My Memories of Hong Kong (Old Picture Album #8 ）

I started collecting vintage pictures, films, and videotapes several years ago. It is my hobby and a passion. I find them at estate sales, garage sales, and thrift stores. For some people these pictures are useless and they just want to get rid of them. For me, however, each picture tells a story or brings up a memory.
I went through some of my collection recently and came across some vintage pictures of Hong Kong. They reminded me of some good times I had when I was there.

Hong Kong is one of my favorite cities in the world. In the 90s, I went there at least once or twice year; sometimes even 5 or 6 times a year for business or while on the way to visit my family in China.

I often stopped in Hong Kong for a plane connection. Even later, when there were direct flights from California to Mainland China, I still preferred to connect through Hong Kong. I would stay there for a couple of days and then continue on to China.
It takes about 12 hours to fly from California to Hong Kong. Normally the plane would arrive late afternoon at Kai Tak Airport. It took only 20 minutes or less to my hotel. It was extremely convenient.

I liked to stay in the hotels in Tsim Sha Tsui. There were several hotels near the harbor, and I stayed in every one of them.

My greatest pleasure in visiting Hong Kong is the delicious food. I had many favorite restaurants in Tsim Sha Tsui. I love grouper fish and there are no other restaurants in the world that prepare it better than the ones in Hong Kong.
In late October, the freshwater crab from Yang Cheng Lake near Shanghai would be air shipped to Hong Kong. Steam Crab was and still is my favorite dish. Dim Sum in the morning is also something I love. The best dim sum dishes are shrimp dumplings, short ribs and chicken feet (I know it sounds awful, but it’s delicious).

Hong Kong was a busy, energetic, prosperous and vibrant city. The roads were bustling busy and neon was flashing dazzling light. It is a city that really never sleeps in the Far East. In contrast, big cities in mainland China, like Shanghai, Beijing, or Shenzhen were dull. Stores and restaurants closed at 9 pm. Streets were dim and empty.

Chinese restaurants throughout America pretty much offered the same food in the 90s. The menus were almost identical - chop suey, moo shu pork, sweet and sour pork, It took me a while to figure out what the Chinese characters were for egg foo young. As soon as you walked in and sat down, you would be served a bowl of fried wonton wrappers with “duck sauce”. When you got the bill, you would also receive a “fortune cookie”. One of my western friends once asked me “How come I didn’t get fortune cookie in Hong Kong or China?” I had to explain that fortune cookies were an America invention.

In 1998, The Kai Tak Airport closed and the new Hong Kong International Airport opened for business. The new airport is much farther away from the city. It now can take 2 to 3 hours from the plane landing before you arrive at your hotel.
It became too inconvenient to just stay for just a few days and then continue my trip to China. In the meantime, mainland China has become more and more prosperous. Restaurants are offering much better food and service. Unfortunately, I have not yet found a comparable restaurant that serves grouper fish as delicious as the ones in Hong Kong.

Once in a while, I still visit Hong Kong. The city is getting much more crowded and sometimes it feels like complete chaos. But Hong Kong still remains my favorite city.