The Peace Correspondent

by Garry Marchant

  More remote, sparsely inhabited islands such as Tap Mun, Ping Chau, Po Toi and Tung Lung Chau, which require more effort to reach, are unknown even to most Hong Kongers. These isolated places (none with vehicles) retain traditional rural Chinese culture, along with fine beaches, mountains and open spaces. And each island has its own character.

  Po Toi

  On an already hot Hong Kong mid-morning, a small, slightly battered blue-hulled ferry docks at the St. Stephen’s Beach pier near Stanley, on the south side of Hong Kong Island. Savvy travelers board quickly and rush for the top deck or the stern on the main deck, competing for outside seats with former residents returning for a visit and with excitable Hong Kong teenagers.

  Right on time at 10am, the ferry departs for tiny Po Toi, Hong Kong’s southernmost island. In popular Stanley Bay (Chek Chue Wan), the ferry passes weekend windsurfers, sailors in small boats and sea kayakers before heading into the choppy open sea. On the four-mile (6.4 kilometer) journey, we follow the rugged southern coastline of sheer cliffs, then pass uninhabited islands and rocky outcrops. A crewman in a broad straw hat collects HK$38 for the return trip. The crew speaks only Cantonese, so foreign travelers have to point to the ticket for the 3pm, 4:30pm or 6pm return ferry.

  The waters here can be rough, and not for landlubbers, but it is a short trip. Just 35 minutes after departing, the ferry enters Po Toi’s picturesque, sheltered Tai Wan Bay, home to the island’s 30 or so remaining residents. By mid-morning, sleek, flashy yachts and private pleasure junks - their hulls the shiny dark brown of roasted duck skin - are already anchored here, their passengers enjoying a seafood lunch at the beachfront restaurant.

  The island is so rugged and remote, John LeCarre used it as a setting for a dramatic scene in his 1977 spy novel, An Honorable Schoolboy, but today it has well-marked and maintained hiking paths.

  A short, paved path leads left from the jetty past a sandy beach with restaurants to a picturesque, seaside temple for Tin Hau, the Goddess of the Sea. We head in the other direction, along a longer, but easy, path running through bush and along the craggy coast past prehistoric rock carvings. Beyond that, it leads to such unusual, colorfully titled rock formations as Buddha’s Palm Cliff, Monk’s Rock and Tortoise Rock, and to a hilltop lighthouse. Those who like to go to extremes can walk on to Nam Kok Tsui, the southernmost point of Hong Kong. The rounded shapes of Chinese islands are visible on the horizon, and ghostly outlines of container ships sail past on the open South China Sea.

  From this southernmost point, we return the hard way, climbing steep steps to the top of 188 meter-high Ngau Wu Mountain. From here, an alternate path back to the beach passes by Mo’s Old House, supposedly haunted. “You’re not going to Po Toi,” apprehensive Hong Kongers said earlier, when we mentioned our plans. “That’s the ghost island.” Unlike the ornate haunted castles of movie sets, with their towers, turrets and dormers, Mo’s is just an abandoned summer house built about 50 years ago, but never occupied. Yet this crumbing relic is the source of tales that the island is haunted.

  Hikers and boaters alike end up in Po Toi’s main attraction, the basic, open-air Ming Kee Seafood Restaurant, set on stilts on the beach near the pier. Passing the chaotic kitchen with its flaming gas stoves and a large, plain room with plastic chairs, concrete floor and plastic awning, we grab a table set out on the sand. Island chic includes waitresses in T-shirts, jeans and black rubber boots, hikers in T-shirts, shorts and bare feet, and elegant yachties in designer boating wear. Some stylish ladies are even decked out in fancy hats more suited for the Ascot races than a South China Sea outdoor diner.

  For Hong Kongers, food counts, not decor, and the Ming Kee is known for its fine fare, especially seafood. Prawns, crabs, clams, scallops, lobster and fresh fish come steamed, fried, or with delicious sauces such as garlic and black bean, black pepper and chili, or ginger and onion. Carnivores indulge in stir-fried or sweet-and-sour chicken, or pork and beef dishes, vegetarians in seaweed soup and steamed vegetables and drinkers in cold beer or wine.

  On this peaceful sunny afternoon, we sit with bare toes wiggling in the sand, and dine on fresh, succulent seafood. There is no accommodation on this island, so, as yachties weigh anchor we make sure we are at the pier for the last ferry back to Hong Kong Island. Haunted island or not, we do not want to spend the night sleeping on the beach.

