard on the heels of the 1997 handover), 9/11 and the SARS epidemic made for a few years hard going. But Hong Kong has bounced back, with the more politically savvy Donald Tsang at the helm as Chief Executive. Recent economic indicators such as record low unemployment (4%), rising stock values and increased consumer spending suggest the city is back on track.

Immigrants from China and all round the world come here in search of better opportunities and a better standard of living. Money is the ultimate status symbol and respect is reserved for those who’ve got a lot of it. Making money is a something of a jack-of-all-trades skill in Hong Kong. Take Cantopop stars, for example: not only do they sing, but they also star in movies, dance, model, host TV programmes and endorse everything from the English language and electrical equipment to slimming tea and being polite to tourists. Whilst making a buck seems bred in the blood here, and private enterprise a given, the hugely expensive bureaucracy is becoming a liability. The government has recently decided a diet regime is just what the doctor ordered. The high civil service salaries and perks inherited from the British are gradually being phased out.

Politically, Hong Kong is also experiencing an unexpected surge in people power, spurred on by the perceived ineptness of the administration. The mass demonstration on 1 July 2003, when half a million people took to the streets in the searing heat to protest against Article 23 of the National Security Bill (designed to curb freedom of association and, potentially, the press), showed that Hong Kongers were not as politically apathetic as they have long been supposed. 1 January 2004 saw a 100,000-strong pro-democracy march, hot on the heels of overwhelming Democratic Party success in the district council elections a few months earlier. This year the election for Chief Executive featured a Democratic candidate for the first time and although no match for the Beijing-endorsed Tsang, the hope that one day Hong Kong will enjoy universal suffrage is being kept alive. Not that anyone expects this to happen any time soon. 1 July 2007 will mark the tenth anniversary since the handover. At the heart of the celebrations, according to officials, is the recognition of the success of the ‘one country, two systems’ strategy implemented in Hong Kong.

The number of non-Chinese expatriates living and working in Hong Kong constantly fluctuates, although it dipped significantly after 1997. In 1996, there were 529,372 expatriates living in Hong Kong. By 2001, there were 343,950 but the figure has remained stable since then, estimated in 2006 at 342,198. Even though Hong Kong is chiefly known as a transient place where expatriates come to do two- or three-year stints before returning home, or simply pass through on business, many do stay. They settle, marry, divorce, put their kids through school and retire here, seduced by the good life. Some devotees even renounce their nationality and go on to become bona fide Chinese citizens.

MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

QTS logo reproduced by kind permission of the Hong Kong Tourism Board. MTR route guide reproduced by kind permission of the MTR Corporation. KCR route guide reproduced by kind permission of the Kowloon–Canton Railway Company.

Map of Hong Kong reproduced by kind permission of FPD Savills (Hong Kong).

Map of Chinese golf clubs reproduced by kind permission of Hong Kong Pro Golf.