Wanndering – on foot and in spirit

This is a random post that I decided to put in when I remembered some of the little things when we came to Hong Kong. Having been in the region for a long time, settling down in HK wasnt that big a deal. It helps that it is a pretty organized place, people generally don’t cheat and English is fairly prevalent in all walks of life barring some interior places.

Housing : Finding an house wasn’t much of a problem as we had shortlisted a few places based on where our friends stayed. Expatriates from different countries have their own preferred clusters. If you are like us – Indians, middle management, working professionals; maybe, with kids, then some of our options may be useful in your consideration. There are three major areas in HK

- Hong Kong Island : Midlevels – crowded and expensive, Taikoo – moderately crowded, Happy Valley – residential are. There are the Stanley and Repulse Bay area which are not generally preferred by Indians.
- Kowloon : Areas around Jordan, Olympic, Laguna Verde. There are some who have chosen to be on the far-side of Kowloon but if you are a newcomer, I highly recommend you to stay closer to the MTR and buus lines. Later over years, you can move based on your developed taste
- Lantau Island : One of the areas in Lantau Island is Tung Chung. It was once supposed to be a cheaper and less favoured location and is neither of it now. It boasts of a lot of space, newer housing estates and most of all MTR connectivity. There is a vibrant expat community and sizable Indian population. The places are relatively affordable and well maintained. There is another popular place in Lantau – Discovery Bay. Beautiful beach side living especially patronized by the westerners. I have seen a few Indians around. The only challenge is the connectivity.

Food : Food has been the highlight of our stay in HK. HK is fairly cosmopolitan and that includes food also. If you dig Chinese food, go nowhere else. We were pleasantly surprised with the amoun of vegetarian options in HK. Many chinese restaurants have a clear veg menus. If your tongue is rigidly stuck to the Indian food, there are fairly good number of options. Most of the restaurants are Mughalai cuisine. I will list them separately in another blog

Commuting : Do ensure that public transport is conveniently available near your place of living and the office. MTR , feeder mini buses and public buses are the main modes of transport in HK. Private vehicles are slightly difficult to maintain because of the parking costs. Buy an Octopus prepaid card. It is a convenient stored value card which in some estates doubles up as access card.

Indian stores : There are a few options for Indian stores in the Tsim Sha Tsui area in Chung King and Mirador mansions. The vegetables you are looking for are generally avaiable in the supermarket or wet markets in your locality except for some exotic items like dhania, pudina etc.

Phone connection: There are the obvious options like – Hutch (3), CSL and PCCW. The choice of these connections would possibly depend on your company policy as you might get bulk/ corporate discounts on the connection. There are few who also go for some MVNO connections which give discounted call rates to India. You may check for these options in TST especially Chung King mansion.

Internet connection: Best to go for NoWTV and PCCW broadband connection. They generally come bundled. NowTV is a IP based service provider. There are a limited desi channel options.It is encouraging to see them adding more Indian channels especially the Hindi ones. Call 1000 on your mobile and the IVR takes over smoothly and directs you till the end on getting the subscription.

We moved to HK from India with a lot of pre-conceived notions and openness on a few things. The journey of discovery has been interesting so far.

1. Visas : Visitor Visa for Indians is ‘On Arrival’ – one of the few countries that permits it. That guarantees 14-day stay in HK. One can get a stamped visa for longer duration. Work Permit was a breeze! Assuming that HK ‘really wanted’ me, the procedure itself was very smooth. Most of the processing happened without the original documents and one fine day a letter came to my house with stickers. I had to just stick the visa onto my passport and Voila! I am ready to travel. It was the same for dependent visa

2. Sovereignty: China has a sovereignty over HK. When HK was handed over by the British in 1997 after nearly a century of colonial rule, they had agreed to keep the current political system for the next 50 years. Some uncertainties during that period drove many corporates to registering their companies in Bermuda or UK including the likes of Standard Chartered etc, more than decade now, the fear of ‘China will take over’ has gone and confidence level is increasing to the level of colonial days. Hong Kong has the suffix SAR (Special Autonomous Region) which permits it to do most of the things on its own – currency, Passport, visas, legal system, political systems except Defence and foreign Affairs. So, for all practical purposes for an expat, it is a separate country from China.

3. Weather: HK is at the same latitude of Kolkotta. It is humid because it is close to the sea but the seasons are well pronounced – Spring (March to May), Summer (June to August), Autumn (September to November), Winter (December to Feb). Winters are milder with average minimum of 14degrees C and summers are okay but but extremely sweaty at 32 degrees during July-Aug. HK is prone to typhoons are quite common but not very devastating for an average city dweller thanks to the building construction to stand typhoons and the emergency alert systems. Earth Quakes are rare and as a result low on tsunami dangers too.

4. Food : HK has a very cosmopolitan flavour in food. There is a riot of food in HK – Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Italian, Middle-Eastern – you name it. I got a pleasant surprise as a vegetarian that many, if not all, have rich vegetarian menus. I have lived in Taipei, ordering customised stuff for myself and was expecting the same here. Surprisingly for an adventurous vegetarian, HK has a lot of options. Stay tuned on the food part on my future blogs.

5. Geography : Traditionally Hong Kong was just the Hong Kong Island. The Island is still the hub of commercial activities and has most of the offices. The British, needing more land, forcefully leased some land from China’s Guang Dong province which is known as Kowloon which is the largest body of HKSAR. Most of the harbours and ports are in Kowloon / New Territories. There were some outlying islands with relatively lesser density including Lantau which is the largest of these, now called the Outlying islands. So, note that HK Island and HKSAR cannot be used interchangably.

6. Religion : Much of HK considers itself atheist / agnostic. But, if money is a religion, HK has the highest percentage of worshippers. There is a significant influence of the traditional Chinese practices of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism in the important social transactions. There is a noticeable number of Christians a bearing of the Colonial era.

7. Travel : HK is connected to all major Indian cities directly through Dragon Air.

8. Indian Consulate: Since, HK is just a ‘state’ in the larger China Republic, the Embassy is in Beijing but there is a consulate office in Hong Kong :

14/F United Center
95 Queensway, Hong Kong

I spent an year in India after few years of staying abroad. The experience was mixed bag. Being back home was definitely a great thing but living in Bangalore had its challenges. Having been used to a little more predictability in life in terms of daily errands, little things like driving, commuting to work, socialising etc had to be reconfigured. I have started believing that we are slowly making our cities un-liveable. After a couple of discussions, a leading company offered me a job in Hong Kong and I jumped at it. I have sworn that if I return to India, I will return to a smaller place and not a big city where you end up only existing and not living. Or, you should be an Ambani to create an aquarium around you and it doesnt really matter what exists beyond.

Of the several options, Hong Kong was a delightful mix of China opportunity and cosmopolitan living. I consider  2 cities in APAC being cosmopolitan – Singapore and Hong Kong. The first has an Indian flavour and the latter very Chinese. Since I am in early phase of life, I thought I will take a dip into a little adventure and chose Hong Kong.

I had my own opinions of HK when I moved in. Lot of people said that it was Communist China but I strongly believe that China will keep the HK neutrality. PRC is very pragmatic – they built SEZs to create oasis of excellence in business and industry. Why would they change the status quo in a ready ‘SEZ’ like Hong Kong. I am sure the new political masters will be exerting a bit of control but daily lives would not be changed too much from its colonial past. HK has always been an open state. It is one of the few countries in the world that permits Visa on Arrival for Indians. I have heard of HK’s entrepreneurial spirit, or like the cynics say, ‘business mindedness’

Embarking on the adventure! Moving to HK with my wife.