Hong Kong, Macau and Hainan (Jan, 2008)
By Raymond on Feb 28, 2009 in travel
Travelling in China
Hong Kong, Macau and Hainan
These three places are located in the southeast of China. They are very near to each other, but the atmosphere and living style are totally different. Hong Kong is formerly a colony of Britain, and Macau a colony of Portugal. They were returned to China just around ten years ago. Policies and living style have not changed much. Hainan, on the other hand, is an island isolated from the mainland, and its development should be quite different from other Chinese cities. Recently, it becomes a hot tourist spots for foreigners, for its beautiful beaches and comparatively low costs.
Hong Kong
I should invite my lover to write about the journey in Hong Kong later. She should have deeper feelings, as it’s the first time for her to come across the boundary between “socialism” and capitalism. To me, the greatest characteristic of Hong Kong is multi-cultural environment. Teenagers and families can go to Ocean Park and Disneyland for entertainment. There is also horse racing if you want to have some gambling.
Traditional Chinese culture is also remained in Hong Kong. And I must say that some of these customs and buildings are maintained much better than mainland China, because historical reson like Cultural Revolution have somewhat destroyed the buildings, living and thoughts of many Chinese people.
The above picture is Da Ao, the Venice in Hong Kong. Houses are built just above the water, beside the hills. Democracy becomes a great advantage when local people want to protect historical heritage against government’s policies.
We visited a small temple there and very interestingly met a kind Buddhist nun. She let us “qiuqian”(interpretation of omens) free of charge and chatted with us about attitudes to life. She touched us quite a lot. In mainland, almost all temples are profitable and Buddhism becomes occupation, not a religion of kindness anymore.
The old man in the right photo is cutting a salt fish in a very skillful way. My lover said that she was surprised by the large area of trees and good protection of cultural heritage in Hong Kong. From TV, most Chinese get an impression that Hong Kong is a city with only skyscrapers.
(left) Science Museum. Those who have learnt secondary school physics should be able to figure out the optic path very easily. When I was small, I loved to pay visits to the space museum and science museum. Nature is marvelous to talented professors, let alone a innocent child. Perhaps these museums have partially cultivated my interest in science.
(right) Annual firework for Chinese New Year. When mainland students talk about something related to Chinese, many of them think that mainland China performs better than colonies like Hong Kong and Macau, from Chinese traditions, Chinese festivals to Chinese literature. This is a rather common prejudice here. Actually, Hong Kong people pay a lot of attention to traditional festivals. And I found that many mainland students have read the wuxia fictions written by jin yong, which first ecame popular in Hong Kong.
Macau
It just took us around 1 hour to go to Macau by ship. A very interesting phenomenon in Macau is that Hong Kong Dollars can also be taken as Macau Dollars in daily lives (well, HK dollars has a bit higher exchange rate…) Gambling business is extremely prosperous. Luxurious hotels tightly surround the casinos. They form a big contrary between the silent uptown. Tian Ju and I put $200 onto a table of Small or Big after observing for half an hour. It was the first time for us to go to casino, so we’re very excited. Small! We immediately cashed the chip and left the casino happily. I believe that the workers there must find it very funny to see that “two children were so happy with only two hundred dollars.” From the principle of statistics, we know that if the casino has infinite capital, the more we play, the higher chance we lose.
Similar to Hong Kong, there’re also some small temples in Macau.
(left) It seems funny that people threw so many one dollar cash into the container, probably for blessings. Interestingly, most of them are not HK or Macau dollars, but Renminbi (Chinese dollars) with the head of Mao printed on the surface. This is really a “Chinese tradition”.
This is the Macau Tourist Tower. Although we could not find many interesting places to visit in Macau, it is a nice experience to have a look of a city with different culture.
Hainan
Haikou, the capital of Hainan Province, is not much fun according to my trace memory. We went to some common tourist spots, such as the Volcanic Cluster National Park. Tickets in Hainan are quite expensive.
Together with two backpackers, we hired a car and headed for Sanya. I am not going to write travelling strategies here. The beaches are really beautiful. We could see clearly the bottom of water. It is also great to walk around and take a rest at a seaside bar, watching some performers sing and dance at night.
It would be nice to dive too, if you have never dived before. The middle picture is a very big Chinese chess for Chinese soldiers garrisoning on an island. Each chess is made of heavy stone and we two could not raise it a little.
We stayed in youth hostels. They are good places for backpackers to exchange for information, help each other in the journey, and relax.
Food
I chose 4 types of food for each place. Just from these photos, you may feel the differences between the cities.
Hong Kong: 1) steak and drumstick with black pepper sauce 2) ice-cream hotpot 3) caramel pudding 4) satay beef
Macau: 1) bean curd noodle (very smooth) 2) citizens queuing for the pork chop bun at Dalilai Store
3) the super delicious pork chop bun – the pork chop is very big 4) Portugal chicken rice
Hainan is famous for its seafood. Of course we could enjoy seafood in Hong Kong too, but it’s too expensive. However, you have to be careful about the hygiene when you take seafood in Hainan. I believe food poisoning is more common here.
1) “grilled noodle” with soup? 2) coconut?? 3) shells?? 4) coconut rice (very great!)
Post a Comment