Haggerston, that in-between place I call home: Part I

A place of promise

I am drawn to places of high contrasts. The more mixed up their elements, the better. That's why I love a place like Sheung Wan in Hong Kong. Old architecture, culture and enterprise coexist with new architecture, culture and enterprise, making the neighbourhood a sight and sentiment to behold. It's an experiential kaleidoscope. And it's free for viewing!

I now turn my thoughts to where M and I have chosen to plant down some roots. Haggerston is on the southern fringe of the greater borough of Hackney in East London. Part of what I love about the place – and Hackney by extension – can be summed up by the cover of local band Rudimental's latest album, Home. It's a photograph of a gigantic mural in Dalston, which neighbours Haggerston to the north. Known as the Hackney Peace Parade Mural (after a real event), the mural depicts a phalanx of characters marching and playing brass instruments. It was erected during a period in the 1980s when racial tensions in London ran high and the world appeared to be dangerously hurtling toward a nuclear solution. So the mural promotes every subject cherished by the Left: anti-nuclear, anti-racism, tolerance, responsibility to the Earth.

But to complete the mural's representation of the Haggerston/Hackney I love, I would add one thing. Creativity. There is no denying that the creative spirit in the borough now runs far deeper than the ironic looks of that much-maligned species of hipster – the Shoreditch Twat. How otherwise does one explain the existence of Courier (courierpaper.com), a free newspaper that I recently discovered that spotlights London's heady start-up culture, which is still largely concentrated in the borough? Hackney's “Shoreditchification” or “relentless hipsterification” (to quote the Telegraph's Alex Proud) may have its detractors. But I'm going to stick out my neck and assert that those blooming bands of red-eyed techies and entrepreneurs signal a better state of affairs than the doldrums of idle youth scattered about the rest of the country.

On the face of it, Haggerston's appeal derives from it being at a fortuitous crossroads. It is flanked by the bustling Dalston to the north; artsy-trendy London Fields to the east; and the still achingly hip design/techie Shoreditch-Hoxton nexus to the south. Haggerston inevitably inherits interesting foot traffic (said Twats and Dickheads) from these areas. Yet, over and above the merits of its surroundings, Haggerston itself has become a mind-boggling menagerie of peoples, buildings and interests. No wonder its star resident Iain Sinclair, the author and psychogeographer.

All mixed up

Like the rest of Hackney, Haggerston is a rainbow nation, a microcosm of London's immigrant history. Walk its streets on any given day and you would be expected to pass people from a lottery of backgrounds: Vietnamese, Chinese, Laotian, Cambodian, West African, East African, Caribbean, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Greek, Turkish, Polish, Romanian. Aside from the interesting social implications of such diversity, it's great for food lovers like myself who are spoilt by an assortment of international cuisines the area has to offer. I will probably never tire of the Vietnamese restaurant strip along Kingsland Road. I'm also looking forward to trying out On the Bab, the newish Korean street food hash house on Old Street, and Tonkotsu East, the new Haggerston branch of the celebrated ramen noodle bar in Soho.

Another happy consequence – or hope at least – is that children growing up in the area will not know what it's like to be part of an ethnic minority among a powerful and oppressive majority. According to the latest census (2011), no single ethnic group makes up an absolute majority in Hackney. The largest percentage of all residents are still people classified as 'White British' but their 'plurality' has whittled down from 44% in 2001 to 36% of the population in 2011. In other words, we are all minorities to some extent, and generally we coexist peacefully.

Poor versus Rich

If there are tensions within this diversity, it's between the haves and have-nots. Haggerston, like so many pockets of East London, still bears the scars of the Blitz. This was a brutal historical event that had conveniently precipitated a whole-scale clearance of slums in the area. As a result, Haggerston's landscape was and still is dominated by cranky post-war council estates. Even as recently as 2012, the area around Whiston Road, near where M & I live, was a frightening picture of urban blight. So much so that I dared not to walk down that street alone in the dark. Several buildings, including the Victorian-era Haggerston Baths, still stand empty and unloved. It's a wonder that riots never broke out in the past due to this embarrassing ghettoisation near the beating heart of the world's greatest city.

