By Stephen Lawson
Hong Kong is a hard town, as unyielding as concrete, glass, and a pegged currency, where people riot to buy a Hello Kitty doll at the right price. Its hero is a tycoon who’s famous for making billion-dollar deals in a matter of hours, and its most eligible bachelor is his second son, an impatient 33-year-old with a low-maintenance crew cut. The territory, though now a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, is commerce in a nutshell: the whole economy is based on selling and renting out the place itself, in square feet.
But look a little closer, and there’s a surprise: This is a town of sweethearts, too, melting like little heart candies stamped with corny phrases. Walk through Causeway Bay’s boisterous shopping district on a Sunday afternoon, stand in line outside one of Jackie Chan’s Genki Sushi restaurants, or just ride the subway any evening, and you’ll see it.
Remember those couples in high school, the kids who were always together, who floated down the hall in a cloud of affection that never went away? They studied together before quizzes and fed each other little morsels of each other’s lunches. Remember? On a late spring day you might have seen two dozen such couples at a big high school.
Now, picture half the population between 14 and 30 like that. (The other half are talking on their mobile phones, probably to their own sweethearts.) There are couples making slow progress down Des Voeux Road in Central, the young man’s arm around the woman’s shoulder all the way down the block. On the escalators up to the pedestrian bridges, you’ll see couples stand on the steps and drift up. They look into each other’s eyes, maybe laughing and nuzzling each other on the cheek. If you’re walking up, you have to squeeze by, but you forgive them. They aren’t showing off or trying to provoke a reaction, just lost in love or infatuation.
Certainly a few of those public lovers are honeymooning here, but the Fragrant Harbor’s days as a charming, exotic getaway are long gone. So, why is it always prom week in Hong Kong?
“Get a room!” is a joking complaint to public lovers in America, where anything beyond holding hands is considered better done in private. That’s a hint as to why young peoples’ romances here play out so often in public. Flats are tiny and expensive, and my friends here tell me that young people live with their parents until they get married or find a top-dollar job. People have little space at home, and even less privacy.
In public housing estates, which make up nearly one-third of all housing, the crowding has reached absurd levels. Protests recently were raised over how public flats are assigned. In one situation, which protestors told the local press was not uncommon, three young, single men were forced to share a 600-square-foot flat because none had a family – though one was already engaged. Subsequently, all three married and each couple had children. Now the men, wives, and children all share that same flat.
After a while, living that close together affects everyone, not just young lovers. Close friends touch each other, too, both boys and girls. Even grown men, after a few drinks. Rather than a pat on the back, it’s a gentle arm around the shoulder. Teenage sons stand close to their mothers without looking awkward, while their mothers may gently brush the hair from their faces. On a ferry back from an outlying island one evening, I was charmed by the way a group of teenage friends, both boys and girls, freely shared the miniature earphones of their portable CD players, the thin black wires forming a cozy circle.
When I moved into my own flat, a local friend asked me how much space it had. I told her I guessed it was nearly 700 square feet, and she gasped. That much space for two people?
It seemed a little large to me, too, while I waited for my own sweetheart to arrive. But even in the surprisingly chilly early spring, amid swelling lines to buy into dot-com IPOs, Hong Kong gave off a warm glow of romance.
Copyright © 2000 Stephen Lawson