Hong Kong, a city of contrasts

The previous British colony became in 1997 a special administrative region of south-east China. Hong Kong, first, looks like a megapolis. A megapolis covert with a mist naturally frequent, to which mingles the smoke of factories massed behind the Chinese border, in full economical development. A modern and vertical megapolis, with its profusion of light and superlatives: largest hub container in the world (20 million boxes per year), greater population density, and larger number of towers… The density of skyscrapers in Hong Kong exceeds those of New York!

A megapolis where everything is cohabiting, downstairs in the labyrinth of the streets: traditional markets, modern fast-food, Chinese medicine with many virtues, luxury and counterfeiting shops… But Hong Kong is also a city turned to fishing. In the heart of the human anthill, at the foot of the skyscrapers, is the port of Aberdeen, last bastion of the Tanka fishing families from the Chinese coast. Having been denied the right to settle on land, they lived aboard their boat. Aberdeen is now a floating city, where hundreds of coloured junks and sampans are housing some 6000 people.

Finally, it is mainly in the neighbouring islands, (the territory has 236), that Hong Kong is surprising. Inshore fishing remains an important activity, traditional villages, small bays, wild hills, stalls loaded with fish, or a small restaurant where it is good to enjoy a seafood platter, far from their ultramodern and tumultuous neighbour.

Texte : Anne Jankeliowitch