But the problem has not gone unnoticed or unaddressed. New housing projects replacing gutted old crumbling estates have gone up in the area since 2012. Elsa, a 10-year-old girl who grew up in one of the estates on Whiston Road proudly tells me that her family is one of the occupants of the largest new housing scheme in Haggerston. Developers building in the area are obliged to accommodate a mix of housing 'tenures' – from the privately owned to affordable and social housing – into their schemes so that the rich and poor may live side by side. A levelling of the playing field. Sort of. The demolition works are still taking place on Whiston Road, cordoned off by a wall inevitably advertising the merits of living in the area (see photo above), including its proximity to trendy cafes and art galleries (explored in Part II). How well these images of post-economic concerns will encourage benefits claimants to join the upwardly mobile, it is hard to say.

Young people of Haggerston are served by a cluster of shiny new secondary schools that are state-of-the-art in appearance at least. Elsa lives just two streets away from Bridge Academy, which resembles a spacecraft cratered by a meteorite.

Despite some earnest attempts at regenerating Haggerston and Hackney, there remain plenty of housing woes simmering beneath the surface. According to the 2011 census, only 26 per cent of people living inHackney own the house they live in. Privately rented (i.e. non-social housing) accommodations shot up from 16 per cent of all dwellings in 2001 to 29 per cent a decade on, and more people are being crammed into the dwindling stock of available housing. Hackney has therefore become a landlord's playground with some devastating consequences.

The inequality gap, which is reflected across the entire country, will only widen further if wage growth continues to lag behind rent hikes, and property owners continue to enjoy an unproductive bonanza. In the mornings, whenever I take bus route 236 from Haggerston to Dalston (I could walk it, I know), I'm usually sat next to pensioners, people on disability benefits, single mothers with young children and the odd washed up (invariably) male clutching his day's first can of beer. Some of these people have lived in the area all their lives. Will they be driven out one day by the strong economic winds blowing in from the City (London's financial centre) less than 2 miles away?

The housing pressures in Haggerston and Hackney will only become more acute. The population in Haggerston and neighbouring Hoxton alone is projected to grow over 30 per cent by 2021. If the UK's planning law, first introduced in 1947, does not change to reflect and rectify the country's chronic housing shortage and overcrowding of its inner cities, then more stories like this will abound in our newspapers.

Better times.

Bubble trouble

If a city can have a fingerprint, London's must look like a slice of Battenburg cake made by a five year old. It is a messy patchwork of poor and posh living alongside each other. Haggerston is no different. Turn down any one of its leafy streets coming off Queensbridge Road and the area's rough edges near miraculously disappear. I'm talking about its stock of Victorian period homes, many of which have been given a good spit and polish. A recent article in the Guardian exposed just how expensive these properties are now. On Albion Drive, one particular property was valued at £800,000, up from £500,000 in 2007. Other properties definitely stand to puncture the million pound mark. All this nose-bleeding madness is enough to make me think how John Lanchester, author of Capital, could have set his book on this street. Indeed, the inexorable rise of Albion Drive is really the story of London as a whole.

But the wealth doesn't just reside on such quiet, prosperous streets. In the summer of 2013, out of curiosity, I visited a newly renovated 'family-style' three-bedroom apartment on the rather drab, dusty and in parts, dodgy Hackney Road. It was asking for £599,000. It quickly became clear that this kind of dwelling is only attractive to the risk-hungry investor because they don't have to live in it.

A number of factors have caused the value of these houses to skyrocket some 40% percent since 2007. That's despite the intervening five-year recession. Thanks to the area's close proximity to the City, the UK's financial epicentre, minted elites have found Haggerston a convenient place to sleep. The area is also riding on the coattails of the now stupidly expensive but grubby Shoreditch aka Silicon Roundabout just down the road. The extension of the East London Line as part of the London Overground network connecting the East, the West and Southern bits of London - in time for the 2012 Olympics - has also added to the area's drawing power.

Then there are all those cash-flushed foreigners seeking returns in London's property market to contend with. Foreign investors have bought up the majority of Hackney's flashy new builds, further stoking up property prices.

So why, after all this, did M & I choose to live in Haggerston? Think back to the Hackney Peace Parade Mural mentioned at the top of this post. And then read Part II!

What I think about when I'm running: Parks

I went running today. Not my usual habit, but then January is the month of earnest goal setting isn't it? I set out from Haggerston along Regent's canal, passing Broadway Market, and continuing all the way until Victoria Park or Vicky Park, as it is affectionately known to locals. I say 'all the way', but the whole journey only took 15 minutes.

