After the high prices in Australia, where it was hard to find a sandwich under $10 (I’m not including McD’s, which is everywhere—like a bad infection), I love Hong Kong. Although, many said it was expensive, I’m finding it very affordable and for many things down right cheap!
Hungry? Besides the ubiquitous Chinese eateries, there’s a pastry shop on every corner serving up mini croissants filled with all kinds of good things like ham and cheese, or mushrooms, or tuna, or chocolate. Each one is about HK 3 the equivalent of thirty-five US cents. And the regular size ones are still under a dollar. So, you can get a breakfast or a snack for mere change.
The public transportation here is also extremely cheap. The efficient work horse, the Star Ferry, takes passengers across the harbor every ten minutes or so and only costs about 20 cents. Underground I frequently used the MTR—Hong Kong’s super clean and super fast mass transit subway system. Each ride here was about a dollar.
For dinner I recently had sushi. I ordered some salmon nigiri (on rice), Samna nigiri (a type of mackerel), yellowtail sashimi, and one soft shell crab roll. Each dish only had 2-3 pieces, but this was just perfect for me since I was dining alone. My tasty dinner came to just under $10. This town is totally affordable!
Of course to offset this savings, I decided to decompress one afternoon in the lobby bar of the strategically located Intercontinental Hotel with an Iced Mocha. The views of the harbor and Hong Kong Island are amazingly stunning from here and the staff was lovely. I even asked the concierge for some info. It was nice to feel part of the ‘upper echelon’ of society for a change. But, of course, this came at a cost. My coffee was $8—almost as much as my entire dinner from the night before.
There are also tailors everywhere with their annoying aforementioned hawkers stationed on every corner just waiting to spring onto the fair eyed tourist (that’s me). But these prices are also amazing. I had unfortunately spent too much money on a new pair of jeans (the ONE pair I’d brought with me on the trip were getting slightly threadbare) in Australia. But they were too long for my short frame. So I brought them into one of the tailors here on Nathan Road inside the Mirador Mansion.
The infamous Mirador and Chunking Mansions (have any of you see the flick Chungking Express? Much of it was shot in these concrete blocks) are a couple tremendous ramshackle concrete block buildings filled with random hostels, guest houses, restaurants, tailors, and other jumbled businesses. They are not attractive in any way, shape or form. From the outside, they look like old communist crumbling towers with window air conditioning units adorning every other window and peeling, chipping paint. On the inside, they are not much better. It felt a bit like a housing project.
I took the creaky elevator up to the fifth floor where I was told someone had a strong enough sewing machine to hem jeans. When the slow, tiny elevator opened on the fifth floor, I walked out into the cold dim corridor. Hmmm, where to go now? The halls are open to the outdoors because there is kind of an inner courtyard in the middle of the building. But instead of a nice garden or sitting area, this courtyard had some chain link fencing and big dumpsters where tenants were supposed to throw their trash. I walked in a circle around the perimeter of the fifth floor passing a few stray cats looking for fish scraps from today’s lunch and some random tailor workshops, but none that looked inviting enough to enter.
Back at the elevator I asked a little old wrinkly Chinese man who stepped out of one of the workshops about hemming jeans. He sent me to the fourth floor. Instead of waiting for the world’s slowest elevator, I took the stairs down and found a mannequin outside of one tiny shop and she was adorned in a jean jacket with embroidery—this must be the place.
A man was just arriving and unlocking the gate to the shop. I asked if he could shorten my jeans. We stepped inside his tiny, messy shop which was lit by a single fluorescent light and had some shelves with random fabric scraps and magazine pictures tacked to the walls with people smiling in suits and wedding gowns.
I had turned up cuffs on my jeans because I’d already worn them once and he was going to just use that as a guide. But I wanted it done right so I asked if he had a changing room so we could just be sure of the length. Looking around I could see the answer was no. So he walked into the hall closing the metal door behind him and left me in this tiny shop to try on my jeans. Okay, I thought, ‘this isn’t too weird, I guess.’
With one leg in one pant leg and the other balancing on my sandals so as not to touch the grubby floor, he started to come back in.
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” I exclaimed. I really didn’t need him to see my white American ass now did I?
When I was all zipped up, I called for him to come back in. He measured, pinned, and stepped back out into the hall. I changed back into my other pants and a new man appeared and scurried down the hall with my jeans. They would be done while I waited.
I took the time to chat with George Kwok, the owner. He said this tailor business had made him rich (you’d never know looking around the place) because he was the “first to take tailoring” to other cities in China like Shenzhen and Shanghai. I’m not sure I understood him exactly or if he was really the “Chinese Father of Tailoring” since the Ming Dynasty, but he was nice. Two of his children lived in the US, one in San Diego and one in San Francisco.
It was interesting to think about how many things we buy in the US that have the “Made in China” label on them. After all the importing and random US price jacking—things aren’t cheap. But here in China (well, close to mainland China) at the source, things seemed to be priced much closer to their actual cost.
Just ten minutes later, the little man returned with my jeans all shortened and sewn. The tailor job only cost me roughly US $3.50, less than most Starbucks coffees. And they are perfect.
Kevin Fitzpatrick
Your white American ass ?!?
Now probably everyone is Hong Kong wants to see it. I'm thinking you might visit the tailor who makes chic boxer shorts. This place sounds like you're really enjoying it. Will you go into the sushi deli business for a few weeks? Is there another Jewish girl on Earth who talks about ham as much as you do? Alterations while you wait is a pretty wonderful concept. I would let a tailor look at my ass if it meant one less trip, less than 5 bucks, and a perfect fit. Unbelievably, I've never had a tailor ask.
Darko
We are all 大毒草, HAHA!I’m sorry. I forgot we don’t share the same brakgcound and experience. I assume you will understand what I meant. When I think about one-country-two-system in HK, I try to put myself in HKer’sshoes. The big what if! What would it mean for San Diego to stand alone with no U.S constitution to back us all up? A city with no federal government funding, no military and political assistance & influence. San Diego may be a nice place for a bunch of laid back sun-worshippers, but can we provide enough good-paying jobs for our residents without all the juicy federal government contracts?Can we put all our faith and hope in a few mediocre local politicians’ hands? Without the rest of the U.S to share the risk, how are we going to handle any fiscal crisis? Imagine if San Diego were to have its own currency which pegs with the Chinese yuan (what a nightmare!). Can we alone come up with enough tax revenue to pay for all the social programs? The worst of all, we will lose our freedom relocating to otherparts of the U.S. Now that I write them all down, there are lots of benefits being a united part of the mothership.All these make me wonder…How is HK going to keep fighting China off and at the same time try to benefit from China’s financial and political strength ? It is like fighting a giant with no weapons. HK people aren’t paying any taxes to the Chinese government. Why should China help HK? There is no free lunch. HK people can’t have it all.