CHANGING CITY

(From "A Weekend Note," the editor's letter in Style Weekend, Manila Bulletin's weekender, Friday, October 12, 2007)

It’s always a delightful experience to discover a new place to be in Hong Kong, especially when on your trip you are not out to discover anything, but to do the same old things, which mostly have to do with shopping or eating.

BLURB
All that a city will ever allow you is an angle on it—an oblique, indirect sample of what it contains, or what passes through it; a point of view. —Peter Conrad

But on the whole Hong Kong looks quite different now, to think that it hasn’t been six months since I was last there. Pretty soon, at least based on the protests I read over the local papers, Mong Kok, which translates to busy corner, will give way to skyscrapers and the storeowners and shopkeepers are banding to keep some parts of it intact. On the Saturday news, their proposal was turned down, but it’s not yet the end of the fight. As I write, I believe an appeal is being drawn up.

If you ask me, I don’t see what character they are fighting to preserve, but then I’m not sure I’ve seen enough of Mong Kok, except its rows upon rows of stalls with all manner of merchandise. I can’t even remember a single standalone store that is worth fighting for as much as I remember a few strange alleys tucked between high-rises in Central, where I chanced upon vintage dresses that looked pretty much like Diane von Furstenberg and cost no more than HK$200. And to think that only a few paces away Chanel and Burberry are irresistibly calling at Landmark and David Tang’s Shanghai Tang, along with the used LVs and Fendis in the resale stores above it, is only two alleys away at the Pedder Building.

All in all, however, I think Hong Kong has character, in as much as New York and Paris have character that cannot be drowned in the deluge of modern buildings and major international brands heralding themselves in blinding, dancing neon. It’s character enough that the dai pai dongs, outdoor food stands, can proudly sit next to expensive eateries and the temples can stand their ground, basking in their centuries-old glory, in between sky-high living sculptures of steel and glass. Even HSBC, whose landmark building in Central is a Norman Forster masterpiece, adapts to the character nuances of Hong Kong. In the fishing village of Tai O, away from the madding crowd of either Kowloon or the Hong Kong island, the “world’s local bank” has a branch in a combination of wood and concrete to blend in with the village’s quaint collection of wooden houses floating on stilts on the riverbank.

Someday, I think Manila will be like Hong Kong, although I’m not sure it will happen in my lifetime. Right now, however, the beginnings of a great city may have all the ugliness of a construction site, with malls mushrooming all over the place and, along with them, some yet half-hearted attempts at making the cities more pleasant, such as the skywalk that bridges the gaps among high-traffic commercial centers like Glorietta, Landmark, and Greenbelt, all the way to the Enterprise Building and the Rufino Pacific Tower, ending just a short distance (but still quite a distance if it’s raining) to the Makati Medical Center.

As I write, I am still huffing and puffing from a long drive from Bonifacio High Street, which almost feels like Los Angeles. I could have gone to another cocktail party at Trinoma, but no way would I drive all the way to the end of the world through rush-hour traffic at cocktail hour!

If only like the cities of New York, Paris, or Hong Kong, there was an MRT stop right underneath Bonifacio High Street to take me via skytrain or underground to North Edsa, it would have been a different story. I could go anywhere at the drop of a hat and spend my money, whether remorsefully or guiltlessly, and, by default, help the economy.

A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com