For those of you unfamiliar with this part of the world, the Park is a whopping great dish of green space (and much else) that appears to divide what I consider to be the exciting bit of East London from the drab bit of East London (e.g. Bow). Such is its size, the Park contains something for everyone: a lake for geese and swans, a lido for the kiddies, cycling paths for cyclists and skaters, walkways for all other bipeds, enough of an assortment of trees and shrubs to keep a botanist happy for an afternoon, some remaining bits of the original London Bridge for history buffs, and a Chinese pagoda for good measure.

In between thoughts of reminding myself to run on the balls of my feet (being a heel-striking thumper is BAD for you) and how blessed we are to have some sun this lunch hour, I was struck by a surge of appreciation for the Grandmother of Europe herself. Victoria Park joined the rest of London's Royal Parks in 1854 to give the hoi polloi somewhere nice to hang out when they weren't toiling within the veins of the industrial Empire. Inasmuch as the odds still stack up in favour of the haves in London, parks like Vicky remain a consolation prize that is hard to disdain. I guess it's no accident that the park's other nickname is The People's Park. I can't think of another 'world city' that rivals London on this count. Nor for a good run.

Book review: Capital by John Lanchester

I'm glad I finally finished John Lanchester's Capital, a 'Top Ten Bestseller' says its cover. I was initially attracted to the book because I felt it would indulge my fascination with bewitching, multicoloured London. I suspected it would delight me with the cobwebbed lives of a cluster of people, from all walks of life, who in all reality could actually coexist on any one street almost anywhere in the city. I expected the book to be a swift, entertaining and an engrossing read. My verdict? Capital is entertaining in parts. Engrossing, not so much. A swift read it certainly isn't.

Capital centres on Pepys Road around the time of the 2008 financial crisis. (An obligatory Google search shows that there does exist a Pepys Road in London although, funnily enough, the real street is in trending Peckham in the South East rather than the book's nouveau posh South West setting in the vicinity of Clapham Common and Balham.)

The road could very well substitute any other residential street in any other London neighbourhood that has seen its fortunes turned around in the last 50 years. We are told that the colours of Pepys Road have changed from being lower middle class before the war with a good stock of late 19^th century terraces; to being partially bombed during the war leading to a minor influx of Caribbean migrants to inhabit the “gap”; then back to being a dowdy slab of suburbia after the war; and then a veritable gold mine since the 20^th century ended. People have come and gone, but the street remains an emblem of contrasting fortunes. We know that money talks here. It's all about capital you see.

Among the cast of characters whose lives and minds Lanchester delves into, Petunia Howe is a dying octogenarian and widow, who lived 60 years on the street, and whose untouched 1950s kitchen sits within the walls of a Victorian terrace house worth over £1.5 million circa 2008. Unbeknownst to her, of course. There is her grandson Graham, also not known as “Smitty”, a Banksy-type “anonymous” Shoreditch-based street artist-cum-provocateur ironically making it big in the gallery scene. Roger Yount is a self-important but slothful City banker and his wife, Arabella, is a full-time shopaholic who wouldn't be caught dead minding her own two young children for more than 20 minutes at a time. They are your typical picture of an obnoxious couple living in a flush three-storied Victorian citadel converted a multiple of times. Roger laments that he and Arabella have only had sex about 60 times in 5 years despite their master bedroom being “the brightest in the house” next to which sits Arabella's dressing room “with her little built-in writing table and the fitted cupboards”. Mercifully Roger has his sexy Hungarian nanny, Matya, to fulfil his primal needs, even if it's just in his mind (something to keep him going while at work). This tells you all you need to know about the Younts' love of things rather than people. Then there is Roger's young, rueful and ambitious sociopathic assistant Mark – originally from Essex. He “does all the work” but is happy to if it means he is closer to getting Roger the sack and the top job for himself.

On the other end of the spectrum exists Zbigniew (otherwise known as “Bogdan” to Arabella), the hardworking Polish builder who appears cold and detached because his heart is really in Poland but London is where the money is. Unlike the heavily indebted Younts, Zbigniew keeps a close eye on his “stock portfolio”, spends little but may have a sex addiction. Also honest and hardworking, Ahmed Kamal and his wife, the beautiful but caged-up Rohinka, live above their family-owned newsagents. His brothers are Shahid, the lazy but brilliant “physics major” drop out-turned-devout Muslim; and Usman, the good-for-nothing layabout and general disappointment of the fierce family matriarch “Mamaji” Kamal. The incessant family politicking in the Kamal household is literally thrown into disarray when one of the family members is arrested for an alleged terrorist link.