  Tung Lung Chau

  The constant wind off the South China Sea has stripped much of Tung Lung Chau clean of its former dense bush covering, revealing rounded hills. The north end of this island at the southern tip of Clear Water Bay in the eastern New Territories is largely bare and open, allowing great views of the surrounding seas and approaching ships. Among the most rugged of Hong Kong’s many islands, it is distinctive for its large, rocky outcrops and high, sheer cliffs.

  From the ferry we turn right, joining passengers going to see their ancestral homes, shabby little buildings with some elderly folks working in the small gardens. The overgrown path leads through a forest, silent except for the quintessential sound of the Orient, the creaking of bamboo. At the end, we climb down a steep, rough path through waist-high thickets to the rocky shore. The ancient rock carving that we have come to see supposedly represents a dragon. In fact, it looks more like a child’s scrawl etched deeply into the rock.

  Returning back along the same path, we reach the north side of the island, where the golf course across the inlet is so close it appears that if someone teed off from there the ball could land at our feet.

  Tung Lung was once a sort of Gibraltar, with its 18th-century Fat Tong Mun Fort guarding the sea passage between Hong Kong and Guangzhou. The Qing dynasty fort was built between 1719-1724 to fight off pirates preying on junks that sailed through the Fat Tong Mun channel into Hong Kong’s sheltered waters. The fort, armed with eight cannon, and manned by a detachment of one officer and 25 men, was abandoned in 1810 when the garrison moved to Kowloon. Today, instead of pirates in junks, yachts, speedboats and coastal freighters now pass through the narrow channel.

  The ruins were overgrown with vegetation when the Antiquities Advisory Office started excavation work in 1980. The partially restored fort on the edge of a cliff, with waves crashing against the rocky shore far below and spindrift whipping along the sea like shredded plastic bags, conveys an eerie sense of those dangerous early days.

  The open-air Holiday Store on the main path sells drinks and basic food -- the “Hong Kong Ferry’s school of cuisine,” with baloney slices, luncheon meat or fried egg plopped on bowls of packaged instant noodles.

  The ramshackle restaurant is like a beachcomber’s hut, with a patchwork roof of canvas and a Marlborough cigarette awning stretched across bamboo poles. A few cats wander around between the rusty metal chairs set on a bare concrete slab floor. Large plastic water barrels, boards, bricks, driftwood, old life buoys and wood pallets clutter the dilapidated, but pleasant spot.

  Dozens of squares of Styrofoam packing scribbled with messages or sketches are tacked to the rafters or nailed to the ceiling. Mostly in Chinese, they are mementos of individuals and groups who have visited the island. Police Adventure Training Unit, Outward Bound and various cadet groups have all trained on Tung Lung, and TVB has used it as a setting for some of its melodramas.

  The restaurant appears to be the unofficial center for Hong Kong’s dedicated rock climbers, and photos of climbers clambering up the sheer cliffs decorate the shop. On one wall, a photo shows the last Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, looking slim and tanned, visiting Tung Lung Chau on May 30, 1993. It is unlikely that he dined at the Holiday Store.

  Tap Mun

  Despite the bovine distractions, Tap Mun, in Tolo Harbor, is mainly a fishing community. From the deck of the ferry approaching the dock, we see aged fishing boats, people working on the nearby fish-breeding rafts and a fishing village stretching along the shore. The island is also reputedly a smuggling center, and, sure enough, a grey hulled marine police launch patrols in the harbor like a street c
op on the beat.

  The east end of Tap Mun is gentle and scenic, ideal for easy hiking. Paths cross open, grassy slopes providing scenic views of small beaches, the open sea with passing yachts, fishing boats and freighters, and other small islands.

  The west end of the island is more rugged, with paths penetrating thick bush, overgrown in places. It is like walking through a living green tunnel of vines, palms, grasses, cacti, creepers and crawlers. Sharp, prickly leaves, like pineapple stems, scratch and claw at our clothes. Finally, the path opens up, leading to an easy climb up to Wintz Hill (Mau Ping Shan) and the white pillar of the surveyor’s cairn. From here there is a great, unobstructed 360-degree view of the surrounding sea and the pyramid shape of Sharp Peak (Nam She Tsim) on the mainland.

