This happened last Saturday, May 18.
We left out apartment early and took the metro to the Panyu Hotel in the south of our city.
Part of the way was on motorcycle "taxi," but that is another story. Then a shuttle to the port
and a boat ride down the Pearl River. ( I know… not a complete sentence!) The boat trip was not really on the Pearl River, but
on the bay that the river empties into. We took the pleasant 2-hour trip to the Kowloon
side of the harbour at Hong Kong. There were literally thousands of large barges up and down
the river carrying huge commercial containers. This is one of the great commercial
capitals of the world. So many goods are made in China and that would mean
from this area of China. It was amazing.
Brad wanted to get a "feeling" for Hong Kong from his great-grandfather's point of view.
This Alfred Hertz was a young 21 year old when he came to Hong Kong from Hamburg,
Germany to work for a German import/export company. He lived in Hong Kong for 4 years
and had lived in Canton (Guangzhou) for some of that time. A fever forced him to go
home, or actually to New York where he started his life in America. Brad had his journal
and was excited to see a few places.
Brad especially wanted to see an area called 'Happy Valley" which had the old race track and
a nearby Muslim cemetery. The journal said that Alfred went in a carriage with a friend to the race
track every morning. We surmised that he must have placed a bet every morning. The
journal also tells of a carriage accident where his horse crashed into a massive stone
wall by the Muslim (Mohammedan) cemetery. Don thought that he knew where the area
was since we had seen a flat sports area in a steep valley that had tombstones rising
up the sides of the valley, when we had taken the bus from Stanley Market at one time.
We took a taxi and sure enough, we found the place. The official in the old Catholic cemetery
was a good historian and explained that the old race track was next door and the old Muslim
cemetery was up the hill. There are 3 cemeteries in that happy valley.
After some time walking about, we sat and listened as Brad read excerpts from his Great-
Grandfather's journal. It was a good time. We felt a connection with loved ones both
past and present.
After we looked for 'Cat Street' and found it by taxi. This was a street, both commercial and notorious,
that his grandfather had mentioned. We happened upon a marker for 'Possession Point' and got a sense
of how the original harbour was in the 1870's. It has been landfilled and we commented how Alfred would
be shocked at today's Hong Kong. With some help from a kind passer-by, and much discussion about
how the water couldn't have come this high up the hill, we decided that the harbour must have been fronted
by a steep cliff. This seemed to satisfy our needs to re-create the Hong Kong of 1870. The journal states that
Alfred went swimming in the harbour and he could put a coin 20 feet down, easily see it, and dive to get it.
Since our time was waning, and we had train tickets for the 8:00 train, we hurried back to the Star Ferry and
back to the Kowloon side of the harbour. We did take time to shop in an alley by Cat Street and Susan bought a good red
purse (as all red purses are) and I found a purple jacket. More time was wanted. Much more.
Every time we go back to Hong Kong, we love it more because we get away from the Gucci/Rolex stores and
the hustlers around the Star Ferry area in Kowloon.
It was a great day.
Home late and tired.
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