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By Root 1214 0

for the average resident to find a factory job, the city continues to attract an ever-revolving band of expatriates. More than 2,300 multinational firms have their Asian headquarters in Hong Kong, and with everyone from Merrill Lynch to the Bank of China competing for space, the Pearl of the Orient is perhaps the only place in the world that makes Manhattan seem cheap. And clearly, I thought, as I wandered among the lofty skyscrapers of the Central District below Victoria’s Peak, which today was enshrouded in a damp, muggy mist, there is money in Hong Kong. Lots of money. The city had long ago ceased to be a bargain. I saw my first Maybach, among the world’s most expensive cars, and I also spotted Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys. True, one could buy a Ferrari in Beijing or Hangzhou, but they actually drive them in Hong Kong. A BMW in Hong Kong is like a Kia at home. But the real prize for the tycoons here was the personalized license plate. Millions of Hong Kong dollars had been spent on COOL, KING, and I U. Albert Yeung Sau Shing, the colorful chairman of the Emperor Group, a media conglomerate, had spent HKD 13 million—that’s nearly two million U.S. dollars—on the number 9, the symbol for longevity.

And there are perfumeries in Hong Kong, thousands of them. Hong Kong spends more than any place on earth on perfume. As a result, the city does smell better than the cities to the north—admittedly, a low bar—but here, too, the air remained foul despite the coastal locale. Indeed, the air pollution in Hong Kong had become such a deterrent that for the first time companies were having difficulty filling their expat slots from overseas.

Still, Hong Kong is nice, really nice. You should go. You’ll like it. True, if you are an investment banker on Wall Street, you’ll likely feel as if you’d never left home. But if you are just a traveler in China, Hong Kong feels like a holiday. I spent most of my vacation from China in the labyrinth of streets and alleys in Kowloon, a neighborhood that is invariably described as bustling—bustling Kowloon!—but it didn’t bustle. Compared to what I’d seen before, it seemed languorous, sedate, calm. Kowloon, I reflected, is easy, and nothing is easy in China. So I wandered contentedly through the city, saw the sights, and ended my evenings in a convivial pub, where I exchanged China stories with English teachers who had popped into Hong Kong for a quick visa run and a dose of bangers and hash, before returning to their schools in Guangdong Province. And then I steeled myself for a return north.

Fortunately, for a couple of weeks at least, I wouldn’t be traveling alone. This was because I had a friend. Yes, it’s true. Not only was Jack my friend, Jack was my Republican friend. And not only was he a Republican, he was a professional Republican—party hack, I believe, is the colloquial job description. We’d met on the first day of high school when I had just moved to the suburbs of Washington, D.C., from Canada, and while much of my new surroundings were familiar, there were, evidently, some things that were different in the United States. Our English teacher had asked us to chat with whoever was sitting beside us for a few minutes and then introduce that person to the rest of the class.

“I want you to tell everyone that I’m a born-again Christian,” Jack informed me.

Huh?

What was this, a born-again Christian? When I thought of born-again Christians, I thought of Oral Roberts and Jimmy Swaggert and Jimmy Bakker, moronic televangelists and florid scammers blathering and emoting on the American television channels. These were not the sort of people that Canadians typically associated with. True, there were Christians in Canada, but they were quiet Christians. They’re Canadian.

So perhaps Jack spoke in jest. It was a setup, I thought, something to make me look silly on the first day of high school, and so I refused to mention that Jack was a born-again Christian. When it was Jack’s turn to introduce me, he said, “This is Maarten. He’s from Canada. That’s why he talks funny. But even though he