  In Tap Mun village, fish wrapped tightly in paper and ribbons like mummies dry on fences and clotheslines, while others the size of tiny minnows glitter like silver coins in woven baskets. Tanka and Hoklo women wearing broad, woven hats pound dried shrimp into a powder.

  Tap Mun’s two-century-old Tin Hau Temple, the last one that fishermen and seamen can visit before heading out to the open sea, is one of the most popular in Hong Kong. The green-tiled temple to Taoism’s Goddess of the Sea is equipped with traditional trappings of a huge bell, drum and portable altar for carrying the goddess. We are admiring the main temple when the sudden explosive crackle of firecrackers from the altar next door shatters our silent reveries, and the acrid scent of black powder mingles with the sweeter aroma of temple incense.

  The fishing village’s only real restaurant, the New Hong Ke, serves Chinese-style seafood and other dishes. The English menu lists steamed medium-sized prawns, fried prawns with chili, fried clams in ginger and spring onion sauce, and stir-fried garoupa, all at market price. Dishes are about HK$60 each, cheap by Hong Kong standards. Curiously, although it is bright and airy, the restaurant is enclosed, taking no advantage of its scenic seaside setting. One wall is covered with colored prints of people who have dined there, including two former governors David Wilson and the peripatetic Patten, a well-known Sino-trencherman and island-hopper, who visited twice.

  Ping Chau

  Only determined island lovers venture out to Ping Chau, the farthest outlying island from Hong Kong and the hardest to reach (about an hour by MTR, subway and commuter train from Central, and an hour and 45 minutes by ferry). Police boats looking for illegal immigrants regularly stop ferries to the island in Hong Kong’s remote northeast, the closest one to mainland China. Daya Bay, with its nuclear plant, is just 12 kilometers from Ping Chau.

  Like all of the ferries to the more remote islands, the boat is a beat up old craft, smelling of oil and old ropes. Once heavily populated, Ping Chau is now almost abandoned, except on summer weekends, when inhabitants return to run small restaurants and shops selling drinks and snacks to day-trippers, thousands of teenage campers and picnickers.

  From the ferry, China is clearly visible a short distance away, and with binoculars I can pick out the new buildings sprouting along the Chinese coastline. A walking trail loops around the island, passing traditional stone houses and pleasant beaches washed by perhaps the clearest water in Hong Kong. Few hikers go beyond the barbecue pits, campsites and picnic facilities, so after a short walk, we leave the masses behind. At the southern end of the island stand two rocky outcrops, the Ping Chau “Watchtowers.”

  The eastern coast of the island must be one of the most peaceful spots in all of Hong Kong. Along this coast, unusual bedded sedimentary mudstones and siltstones are tilted, tiered slabs, like lopsided layers of earthenware plates. After circumnavigating the island, we return to a broad, sandy beach, and the crowds of weekenders.

  It is scorching hot in mid-summer, with no shade along many stretches of the path, so we are sweating and parched after our hike. Fortunately, this is a Chinese community, and the first place we get to, a little cafe overlooking the sea, has an ice chest full of cold Carl-zee-bahgahs (Carlsberg beer).

  MACAU

  GUIA COURSE

  Racing for Glory

  October 1992

  THE high-octane aviation fuel that powers Grand Prix cars burns with such clear intensity, it is hard to tell if a crashed car, or driver, is in flames. Few drivers likely contemplate this chilling fact as they pop a celebratory cork and pose alongside lithe young Moet & Chandon “Hospitality Girls” on the winners’ podium.

  Avgas and Champagne are the essential ingredients in lightning-paced, grueling but glamorous Grand Prix racing. Outside of Japan, the sport comes to Asia just once a year. On the last weekend in November, racing drivers and bike riders, pit crews and international press all rendezvous in Macau, the Portuguese enclave across the Pearl River from Hong Kong. The Macau Formula 3 Grand Prix, one of the world’s oldest continually running races, is the big weekend for the Hong Kong and Macau motoring set, with noise, speed, a dose of danger and a whiff of sex.

  This “World Cup of F3” is a major international event, with the finest young drivers racing for prize money, glory and the coveted Super License which enables them to move up the ranks of professional racing to Formula 1. Former Grand Prix champions also return for another fling at fame, before 30,000 spectators and some 200 million TV viewers in 74 countries.

  The Macau Grand Prix weekend is more than a race, though. It is an occasion for local auto aficionados to flaunt their high-priced cars and driving skills, and to carouse. November is party time in Macau.

