Day 4 in Hong Kong

Wednesday 9th May

Destination: At Tsuen Wan, we visited the Chan family ancestral home, Sam Tung Uk Museum, which is preserved in the style of a traditional Hakka residence.

Early Chinese migrants to Hongkong arrived mainly from the Guangzhou area, which comprised of mostly Cantonese, and the Hakka migrants were generally part of a second migration wave and got their name because the Cantonese called them “guests” – they came later and never intended to stay long (which is perhaps the situation with the earlier migrants too).

I also think it's amazing how migration is traced by family name. I suppose it makes sense that at a point of time sufficiently long ago, everyone within a village was part of the same family, before they starting moving around (but did marriages occur within the family?), although I'd never given this so much thought. Not all Chan's today are Hakka, and the same goes for all other family names, clearly, so tracing their history must be really difficult.

Now that Chinese migrants of various names are scattered everywhere, family names - particularly the more common ones - are no longer a strong part of a person's identity, although it would seem like it must have been in the past. Oddly enough, people identify with their dialect groups, which sometimes has nothing to do with their original families since dialect groups are inherited paternally.

Here I also find out that there are some Hakka dishes I have never heard of before. I guess migration takes its toil on family recipes. The traditional dress was also new to me, but we did have fun posing with the hats.

Menu: Lunch at Taipo had a Hakka menu, which seemed very close to the Cantonese menu except they had interesting dishes like the yam basket, which I’ve never had before.

Destination: After this, we visited a Chinese temple for the first time, and on the birthday of its Goddess, Tian Hou. The Tian Hou temple was crowded with worshippers and the air was completely filled with burning incense.

Destination: The Hong Kong Heritage Museum was difficult to find but made for a great post-lunch venue. Amongst other things, it housed a gorgeous collection of Chinese paintings by Henry Wo Yue-Kee, an artist born in Guangdong, but who moved to Hong Kong in the 1947 to attend its international art school before moving to America in 1975 to paint and teach. This seemed like a very typical migration story (Guangzhou to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to the Western world, be it Canada or America), but his paintings retained their Chinese styles in their soft colors and depictions of lotus, mountains and rivers, and fish. I am nothing short of amazed at these paintings, and I think the preservation of the styles of Chinese paintings by traveling artists (who were good at it) must have been useful in keeping the Chinese identity of migrants in all parts of the world intact, because I have never felt more appreciative of Chinese culture before.

Destination: Boulevard of Stars. The windy riverside was a great place to be after the heat of everything else today. Bruce Lee, one of their most famous exports, is immortalized in a statue. While the lesser stars only get handprints. It's interesting that Hong kong's entertainment industry is thriving so well, compared to the less recognized ones of China and Taiwan.

The skyline attests to Hong Kong's importance on the international map. The competition to stand out along the river was strong, since it was like free advertising. This has got to be one of the most interesting city skylines... which probably explains the perpetual smog.
Destination: That night we visited The Peak, which had a magnificent view of the business district and the straits between Kowloon and Hong Kong island, created at the expense of fossil fuels and clean air.

- Yinghui