"Well rock my so-oul, how I love to stroll"

Margaret and I went to Victoria Park this morning in her stroller.

We used to take Margaret’s mother to the park in what we called an umbrella stroller – a flimsy fold-up piece of canvas held together by a cheap aluminum frame. It moved, so to speak, on four Stone Age era wheels for which every pebble or poorly laid brick was a major obstacle. But, it was the latest in baby stuff. What did we know about space age metals and aerodynamics?

Margaret’s stroller is the modern kind with which you are familiar. It moves with the smooth precision of a monorail and has more stuffed stuff hanging off it than a Christmas tree. Little Margaret is strapped in like a flight attendant on airplane jump seat.

The Hong Kong that I have seen so far is stroller friendly. Our outing was impeded by not so much as a curb. Here’s one for you old-timer stroller pushers - Victoria Park actually has a “pebble walk.” People of all ages take off their shoes, and walk around a lovely path of smooth rocks and pebbles. Perhaps its something one does after Tai Chi to maintain Fung Shui. Remembering the old umbrella stroller, I took off my shoes and pushed Margaret in her stroller along the pebble walk because…well, because I could. I thought it was a riot until the bumps gave Margaret the grumps. Then it wasn’t funny anymore.

The park was particularly busy since all of the elementary schools are closed due to a flu outbreak (don’t say epidemic!!) Additionally, Victoria Park is the site of the annual Hong Kong Flower Show, so groups of mostly elderly ladies in bright color-coordinated baseball caps were being led around by a tour director with a similarly colored flag. We see this all the time in Washington DC this time of year, but the groups tend to be comprised of school aged kids wearing bright color coordinated tee shirts that might say, “The East Jefferson Tigers Annual Cherry Blossom Special – April 2008.”

Lot’s of people were playing tennis in the park and there was evidence that a tournament was in progress. We also passed playground after crowded playground (schools closed,) each more beautifully laid out than the last. I gave passing thought to giving Margaret her first swing ride in one of those baby plastic seats, but decided it best that her first emergency room visit not occur on my watch.

We took an elevated walkway across to the harbor to look at some old Chinese house boats and paused to drink the most spectacular city view on earth. Hong Kong, built as it is on a steep hill, is remindful of San Francisco in that you walk a block, turn a corner and whammo – you are hit with one breathtaking view after another. Hong Kong – for architecture, scale, culture, parks, and overall civility - gets my vote as the most beautiful city in the world (I’ve now been here for two days).

My last visit to Hong Kong was in 1965 on a trip with my family. Dad had business and we all got to come along for the ride. It was a different Asia then. The war in nearby Vietnam was just beginning and Hong Kong was still a British Crown Colony. I remember how big and crowded it was even then. I remember the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon with the bell boys in the funny hats. I remember the near blinding phosphorescence in the water during a late night boat excursion. I particularly remember the ride up the funicular railway to the Peak – the highest point on Hong Kong Island. The views were and remain, absolutely breathtaking. The area around the Peak was developed by the British during colonial times as a resort of sorts where they could escape the stifling summer heat on the water far below.

In returning to Hong Kong, I am making my first true visit to China. The British have been gone for a decade. The Peninsula Hotel still exists, but without the colonial swagger. My daughter Sarah looked askance when I mentioned my memory of the phosphorescence. Perhaps pollution has taken its toll on one of nature’s magnificent spectacles. Suffice to say, tourists no longer come for the midnight glow of the water.

The funicular railway IS still here, however, literally unchanged in 45 years. The guide books insist that it is THE first morning outing, so off I went yesterday (without Margaret.) I took the subway to Central and found my way up the hill to the terminus. The bottom terminal is all new and fancy, but the railway cars, tracks, cable, and employees remain frighteningly unchanged. As with a San Francisco cable car, I’d have preferred more evidence of investment in the actual cable operation. Not to be outdone, the new terminus on the actual Peak is crowned by an enormously precarious edifice that is right out of the Jetsons.

I took the funicular up, gasped at all the views, and dodged a formidable gauntlet of 21st century marketing madness (Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Company??!!) Prior to my descent, I took a magnificent wooded walk of several miles around the top of the mountain. Every hundred yards, a break in the trees would expose yet another breathtaking unbroken view. I was lost in a once colonial refuge of extraordinary peace and beauty. It was simple to close my eyes and pretend that it was one hundred years ago. Unlike the rest of busy Hong Kong, there are areas on the Peak where time has in fact stood still.

Later in the evening, after Margaret had been bathed and retired, I recounted the events of my day to Sarah and her husband John, who were excited about what I had seen. They shared stories of their own visits up there shortly before Margaret was born. There had been some hope that the air, the altitude, and the breathtaking beauty might somehow induce labor.

The Peak will, consequently, always be a part of Margaret’s life, regardless of how long she lives in Hong Kong. She will hear these stories from her parents and pass them on to her children, much as the tales of Sarah’s early days in New York have become the stuff of our own family lore.

There is, however, a sobering side to the Peak as family history. One hundred years ago, when Hong Kong was under British colonial rule, Margaret would not have been permitted on the Peak, because she is Chinese.

Margaret and I were now making our way back through Victoria Park from our foray to the waterfront. We watched the earlier scenes take on a more frenetic pace as the morning approached noon. The playgrounds were busier, the paths more crowded, and the baseball capped flower show groups were now being herded into holding pens designed to manage the overflowing crowd.

Nearing the end of the park, I lost Margaret. Glancing down, I saw the eyes gently closed and the little head listing lightly to one side. I wanted the moment to last forever, but knew that she would need her mother in time. As we approached the large lawn bowling green, I decided to make our final stop of the morning. There were several teams of Chinese men intently playing a game, brought over and left by the British colonials over a century before. Lawn bowling was no longer for whites only. I wasn’t certain if this was fitting, ironic, or something else. I found a nearby bench and watched the activity (as in paint drying) for nearly an hour as Margaret snoozed away.
Margaret and I had a most excellent first morning together.

Thank you for visiting.

Jack