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Markets and Plants

On the way to Sheko we would pass the village of Stanley, little more than a fishing village when I was a child, but now hosting a wonderful market, which is similar to the Ladies Night Market in Kowloon, except that it concentrates more on clothing and the air is much fresher.

Kowloon is on the densely-packed waterfront of main land China. I used to love crossing the harbour on the Star Ferry. The name Hong Kong means ‘fragrant harbour’. But as you approach the Ladies Night Market, which seems to go on all the time although I suppose the stall-holders must sleep at some stage - they probably operate a shift system with friends; I recall the fetid smell which hits you like a solid wall. It is a mixture of crowds of people, rotting meat, refuse, scent, joss sticks, hot oil, pets ripe fruit, cooked foods, cleaning fluid, sandalwood, camphor, the effluent from air-conditioning vents, plastic, rubber, new leather and clothes, and, almost imperceptibly in the background the smell of salty sea, dirty with rubbish floating in it - the most extraordinary things get thrown away, for example, one shoe. What happened to the other?

I suppose the market was always there, though we usually did our shopping on ‘Hong Kong-side’, where you could find a pair of sharp folding nail scissors, for example, and men

sitting over a sewing machine who could make anything to order. And the traditional medicine shops, often consisting of only one small room with an incredible amount of ‘strange’ ingredients taken from dead or living animals, fish and birds, which were meant to impart the properties of their former owner, all cleverly and neatly stacked away. There were ingredients like ‘dried sea-slugs’ or ’powder ground from the horn of an ibis’.

I loved crossing the harbour on the Star Ferry. Occasionally at weekends we used to go to Fanling Golf Club, which was at the far end of the New Territories, practically in China!

On the way we would pass paddy-fields where, ankle-deep in muddy water, peasant women were planting rice, their legs planted wide apart for balance as they bent over, planting the handfuls of bright, green grass, wearing the coolie hat with a circular hole for their head, and a broad strip of black cloth all around, flapping gently to their movements to keep the flies away. I was an object of amazement, with my red hair - “Ai-yah!”.


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Other familiar sights were coolie-women walking or trotting along, a bamboo pole across their shoulders, carrying huge burdens of produce.

And the traffic lights at road works!
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My parents would play golf, while I played with the other children, or lay in the hot, dry, brown-coloured grass, listening to the incessant grasshoppers chirping, or going to the army barracks to say hello to some of the men there.

We would pass the small hill covered with pots, each containing the ashes of a dead person, and from many would come the sweet/pungent scent of joss sticks being burned to placate the demons that lie in wait for our ancestors.

Rickshaws were still quite common, I think I might have had a ride in one when I was very young, but the older I got the less I liked the idea of someone else having to run in the wet – to keep me dry!

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The Chinese loved flowers and plants, there were some roadside stalls with assorted greenery, with a friendly, smiling assistant.

Where the sides of roads met the hills, the banks were encased in concrete, to try to shore up the hills and prevent land-slides in the rainy season. Banyan trees grew everywhere, and the tangle of thin roots would cover the concrete-cased banks.

There was a rare plant growing in our garden, the night-flowering cerius. It only flowered about once a year, but it was so beautiful that when it bloomed we would throw an impromptu party!

I returned to Hong Kong recently, staying out at Sha Tin, in the New Territories. There have been a lot of changes. For example, the moving stairway which goes half-way up the Peak, which is such a boon to commuters and others – it only goes up, you either walk down or, for a thrill, take a bus – their safety record is quite good, but it is an exciting experience, with the bus tearing down steep hillsides. The bus stops do not seem to be posted, not everywhere, but I always seemed to be in the right place, for the bus stopped. And their underground system, which is clean, fast, cheap, reliable and efficient. One thing that does not seem to have changed much is the flight path, which still flies right past the windows strung with washing lines; although I think I can remember coming in just near the harbour and landing on that tiny finger of land.

Over the intervening years new skyscrapers have sprouted up everywhere, but nestling behind the hotel was a tiny one-storey stone temple with a green tiled roof, and a notice on the door prohibiting the use of the building for any religious meetings - the chilling influence of Communist China?

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Modified August 12, 2005
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