This is my fourth visit to Hong Kong. The other three were each in January - 2004 - 2006. Each time, the air was crisp and refreshing during the day and a little chilly at night and in the mornings. Drinking hot soy milk and almond milk to keep warm were part of the city's charm and days of walking and sightseeing were broken up by quick rests in diners and cafes to warm up. I'm not normally a winter person, but Hong Kong in January is delightful.
This time, it's shvitzy. Like New York where the holidays are magical and the summers are steamy, Hong Kong in June could frizz the mane of a horse. It's a different experience this time around. Walk a little, get a drink. Walk, stop in the shade. Walk, run into a mall to cool off.
Every building is blasting air conditioning in a way that makes Californians look energy conscious. It's like Hong Kong took air conditioning lessons from Singapore which uses man made arctic blasts in every inch of inner space to offset the never ending heat and humidity that goes with being a degree north of the equator.
Singapore and Hong Kong have the same answers to heat. Iced bubble tea or boba stands everywhere, fresh fruit juices, Milo, Horlicks, barley water, cold soy beverages and hot tea (the old school approach).
In fact, in the two predominantly Chinese populated former British colonies share a certain kinship and are often compared and contrasted. Singapore and Hong Kong are an 11th grade five paragraph essay waiting to happen.
The fact that they're both island states completely dependent on trade for resources and survival ranging from the exports that fuel their economies to the completely imported food on their tables. Neither has its own agriculture anymore.
Most importantly, they share the British colonial experience. Their embrace of English language, capitalism, standards and business practices make them different from not only their neighbors, but their entire continent.
Superficially, soaring skylines include not just business towers, but condo blocks of size and quantity we've never seen in America. Wide roads, nice sidewalks and fantastic public transportation make both former colonies easy to traverse. Public parks, squares, museums and activity centers given them the civic trappings of Britain.
Both Hong Kong and Singapore have essentially had to invent themselves. Starting from humble beginnings as port cities and centers of international sea trade, they each took off when they discovered manufacturing and banking. Both figured out that their limited resources meant they needed to compete also on intellectual capital, emphasizing education and English to become fulcrums for East-West commerce. Interestingly, the two small societies decided to incorporate technology as part of their credo, embracing it as integral to their prosperity and quality of life.
But then comes the fascinating divergence.
Singapore - along with British Malaya as a whole - demanded its independence, while Hong Kong clung to its colonial power - who was happy to cling right back. Singapore had intended to cast its lot with Malaysia and only faced adversity when it was kicked out of the Malaysian Federation and had to go its way. While this was an overwhelming set of circumstances, Singapore had a shot of making it.
Hong Kong had only two choices - Britain and China. Once China went Maoist, the choice for Hong Kong was clear. Many of China's wealthiest industrialists, most talented artists and brightest scholars fled to Hong Kong to escape. Hong Kong and its British masters eagerly absorbed them. In fact, Hong Kong was one of the few colonies that not only didn't push for decolonization, but practically begged Britain not to leave.
Lee Kuan Yew would tell you Singapore had it roughest. It lacked the capital and incredible talent that rushed into Hong Kong. It also had no ready-made market. Communist or not, Hong Kong was and remains a gateway to trade with China. During the communist era, it became one of the few if not only ways to do business. Hong Kong had a clear and distinct purpose - and the British not only knew it, but they profited from it. Which is why they let Singapore go and kept Hong Kong even after letting all their other eastern possessions go.
Singapore was a sandbar with a port and even worse - a multicultural population. Even the Chinese weren't from the same parts of China and spoke at least six different dialects incomprehensible to one another. The early years of Singapore were about not not starving or killing each other.
Meanwhile Hong Kong had two basic types of people: Chinese and British. One party was in charge, the other was homogenous - a much simpler recipe for getting along.
The British were not only in a better position to assert their will than the Singaporean government - which had to get the buy-in of the people in the early days - but the two cultures were receptive to each other. Locals' trade styles drove business with China while British investment and modernity allowed Hong Kong to reach new heights. The players discovered that despite each other's annoying habits, the two groups could advance each other's interests and everyone could win.
Financially, Hong Kong came out on top more easily in a shorter period of time.
Only it isn't a nation. Singaporeans have a nationality, an identity and the ability to blaze their own trail. Their choices aren't belonging to China or Britain - they belong to themselves. At the end of the day, despite the tight system that governs them - Singaporeans are free. They have their own future.
Of course, where Hong Kong thrives as a center of culture, creativity, art and cosmopolitanism, Singapore is a little more...subdued. Bringing three cultures together to form a new nation where none had existed before and no one intended for there to be one - while at the same time creating and developing an economy was no easy feat. Despite many western criticisms, Singapore achieved a lot using a pressure cooker.
Singapore is an experiment and achievement of social engineering. It's a remarkable feat of imagination that sort of discourages too much imagination. It fused Asian values with British and western concepts, not over 156 years as was the case in Hong Kong, but in about 30 years.
Singapore's founders were architects and managers while Hong Kong was developed by politicians, financiers, traders and merchants. Hong Kong's people celebrate festivals and everts together while Singapore's Indian population works overtime during Chinese New Year while the Chinese pick up the slack on Deepavali (aka Divali). Singapore's people were immigrants who came for work and trade. No one meant to change their nationality or necessarily to stay. It all just sort of happened. Meanwhile, Hong Kong had a people of its own. Their home developed definition and increasing purpose and prestige with time.
There's no doubt the the pressure cooker is less tasty than Hong Kong's rich and well honed crock pot recipe.
When I'm in Hong Kong, I feel uplifted. There's a spirit and energy like New York that only comes from people hustling and chasing dreams. In order for that to happen, you have to have dreams - and the people of Hong Kong have no shortage of them. They manifest themselves in their city that reaches for the sky and the amazing diversity of happenings in their little series of islands.
Hong Kongers have free speech - while Singapore's is curtailed. People here urinate in the street (saw it today), they spit on the sidewalks and they occasionally J-walk. There were years of organized crime and violent crime still happens. There are rough edges. Hong Kong has arts - real thriving ones including a strong film industry. You know more about it than you realize - Bruce Lee, Chow Yun Fat, Jackie Chan.
Hong Kong is real. It has a heart that feels and a strong pulse. With little side streets where people are selling live fish and chopping up pork next to big thoroughfares where women dressed in their Prada heels play part of the fashion show that is this city.
Hong Kong is the where the cream of Chinese and British/western culture bubbled to the top.
All of that said, I admire Singapore more. Nothing is more amazing or valuable that something earned. Singaporeans have worked for everything they have - no British backers, no built-in Chinese trade, nothing in common with one another except the island on which they stand.
In the end, I love both places and more importantly, they are endlessly fascinating. I believe they have a lot to offer us. Melding cultures as different as Chinese Indian, Chinese, Malay and British can be done. People can - whether through adversity or in pursuit of rewards - look past the differences and see how much they share.
These two little islands turned diversity into strength, learning to use their array of assets to achieve. When people learn to see each other's humanity and respect one another, they get more. In fact, we all do. After all, I can't think of a more invigorating place to walk than through the streets of Kowloon or Wan Chai - armed with iced Alishan tea, of course.
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