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Sights
Happy Valley Racecourse
Horseracing, worth more than US$1 billion annually, remains the most popular form of gambling in Hong Kong and it is one of the quintessential things to do while you’re in town. The punters pack into the stands and trackside and the atmosphere is electric
Hong Kong Cultural Centre
The odd, wavelike (and virtually windowless) building clad in pink ceramic tiles behind the clock tower and opposite Star House is the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, one of Hong Kong’s most distinctive – if not loved – landmarks. It opened in 1989 and was compared with everything from a cheaply tiled public toilet to a road-side petrol station.
Ocean Park
Ocean Park is an amusement park with a roller coaster and other stomach-turning rides. It is also a marine park, with dolphin and killer whale shows, seals and sea lions, a shark aquarium and aviaries featuring the ‘Amazing Birds’ theatre.
Ping Kong
This sleepy walled village in the hills south of Sheung Shui is seldom visited by outsiders. Like other walled villages still inhabited in Hong Kong, it is a mix of old and new, and has a lovely little Tin Hau temple in the centre. You can also go exploring around the farming area behind the village compound.
History
Human settlement in the area now known as Hong Kong dates back to the Paleolithic era, but the name Hong Kong (香港) didn’t appear on written record until the Treaty of Nanking of 1842. The area’s earliest recorded European visitor was Jorge Álvares, a Portuguese mariner who arrived in 1513.
In 1839 the refusal by Qing Dynasty authorities to import opium resulted in the First Opium War between China and Britain. Hong Kong Island became occupied by British forces in 1841, and was formally ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Nanking at the end of the war. The British established a Crown Colony with the founding of Victoria City the following year. In 1860, after China’s defeat in the Second Opium War, Kowloon Peninsula south of Boundary Street and Stonecutter’s Island were ceded to Britain under the Convention of Peking. In 1898 Britain obtained a 99-year lease of Lantau Island and the adjacent northern lands, which became known as the New Territories.
In conjunction with its military campaign in World War II, the Empire of Japan invaded Hong Kong on 8 December 1941. The Battle of Hong Kong ended with British and Canadian defenders surrendering control of the colony to Japan on 25 December. During the Japanese occupation, civilians suffered widespread food shortages, rationing, and hyper-inflation due to forced exchange of currency for military notes. Hong Kong lost more than half of its population in the period between the invasion and Japan’s surrender in 1945, when the United Kingdom resumed control of the colony.
Hong Kong’s population recovered quickly as a wave of mainland migrants arrived for refuge from the ongoing Chinese Civil War. With the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, more migrants fled to Hong Kong in fear of persecution by the Communist Party. Many corporations in Shanghai and Guangzhou also shifted their operations to Hong Kong. The colony became the sole place of contact between mainland China and the Western world, as the Chinese communist government increasingly isolated itself from outside influence.
As textile and manufacturing industries grew with the help of population growth and low cost of labor, Hong Kong rapidly industrialized, with its economy becoming driven by exports, and living standards rising steadily. The construction of Shek Kip Mei Estate in 1953 marked the beginning of the public housing estate program, designed to cope with the huge influx of immigrants. Trade in Hong Kong accelerated even further when Shenzhen, immediately north of Hong Kong, became a Special Economic Zone of the PRC, and established Hong Kong as the main source of foreign investment to the mainland. The later decades of the 20th century saw the economy shift from textiles and manufacturing to mainly services-based, as the financial and banking sectors became increasingly dominant.
With the lease of the New Territories due to expire within two decades the governments of the United Kingdom and the People’s Republic of China discussed the issue of Hong Kong’s sovereignty in the 1980s. In 1984 the two countries signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, agreeing to transfer sovereignty to the People’s Republic of China in 1997, and stipulating that Hong Kong would be governed as a special administrative region, retaining its laws and a high degree of autonomy for at least fifty years after the transfer. The Hong Kong Basic Law, which would serve as the constitutional document after the transfer, was ratified in 1990, and the transfer of sovereignty occurred at midnight on 1 July 1997, marked by a handover ceremony at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Hong Kong’s economy was affected by the Asian financial crisis of 1997 that hit many East Asian markets, and the lethal H5N1 avian influenza also surfaced that year. After a gradual recovery, Hong Kong suffered again due to an outbreak of SARS in 2003. Today, Hong Kong continues to serve as an important global financial centre, but faces uncertainty over its future role with a growing mainland China economy, and its relationship with the PRC government in areas such as democratic reform and universal suffrage.