Another foreign immigrant to the street (and country) is Patrick Kamo, a cautious and sullen ex-police officer who relentlessly gives up his life for that of his son Freddy, a 16-year-old football prodigy who was spotted in Senegal by an important football manager. And finally, Quentina, from Zimbabwe, is the poster child of an asylum seeker who has assumed a new identity as a tough traffic warden whose 'beat' includes ticketing all those offending Land Rovers on Pepys Road. The street itself is also a character, most notably in the guise of a protracted creepy and anonymous stunt. Closeup images of each house and building on Pepys Road are delivered regularly to the respective properties as postcards stamped with the words “We Want What You Have”. The postcards are soon joined by silent DVD recordings of the houses taken at every possible angle.

It quickly becomes apparent that Lanchester's cross-section of London life is an exposition of stereotypes that lays bare the exuberance and grievances that have made the headlines for as long as anyone can remember. The minted boast their bets on the bewildering property boom, mindlessly consuming pleasures and envies, while the poor hardworking immigrants suck-it-up, do their job but lay low in the promised land.

Lanchester's way of writing serves to galvanise the reader into taking a moral stance on this social divide. He treats the Kamos, Kamals and Quentina especially sensitively – for they ought to deserve the readers' sympathy – while Roger and Arabella, with all their sense of entitlement and loss of perspective at such rarified heights, are sneered upon with a curmudgeon's abandon. When the bubble bursts around the Younts, as it inevitably does, readers via Lanchester cannot but feel smug with a measure of schadenfreude. Perhaps Capital is Lanchester's version of the Occupy movement.

At nearly 600 pages, the novel's ambition is unmistakeable. Yet I found it overall to be a flat and underwhelming read. This may be a result of what I suspect is the author's confusion as to what kind of novel he wanted to write. As it stands, Capital is part chronicle on social injustice and part mystery novel. But the combination founders.

From the beginning pages, I am led to believe that the ominous stalker campaign on Pepys Road is the thread that sows the plot together. The way it was introduced built expectations in my mind that a mystery, foremost, needed to be solved. The lives themselves, although by no means incidental to the story, would steadily but very surely offer up clues as to the motivation behind “the campaign”. It would be a tantalising page turner, in other words. That sought-after momentum, however, quickly evaporates when Lanchester belabours his characters, engrossed in their minds while doing little to furnish them with new and interesting dimensions. The Younts, Smitty and sociopathic Mark are all extremely cartoonish – and maybe that's the author's point. You then get this weird contrast where stories like Quentina's, which ought to evoke some pathos in the reader, end up being wrung dry bits of social commentary written for readers of the New Statesman. Audiences who enjoy a bit of wry gossip via the lives of the Younts aren't necessarily going to want a pedantic report on the asylum seeker's pitiful lot slotted in. Or vice versa. For a novel in which one is saved the fuss of reading between the lines, Lanchester's earnest social narrative is plain incongruent.

For all the intelligence in Lanchester's writing, one hankers for a bit of subversiveness in his characters' development. Instead, we get to read about the kind of people that the media and popular culture have already fetishised through and through. Shahid is a misunderstood, sensitive fellow, who, despite his flirtation with Islam, really actually wants to have a girlfriend and frequent sex. Smitty is a yawn-inducing byword for irony. Parker, Smitty's ex-assistant, lives in Hackney with his lawyer girlfriend (the one who actually makes money) and is aggrieved that all he has to show for his art degree from Goldsmiths is a stint fetching coffee for a Shoreditch Twat. Needless to say, Lanchester is most successful when his characters do not adhere to such cardboard cutouts. His portrayal of Mary, the daughter of Petunia, is the most convincing of the lot as we follow her quiet travails with the many shades of grief when her mother dies and she decides to sell the house on Pepys Road. She is believable and thus worth sympathising with.

For these reasons and more, I found Capital a slog of a read. Cutting it down by half may have helped it be more digestible. If I am to recommend it to anyone, I would do so only to those for whom London remains the Big Ben and the Royal Family. It will certainly provide a peephole into the city's underbelly. If nothing else, it beats reading the Sun.

