Because even for people who love big cities, sometimes it’s necessary [...]]]> I love big cities and would usually choose to vacation in one over a secluded beach (although I’m changing a bit in my old age). What I find fascinating about super huge cities (or really densely populated ones) is the appreciation of small spaces.

Because even for people who love big cities, sometimes it’s necessary to get away from it all.

This gorgeous bookstore in Shanghai is amazing in so many ways. It’s cute, it’s small, it sells books, and it’s in the middle of a city of 20 million.

The Japanese koban, or police kiosk, is super cute. Of course I wouldn’t want a reason to go to one, but I find this structure much less intimidating than a huge police headquarters. This one was built more than 100 years ago in Tokyo and is now housed in the Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum.

Photo by Michael Maggs, Wikimedia Commons

I can’t remember a kiosk in Hong Kong, except for this old police pagoda. Sadly, they went out of fashion decades ago.

Sun Ya Hotel, 1966

Do you have a favorite small space from a city close to your heart?

At first glance, the scene on this Hong Kong postcard appears relatively recent. Without cars to identify the era, it’s hard to tell when the photo was taken.

The neon looks familiar, as do the buildings. But at closer look, I recognize certain shops and hotels from the 1960s. The ABC [...]]]>

click to enlarge

At first glance, the scene on this Hong Kong postcard appears relatively recent. Without cars to identify the era, it’s hard to tell when the photo was taken.

The neon looks familiar, as do the buildings. But at closer look, I recognize certain shops and hotels from the 1960s. The ABC Bakery, the neon umbrella sign, and the Sun Ya Hotel (where my mom stayed in 1962).

This photo is probably about 45 years old.

I’m amazed this area of Mongkok (one of the densest in the world) has remained the same over the decades. Sure, the stores and banks and hotels have changed, but the overall look hasn’t.

I found this photo of Nathan Road from a 1972 Hong Kong guidebook. It didn’t take me long to recognize familiar landmarks from the photos I’ve posted of 1962 and 1966 Kowloon.

The “EL” in the upper right corner looked familiar, like the same font used in the Sun Ya Hotel [...]]]>

click to enlarge

I found this photo of Nathan Road from a 1972 Hong Kong guidebook. It didn’t take me long to recognize familiar landmarks from the photos I’ve posted of 1962 and 1966 Kowloon.

The “EL” in the upper right corner looked familiar, like the same font used in the Sun Ya Hotel where my mom had stayed in 1962. And sure enough, to the left of these letters is the Sun Ya Restaurant and Nightclub.

Across the street, I see the ABC Bakery and the May May Department Store, two places I’d discovered in earlier photos of this same stretch of street.

In those earlier photos, I took notice of the police standing in little pagodas in the middle of the street, directing traffic during rush hour. But in this photo, those pagodas had already been replaced by traffic lights.

Argyle Street, 2006

I love history. And when I’ve lived it, even better!

In 1990, I saw a notice at my university in Hong Kong for volunteer English teachers at a Vietnamese refugee camp. Actually, it was called a detention centre.

I wanted the [...]]]>

With Do'an at the Argyle Street Detention Centre, 1991

Argyle Street, 2006

I love history. And when I’ve lived it, even better!

In 1990, I saw a notice at my university in Hong Kong for volunteer English teachers at a Vietnamese refugee camp. Actually, it was called a detention centre.

I wanted the job. Ever since my mom took me to a low-key, Unicef pot-luck fundraiser in 1979, at the tender age of 9, I’d been mesmerized by the plight of the Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees.

So I called the number on the ad and a week later met with a young Canadian from International Social Services. (Incidentally, we ate lunch at an Asian food court a stone’s thrown from the former Sun Ya Hotel, where my mom had stayed 28 years earlier.)

I got the job even though I had never taught English. I guess being a native speaker was good enough. It often was in Hong Kong.

The camp was set back amidst overrun brush and wild grass. It looked like the grounds hadn’t been tended to in years. The buildings were shabby bunkers with corrugated metal roofs.

The Argyle Street camp opened in 1979, but three years later, all camps were on lock down so the refugees couldn’t leave the camp grounds.

My conversation class was a group of 20 adults, many of whom could say “hello”, “thank you”, and “good bye”, but not much else. So that was 300% better than my Vietnamese.

One of my first lessons involved Christmas. The Canadian gave me cardboard Santa, snowmen, and reindeer decorations to use as props. Piece of cake, right?

When I started to explain Santa, the students stared at me with blank expressions. So I went on to the reindeer. Flying in the sky, pulling a sleigh. Again, blank stares. The snowmen were more straightforward, so our lesson turned into one about winter.

After the Christmas lesson, our conversations flowed better. We spoke of Tet later that winter. And they asked about America, where many wished to settle. I was sad my volunteer job came to an end at the end of the spring semester (I was leaving Hong Kong at the end of the spring to travel around Asia and then return to the US. But I’d be back!). The camp was closed the following year.

All these years, I’ve wondered about the origins of  the camp and how such a place was found in Kowloon, where real estate is costly and land overcrowded.