  Unlike full-time race tracks, Macau’s Guia course, named for the city’s trademark lighthouse, is a street circuit. High performance cars and motorcycles reach speeds of up to 160 miles per hour on streets where normally only plodding buses, cars, Mini Mokes and bicycles run. The Guia is a tough 3.8 mile course of tight turns, hairpins, long straight-aways, rises and dips. In the days running up to the big weekend, Macanese live with the angry hornet buzz of cars and bikes doing practice runs and time trials -- vvrroooom, vrrooooom, vrroooom.

  Saturday morning, day one of the races, the press center, like a command post with faxes, telephones and typewriters, crackles with tension as the international motoring media sets up shop. Hordes of reporters, press badges dangling round their necks, watch heats on TV monitors while photographers in vivid red “Press on Course” bibs cradle lenses like truncated bazookas.

  Down in the pits, where the air is sharp with the fumes of racing fuel, mechanics tinker with gleaming Suzukis, Yamahas, Kawasakis, Hondas and Ducatis all standing like rows of steel steeds ready to charge. On the hot tarmac, bikers sweat in full leather suits with thick knee pads like overgrown calluses, protection for legs that are inches from the concrete on high speed banks. Between races, riders peel the suits down to the waist, displaying tattoos and bike accident scars to fans, girlfriends and nubile groupies.

  When the starting flag drops, riders on 500 cc and 750 cc monster bikes shoot off like bullets, racing down the Yacht Club Straight at explosive speed. Minutes later, the leaders, hunched low over handlebars, rocket past the stands in a blur, engines screaming. Then the control tower announces an accident, somewhere out of sight, and TV monitors show a shaky rider rising from the ground behind a screen of dust. The race stops, ambulances race out onto the course, bodies and bikes are hauled off, and the contest resumes.

  After each race, the three jubilant winners mount the podium with the scantily-clad Moet and Chandon girls. Draped in leafy green victory wreaths, they shake up the bottle, pop the cork and spew Champagne all over each other, the girls and the fans crowded below. It is the racing fraternity’s version of high fives.

  While elated riders celebrate with Champagne showers, losers are in the pits making their excuses and other bikes are already racing in the next event.

  Bikers and drivers are a different breed, track types say. Car racing has more status, and prize money, but bikers lead in the macho stakes. “You have to be crazy to do this on four wheels, let alone two,” an awed enthusiast says. “But have you noticed that out of the
first 10 leaders, five of them are Irish?”

  When the leather-clad bikers wheel their mounts away, cars take over the pits. The drivers in fluorescent fireproof coveralls of dazzling white, yellow, red or orange look like walking billboards with sponsors’ tags, crests and decals lining their arms like boy scout merit badges.

  In this young man’s sport, F3 drivers, many of whom have just graduated from racing go-karts, are particularly youthful. When two boys walked into a Montagut French Fashions racing team press conference earlier, I assumed they were models for teenaged sporting wear. Until the downy-cheeked youths were introduced as the racing team; baby-faced Paul Stewart, son of legendary racer Jackie, and square-jawed, serious David Coulthard, destined for glory on Macau’s streets.

  Unlike any neighborhood garage, the pit area is pristine, with enough spare engine parts, hoods, fenders, and wheels set out by each team to rebuild a car. No oil or grease stains mar the immaculate machines as mechanics, like technicians in their spiffy team uniforms, constantly wipe and polish the engine and body. As I admire this loving handiwork, a cry comes up from a flock of Hong Kong photographers.

  “Waaah!!!”

  Two towering blond Camel cigarette models stroll by in highcut dancer’s leotards, showing that not all close shaves come on the racetrack. The Hospitality Girls throw the pit paparazzi into a photography feeding frenzy as bikers, mechanics, even other photographers jostle to pose with the long-legged beauties.

  “Pit Poopsies” in bright, brief team costumes hold umbrellas over the drivers, pose for photographs and promenade around the pit area. The models add sparkle to Grand Prix racing, but only in France, Japan and Macau. Strutting their stuff this year are a Kawai Steel trio with yellow writing across pert blue bottoms; Golden Palace Hotel Macau girls in gold and green cheerleaders outfits; Art Beauty team models in green and white; and Montagut Girls in orange and blue. Outside the track, Camel girls in craftily frayed cutoffs and mustard-yellow tops sell souvenir posters.