Our Chinese Wedding 21.12.13

A few years back, Dad founded the Li yi society. Its purpose is the patriotic revival of traditional Chinese customs, etiquettes and rituals in Hong Kong and China (no website I'm afraid). Among the society's various interests is the reinstatement of the Chinese handshake (gong sau li) into social discourse and the promotion of traditional Chinese music and costumes. Then there is also the matter of re-popularising the traditional Chinese wedding.

To be sure, Hong Kong has recently seen an upsurge in Chinese-style weddings. But in my experience (I've attended a few), they tend to be pretty facile. More like token spectacles performed for aesthetic reasons as opposed to meaningful reenactments of a historical festive ritual.

Through his own initiative, Dad decided he would design and plan our Chinese wedding (on 21.12.13). This rather large undertaking for a supposedly retired person would be without the bells and whistles, and fun and games of the popularised versions. But the resulting simplicity of our ceremony would allow for a genuine meaning to shine through.

At the heart of our ceremony lay the Confucian (after the ancient sage Confucius, 孔夫子) principle of two families coming together. One of the hallmark principles of Confucianism is that a marriage is between two families, not just two individuals. After all, the family forms the bedrock of society, and so a peaceful society is formed by a network of peaceful families. Wouldn't the broken communities of the West do well to import this honourable sentiment? Mind you, modern China could also do with a dose of its own wisdom. Its family values have lamentably withered thanks to Mao Zedong, destroyer of Chinese culture and utter embarrassment to the Chinese people, and the rise of capitalism after him.

But I digress.

Our ceremony took place in front of a makeshift altar that was beautifully adorned in red velvet. The Chinese characters for Double Happiness (喜喜) graced the backdrop in resplendent gold. With the guests all seated, the bride and the groom were led into the hall by one of the dai kam jie holding a lantern. The ceremony then opened with the blessing of the couple's union (and by extension the union of their two families) by the Sun, the Heavens and the Earth, followed by offerings to the ancestors (we stopped at the bride and groom's maternal and paternal grandparents). M & I made our offerings by bowing three times, finished with a gong sau lei. Confucius, represented by a gold-plated statue at the middle of the altar, served as the spiritual overlord of the proceedings. While the ceremony adhered closely to tradition, it adopted the wedding vow which is, of course, Christian in origin. Cleverly, the vows, which we read out in turn, effectively explained the meaning of the ritual to the guests. This was especially useful for members of M's family for whom the whole affair was all rather foreign. The vows were printed on beautifully-made scrolls, a little detail that fitted nicely with the scholarly streak in Confucianism.

Then it was onto the part of the ceremony that is most familiar to Hong Kongers: the tea ceremony. This is the bride and groom's way of asking the family members in attendance for their blessings. After all, everybody has to agree to the marriage of the two families! Thankfully, not all the guests could attend in the end (originally 28 of the 'elders' from the bride's side plus the groom's father, partner and sister), saving M & I the trouble of offering 14 rounds of tea!

Besides the ritual, the ceremony was something of a show of traditional Chinese wedding fashion. The bride wore a regal two-piece gown in red and gold. Every millimetre of the gown was painstakingly beaded and embroidered with patterns of the Dragon (representing the Emperor) and Phoenix (the Empress), clouds and flowers. The groom wore a red and gold cheung sam (a Chinese silk dress, but for men) and a somewhat whimsical red silk bundle resembling a massive 3D ribbon was hung at his chest. This way, he truly looked like the bride's prized possession! To literally cap off his look, he wore a traditional black skullcap (like in the movies!). I speak for both M & I when I say that the experience of being attired in such refinery felt historic in itself!

Despite some worrying hiccups during the rehearsal, the day itself went swimmingly. As with any climatic event with a long buildup, our ceremony started and concluded at such a pace as to feel completely dreamlike with a bittersweet aftertaste. All the hard work that had gone into it had now been distilled into a lingering memory. Or better yet, a beautiful myth to tell the grandkids (which M & I vowed we would have!) and one that's blessed by a near-mythical figure no less!

Most importantly, Dad can look back on this post-retirement 'career' highlight – a true labour of love – with the knowledge that he did his great ancestor proud. Thanks Dad for all your love ♥♥♥

Bride and groom give the gong sau li (check out his' bow!)