I first came across the Argyle Street Prisoner of War Camp a couple years ago when reading Emily Hahn’s memoir, China to Me (mentioned in an earlier post). I also read about it last year in Philip Snow’s The Fall of Hong Kong (also mentioned in an earlier post).  I then wrote to Tony Banham, a WWII/Hong Kong scholar. He confirmed the Japanese POW camp was the same venue as the Vietnamese refugee camp. It was originally built as British barracks, but hardly used before the Japanese invaded Hong Kong in 1941.

On Gwulo.com, I learned that after the war, the camp returned to its intended use as British barracks. After the Vietnamese left in 1992, the Hong Kong Medical and Health Department took control of the site before it was sold to developers.

When I returned to Hong Kong in 1994, the site was littered with new high-rise condos (photo on right).

Sun Ya Hotel, 1966

Okay, I’m officially obsessed with the Sun Ya Hotel. I found these two photos, one from 1961, a year before my mom stayed there, and the other from 1966. Even back then, Nathan Road was hopping with street and sidewalk traffic.

A document published in [...]]]>

Sun Ya Hotel, 1961

Sun Ya Hotel, 1966

Okay, I’m officially obsessed with the Sun Ya Hotel. I found these two photos, one from 1961, a year before my mom stayed there, and the other from 1966. Even back then, Nathan Road was hopping with street and sidewalk traffic.

A document published in 1961 by the Hong Kong Government Information Services had this to say about Hong Kong traffic, shown in these photos of the Sun Ya:

The volume of traffic on the roads of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong is now three times greater than anywhere else in the world. Latest figures show that 50,000 vehicles are using the Colony’s 510 miles of roads. This works out at 98 vehicles to every mile of road compared with 30 per mile in the United Kingdom, 22 per mile in West Germany, 20 per mile in the U.S.A. and 12 per mile in France.

And traffic density in the Colony is increasing rapidly, with more than 7,000 new vehicles coming onto the roads every year. If the rate of increase continues–and it probably will because the economy of the Colony is expanding rapidly–the vehicles total will pass 100,000 before the end of 1967.

This photo [left] shows Nathan Road, Kowloon, at 7:30 p.m. Because there are many entertainment and shopping attractions in Kowloon, peak traffic comes after dark and consequently is more difficult to handle.

The government’s prediction came true. By 1966, Mongkok had 156 vehicles per mile. Another document published in 1966 by the Hong Kong Government Information Services describes photo on the right.

To give him a certain amount of protection from the weather–and from the traffic!–the traffic policeman in Hong Kong usually stands on a so-called pagoda, a stoutly-constructed platform made of iron, roofed and railed and lit at night. From this vantage point he is able to control traffic approaching from four directions. What is equally important, he is able to control the pedestrians, who may approach from any direction.

This picture [right] shows a traffic policeman on his pagoda on Nathan Road, Kowloon. It is thanks to men such as he, tirelessly directing the never-ending columns of vehicles of all kinds, that Hong Kong’s traffic keeps moving at all.

When I’ve traveled with my mom, she’s liked to stay at nice places. So when I googled the Sun Ya Hotel, where she stayed on her first trip to Hong Kong in 1962, I was shocked to learn it was in the now-densely populated [...]]]>

Sun Ya Hotel circa 1965, posted with permission from www.gwulo.com

When I’ve traveled with my mom, she’s liked to stay at nice places. So when I googled the Sun Ya Hotel, where she stayed on her first trip to Hong Kong in 1962, I was shocked to learn it was in the now-densely populated Mongkok area, miles north of the popular Tsim Sha Tsui district near the harbor front.

“Why’d you stay there?” I recently asked her. “It was so far from the touristy areas.” (And here I thought I was adventurous for roaming Mongkok and spending countless lunches eating fish congee [rice porridge] near the site of the former Sun Ya Hotel.)

But she couldn’t remember why she chose the Sun Ya. It was 48 years ago, after all. “All I remember is that the hotel was in Kowloon.”

The picture on the left was from a few years after my mom stayed at the Sun Ya. A couple decades later, the Sun Ya was knocked down and rebuilt as the Grand Tower Hotel (below). The Grand Tower closed in 2002 and now houses office and retail space.

For Hong Kong history, I like to check in with www.gwulo.com, or 古老, which translates to “ancient” or “old fashioned”. I posted something about the Sun Ya, where I found the photo on the left, wondering if it was a popular tourist destination back in the early 60s. Because it sure wasn’t in the 90s.

“I wouldn’t have picked Mongkok as a likely spot for tourists to stay in 1962,” the Gwulo webmaster replied.

But when I searched deeper into the Gwulo archives, I found a photo of the Sun Ya from the 50s. Cinemas, night clubs, palatial restaurants, orderly neon lights everywhere. It looked like a nightlife destination back then, a bit different from the pawn shops, watch stores, gold shops, banks, and casual clothing stores I knew.

Grand Tower Hotel--closed in 2002