Can you still have a holiday in Hong Kong?

Family and friends urged us not to go but we were determined to revisit our favourite city. This is what happened when we went, writes Phil Brown.

YOU don’t often see burnt-out cars in the middle of Peking Rd in downtown Kowloon. Coming across one on our first day in Hong Kong recently we did a double-take.

For a moment I thought I was looking at an art installation at GOMA.

People were taking photos of the wreck, the result of a riot the previous evening. Some (the participants mostly) might have called it a protest but a riot is more accurate.

A rampaging crowd of radicals, the violent fringe of the democracy protesters who have been massing against the HK and Chinese Governments these past six months, were trying to draw the police away from the siege at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University nearby. So they went on a rampage through the tourist district of Tsim Sha Tsui.

I grew up in Hong Kong and the streets around here are part of my DNA. In fact the torched car, near the corner of Peking and Lock roads, was just 50m from Swindon Book Co. Ltd., the iconic English language bookstore any expat who has lived in Hong Kong over the past five decades will know.

After a few minutes rubbernecking we pressed on because we were, to borrow from The Blues Brothers, on a “mission from God”.

A burnt-out car on Peking Rd in downtown Kowloon.

In our case that mission was to get to our tailor, Sam’s Tailor, Hong Kong’s most famous, located on Nathan Rd, the main artery of Kowloon.

This is where David Bowie got his suits made. Recently Jon Hamm was kitted out here and the wall of fame is gobsmacking – Pavarotti, Bill Clinton, Russell Crowe, Barry Humphries, Rod Stewart, and Coldplay. Impressive stuff.

They were pretty glad to see us in the tailor shop.

“It got pretty crazy around here last night,” explained Roshan Melwani, scion of this tailoring dynasty.

Outside the shop pavers had been pulled up to be used as missiles against the police, traffic lights had been destroyed and there were burn marks on the road from the petrol bombs the radicals are so fond of hurling at the police.

Welcome to Hong Kong, right?

Phil Brown visits his favourite tailor in Hong Kong.

But here’s the thing, we spent two weeks in the former British colony and had no problems whatsoever. The protesters have spoken of Hong Kong being turned into a police state but we rarely saw a policeman.

Family and friends urged us not to go but we were determined to revisit our favourite city. And we did need some new clothes after all.

Our television screens have been filled in recent months with visions of protests and riots and that has sent tourism figures plummeting, although as one Hong Kong pro-democracy legislator wryly observed in an interview with the ABC recently, now is a pretty good time to visit, with good flight and hotel deals and sales in many of the shops.

Hong Kong is not, as one ABC news report ludicrously described it, “Post-apocalyptic”.

Don’t believe everything you read or see on the news.

As my colleague Hedley Thomas of The Australian, (an old Hong Kong hand like myself), recently observed, bias against China and the Hong Kong Government and in favour of the protesters has been rife and reflected in much press coverage.

Thomas noted that a HK based lawyer friend of his charged some media outlets with fuelling the conflict by their reportage.

Thomas’s friend, a HK-based lawyer said “every camera is pointed in one direction to paint this false narrative of the police as brutal bastards and the protesters as heroic democrats with a noble cause, the coverage emboldens them and now they think they can get away with anything.”

Of course the democracy protesters in Hong Kong have legitimate concerns although it should be pointed out that there is still a good degree of autonomy in Hong Kong and recent council elections, at which the democracy candidates romped it in, is a good example of this.

The fact is Hong Kong is now a Special Administrative Region of China and somehow everyone is going to have to accommodate themselves to that fact. Still, the protests go on although things have calmed down quite a lot in recent weeks with only occasional spasms of violence.

Friends who are residents in Hong Kong are careful not to voice opinions about this too openly lest they be demonised by either side.

Mostly they seemed worried about being targeted by the protesters who have attacked – verbally and physically – anyone they perceive as being opposed to them.

It’s a complicated scenario with the US meddling and the economy tanking.

But my question is - can you still have a holiday in Hong Kong?

Well, we did. We spent our first week staying at Causeway Bay walking each morning in Victoria Park where locals went about their tai chi routines as unusual.

We went on the Peak Tram which is usually chockers with mainland Chinese visitors but things were rather quiet since many are steering clear at the moment fearing being targeted by Hong Kong protesters.

We shifted across the harbour to Kowloon for our last week. By then the streets had been cleaned up, the burnt-out car was gone and things seemed relatively normal as the siege at the Polytechnic ended with a whimper rather than a bang.

Is Hong Kong really safe though? The Australian Government’s Smartraveller advice on Hong Kong is basically at the same level as Bali so that tells you something.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board’s regional director for Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific, Andrew Clark, is cautious but points out that “flights to and from Hong Kong International Airport are operating as normal and access control measures are being implemented at the terminal buildings to ensure smooth operations at the airport”.

We had no problems flying in or out with Qantas and no problems getting around Hong Kong while there. It’s business as usual, mostly, with a bizarre tinge.

A friend who lives in Hong Kong summed it up: “It’s weird. There’s a riot in one street and a couple of streets over people are sitting there sipping lattes.”

Phil Brown is the author of The Kowloon Kid: A Hong Kong Childhood (Transit Lounge ; $29.99)