And now for a bit of fun...

AiiiiYa!

Reflections on Hong Kong - Part 2

A coffee culture to speak of, for shizzle!

Hong Kong's grassroots manoeuvres (described here) do not stop at locally-grown and produced food. Other areas bubbling with possibility include private kitchens (akin to supper clubs in England) and music (Clockenflap yay!).

Yet the most surprising development in the past year has been the rise of the independent artisanal coffee shop.

Please allow me this moment to express the depth of my astonishment: Good coffee in Hong Kong! Good coffee in Hong Kong! Good coffee in Hong Kong!

When my family first moved to Hong Kong from New Zealand in 2006, our largest sacrifice after clean air and owning a backyard was Aotearoa's unbeatable cafe culture. The land of the flat white.

Up until around 2011 – as with much of the world outside the Antipodes bar Italy – Hong Kong had not a clue what a good coffee ought to look and taste like. Coffee was accorded second-class status and no revolt seemed imminent. This proved to be soul destroying for both Mum and I. For better or worse, quality coffee was and remains our sole vice and soul virtue. I would always laugh at Mum's foolhardy hopes at magically running into a quality cup of coffee despite the overwhelming odds. Buoyed by such hope, she would 'risk' (her word) ordering what was written on the menu as a “cappuccino” ('flat white' hadn't yet entered the local lexicon) just because the cafe we were at looked like it knew what it was doing with its expensive Italian espresso machine (“We serve Illy!”). When she duly received her unloved cup of dirt water, sloppily dunked with a condensed cloud of milk the consistency of marshmellow, she would swear “never again”. Until the next time. Thanks to her eternal optimism, she became like a Pavlov's dog that never learned from the shock of another bad coffee. I would shake my head at this sorry state of affairs, spend my energy complaining about it while refusing to perpetuate it with my money. Of course, if I had the nous, guts and cash, I would have gone ahead and opened my own cafe.

However, fast forward to 2013 and we arrive at the Year of the Gourmet Coffee. Thanks again to HK Magazine, I identified nearly two handfuls of cafes - many of them less than a year old - that appeared inspired by the coffee culture I so crave. Their baristas not only know their flat whites from their cappuccinos; a subset of these cafes actually qualify as so-called 'third wave' coffee specialists. 

Where the typical visitor to Hong Kong spends most of his/her time eating their way around the city, Maartens and I spent most of our free time tirelessly hunting down our next caffeine fix (averaging two cafes a day). And where best to start? Why Sheung Wan of course. But unfortunately our initial efforts flagged. A cafe with a name like 'Antipodean' was bound to be shut over Christmas and New Year. Hong Kong's 24/7 work ethic need not apply here! Its closure was disappointing not only because of what its name promised (reinforced by a Maori-inspired motif emblazoned on its street-facing wall). It also advertised coffee supplied by All Press, a New Zealand coffee roaster whose eponymous cafe in London's trendy Shoreditch has become something of a phenomenon. Seriously yummy.

Our next stop – Lof 10 – had also 'gone fishing'. I was dismayed chiefly because the cafe was so hard to find. I had done a day's worth of cardio by climbing several hundred steps from the bottom of (literally) Ladder Street to reach a sleepy terrace with no cafe in sight. It turned out that Lof 10 is actually hidden beneath the terrace under a massive tree growing out of the wall. Can you picture this? You gotta love Hong Kong!

Despite a slow start, we eventually found our favourite haunt for the rest of our stay. Cupping Room, just off Queen's Road Central, is a suitably trendy space with 'factory-like' settings, intended to give off a 'Melbourne' vibe. Giving the cafe an extra special place in our hearts, its star barista (forget his name now) was crowned Champion of Hong Kong baristas two years running and features in the top 30 worldwide. I therefore felt compelled to break my month-long coffee fast, live with the unpleasant side effects of lactose intolerance, and order a mean flat white with full fat milk! (A soya flat white, even by one of the world's top baristas, just wouldn't cut it. And almond milk remains farfetched.) Suffice to say that the experience was so good that visiting the Cupping Room became a daily ritual. And Mum's happy too.

