Hong Kong and home

Two items caught my eye as on the menu of  Yat Tung Heen, our hotel restaurant in Mongkok, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The first was a tea, called ‘Monkey Picked Teguanyin’.  Could there be anything more evocative? I pictured quarrelling macaques, eyes darting, ranging through overgrown tea plantations, picking the juiciest leaf tips as their handlers lazed in the shade below. Google tells me that monkeys might have been involved once, but not any more.

The second was a soup. It was called ‘Double-boiled Pig Lung with Fish Maw in Almond Juice’. Somewhere in my childhood (not long after the war), there was currency for the disparaging notion that Chinese people (or was it Japanese?) eat anything that moves. Here, I thought, was conclusive evidence. I didn't order either, but, like whales, I was glad they existed.

Hugh and I had just returned from a food market, tucked in among high-rise buildings and racing traffic. It is a typical Chinese street market, full of fresh and dried foods of every description. We watched the butcher singeing  hairs from pig’s feet with a blowtorch. He was standing on the footpath alongside his stall, with his meat, mostly pork, on display. The sound and the smell unique.

Next door, fishmongers were hard at work. A man hauled a huge carp onto his chopping board, dispatched it with the back of his cleaver, then expertly cut the flapping fish into precise chunks.  The heart of the fish, exposed by the knife, beat on interminably. The pieces were laid out shiny and dripping on a mesh table, where his wife weighed and wrapped the fish to order.

Hong Kong, Kowloon-side, has all the bustle, smells and sights of China. The Island is much more about shiny high-rise, commerce and exotic cars. Shopping is the main game here for everyone. I overheard an expat explaining to a visitor that you can spend as much, or as little, as you choose in Honk Kong – for food, clothes, anything. Indeed, there is not very much to do other than shop, or eat.

The two most popular tourist activities are to look at the city from the harbour aboard a Star Ferry, or to look at the city from the Peak. We did both, reflecting on the curious vanity of a city that sees its reflection as its main attraction.

Food here is fantastic. Cantonese cuisine, simmering, grilling, roasting on every corner. We ate noodles at Mak’s Noodles, slurping up beef brisket and wonton with noisy abandon.

We have wandered the bird market, Goldfish Street, Temple Street night markets, the Ladies Market, the Flower Market, Harbourside and the Jade Market. On Goldfish Street, exquisite tropical fish wait in bags to be bought and taken home. Discus that cost sixty dollars in Australia are four for ten dollars here.But we are tired of markets! It is time to go home.