A Glimpse of Yau Ma Tei

If you want to be blasted by the swirling juxtaposition of the old and the new; the clean and the dirty; and the local and the foreign; take a walk around the area west of Nathan Road between the Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei MTR stations.

I spent a couple of hours wandering about Portland Street, Shanghai Street and Reclamation Street, amusing myself with the variety and the confusion of life along those three roads.

Where else can a few minutes' walk take you past commercial restaurant and cutlery shops, an ancient fruit market that resembles a shanty town, a disused former adult cinema of historical value, a nasty-assed public washroom (that required an attendant to spray the place with a running hose), Chinese coffin manufacturers, shops filled with statues of deities, a store catering to hard-core mountaineering and rock-climbing enthusiasts, numerous karoake lounges and the ever-present Portland street working girls?

Hong Kong is home, but at times I felt like an interloper; the attitude seemed so unfriendly it was as though the shop employees had put a mental "unwelcome mat" at the door.

To top off the afternoon, I had a quick bite at the Bali Restaurant, a few blocks away from the insanity of Yau Ma Tei. Stepping inside was like stepping back in time 50 years. As I settled into a booth, 1950s-era American music played in the background. The atmosphere was quaint and surreal. What made it all the more bizarre was that it's an Indonesian restaurant.

The day was so wonky I'm tempted to return to Yau Ma Tei with my camera. If the streets and buildings could talk, they'd be able to tell hair-raising stories. It blows my mind to contemplate what it was like when it formed the waterfront of the Western edge of the Kowloon peninsula.

What I wouldn't give for a working time-machine.

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