Yet we did not rest on our laurels. Our coffee expedition continued with the trialling of several 'hand drip' single origin coffees. This is really a fancy way of describing what is essentially filter coffee done properly. Our first stop was Common Ground on Shing Wong Street (another hopelessly steep street running up the Mid-Levels). Of all the cafes we visited, I'd say CG has the coolest space. It reminds me of a conservatory with its floor-to-ceiling fenestration opening out onto the cobbled steps of Shing Wong Street. CG also doubles as a retail space and workshop for the proprietors' (twin brothers) lifestyle design product line Protest Design as well as other Hong Kong and Asian fashion accessories.

Several days later, we discovered Hazel and Hershey on Peel Street in Soho. Its facade is somewhat tacky (baby blue?) it nevertheless boasts its very own coffee roaster, as well as the most impressive array of coffee making equipment for sale. It was also interesting to see staff members diligently sorting out the beans. In fact, so distracting were all these bells and whistles, I forget now which single origin cuppa joe I ordered or, indeed, how it went down.

But there was a Favourite in filter coffee finery. That honour goes across the ditch to Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. Tiny and located in the labryinth-like back streets off Nathan Road (Kowloon's main artery and permanent neon sign fest), Tamper Coffee speaks absolute volumes with its assortment of smooth and complex blends, courtesy of London's Square Mile coffee roasters.

***

While the focus of these cafes is on making coffee sexy, it is reassuring that they also uphold the all-important culture that surrounds the drink. The likes of the Cupping Room, Lof 10 (from what I've read) and Amical Cafe (in the heart of Wan Chai's uber-trendy Star Street Precinct) offer coffee aficionados a whole lifestyle proposition. This amounts to the luxury of lounging about for several hours while nursing a cuppa (or three), lost in a good read or, if need be, work for the mobile generation. The feeling one gets from these places is what you'd expect from a family-run operation, where service is personalised and the staff behind the countertop are truly passionate about their craft. In other words, these businesses are artisanal in nature.

Despite the impressive concentration of new cafes in the city, its artisanal coffee culture is still very much on the periphery. However, if the love is ever spread to the masses, it may be led by Hong Kong's ostensibly slickest enterprise Coffee Academics. At the Wan Chai branch we visited, you get a remarkably spacious setting that edges away from homely almost toward the sort of formulaic American corporate style that I detest. Thankfully, its look is respectfully smartened up in the brand's signature black and gold (cha-ching!). Jazz and the churning of the resident state-of-the-art espresso machine fill the airwaves while patrons are further engaged by a selection of magazines. Finally, just so we know the folks at CA mean serious business, the cafe walls are decked out with images of coffee art (presumably achieved on premises), information about its various coffee beans and other interesting tidbits for coffee geeks and people who missed out on the magazines.

One can easily imagine a successful outfit like Coffee Academics repeated throughout the city if not the entire region (so far it has opened two branches in Hong Kong). Of course there is more to CA than style – or I wouldn't be writing about it. The key differentiating factor setting it apart from Starbucks etc. is the rich coffee smell that greets you when you walk through the door. The proof may be in the coffee, but first impressions count for a lot. How the cafe smells is as much a part of the marketing as is the barista with his/her head down working some of that coffee art. In contrast, as soon as I walk into a Starbucks anywhere, I'm immediately repelled by the smell of burnt coffee and disinfectant.

So despite its corporate slickness, Coffee Academics does not disappoint on substance. It even offers barista training courses – hence its name 'Academics' I suppose. This can't be a bad thing if it means a whole slew of new cafe owners to come. If there's one thing in which excess trumps moderation, it's a decent concentration of quality cafes in one location :-)

The peckish are also spoilt for choice by CA's extensive food menu of 'homemade' savoury and sweet treats. I helped myself to a chocolate flourless cake that tasted just like a fluffy light brownie. Not a shabby choice next to my rich cappuccino, which was made the way it is in Italy! (yes, I've been there.) But supposing you are like me who really ought to lay off the lactose, such exotic tea combinations as 'white tea with coconut' are a pleasant revelation. Mmm!

If there is a lesson buried in the coffee froth it is that when the Chinese get a handle on a foreign product or trend, they will give the pioneers a run for their money. In a city that runs on money, this makes for a sweet irony.

Oh alright then...

No lie. Thank you Cupping Room

Reflections on Hong Kong - Part I

Written 8-9 January 2014

When I lived there, I desperately wanted to escape it. I wanted for clean air. I wanted for green space that didn't require me to travel out of the city. I wanted for a uniquely local alternative youth culture – whatever that meant. And – foremost – I wanted for quality eligible men. Yet just over five years after I left it for greener pastures (England), I have fallen in love with Hong Kong again. So much so that I have now ordained this curious place my second home (after London). (Curiously, my feelings towards New Zealand, the country where I was born and raised, are as remote as its geographical distance from England!).

So how did this about-face happen?

My visit to Hong Kong took up the latter half of December 2013. Unlike all previous visits with my partner, M, this trip was enveloped in a bubble of expectation and excitement. We were, after all, getting married there (which I'll write about in a subsequent post).

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So our 2013 trip revolved around a pretty momentous life event. It was shot through with a vigour and abandon that previous trips lacked. Even my outlook on Hong Kong became positively tinted.

My chronic misgivings with the city are many but can be roughly summarised as: “Hong Kong is a hyper-commercialised cultural desert propped up on senselessly high property prices. Children are raised to be top engineers, accountants and financiers but not to ride a bike or swim.” Indeed, a recent article in the South China Morning Post, the city's major English language newspaper, reported that many parents actively discourage their children from taking up sport due to the increased risk of getting hurt and because it's “a waste of time”.

I still have such misgivings. But the exuberance I felt on this trip did much to shove them out of earshot, however temporarily. So freed I was from the usual skeptical mental chatter, my intuition kicked in. It quickly detected an exciting nascent energy emanating from the grassroots, which is poking ant holes at the city's meticulously tailored image as a slick financial destination for Big Business.

This grassroots appears to be comprised mainly of Gen Xs through to the millenial generation, individuals who have observed what innovations against Big Industry and Big Food are taking place in countries like the US and UK. Despite the odds, these young enterprising folk have begun importing this anti-Big progressiveness to their city, where tycoons and oligarchs have maintained a stranglehold.

This homegrown DIY energy quite overwhelmed me because it defied all expectation. It stoked my hunger to learn and experience more of it. Thankfully, my search was greatly aided by Mum who had dutifully kept 3 months' worth of back issues of HK Magazine, the city's reigning bible for cultured English speakers. (For the record, tainted memories of interning at the publication as a naïve 22-year-old no longer cloud my consumption of it.)

Something in the air... and it's not pollen

Armed with an eagle eye and pencil, I diligently circled all the 'cool' places mentioned by HK Magazine where local hipster foodies go. My emphasis on food – rather than music or art, my other loves – was partly out of necessity. A month before the December trip, I had gone on a depressing diet – drastic enough to warrant a Reflection of its own. I had completely eliminated sugar, carbs, gluten, dairy, caffeine and yeast for 35 days. As I wasn't about to let all that hard work go down the sinkhole, it meant I had to prepare to make some difficult and unpopular decisions when faced with all the culinary delights that make Hong Kong worth visiting: MSG- and soya sauce-laden everything, pork dumplings, char siu bao (barbecue pork buns), Portuguese egg tarts etc.

(This new ascetism had initially been motivated by my wish to look pearlescent for the wedding but it quickly transmogrified into a happiness-sucking beast.)

In order to allow this masochistic hunger strike to go ahead and thrive during the holiday season, I decided I had to (a) stick with Mum's lovingly prepared but purified home cooking (she had spent two weeks mastering recipes using coconut oil and turmeric) and (b) find 'healthier' restaurants and cafes, no matter how painstaking the search would be.

But find I did! And it wasn't that hard.

The glut of Delicious Digestion Disruptors available everywhere has long given rise to a national obsession with keeping slim ('fit' in the local parlance). This has resulted in a growing market for low calorie, health foods, including 'gluten-free' alternatives. Even though this is a well-known fact, I was genuinely astonished to be as well served as I was. Otherwise I wouldn't have packed a whole suitcase of supplements and superfoods to take with me. Even as I sit here typing this, my mind is struggling to square the notion of a predominantly Chinese city, with a very strong culinary heritage, importing Pukka teas, Tea Pigs, NOW supplements, organic Biona health foods, Spirulina and certified organic flaxseed and chia seeds...? The city's internationalism is truly mind-blowing.

But the real excitement rests on the fact that people are slowly waking up to the need for clean, responsibly-grown food, and responding to this need in their own way.

Grassroots to green shoots

Back when I was living in Hong Kong (2006-2008), I had dismissed any talk of there being an 'eco-friendly' or 'going green' movement in the city. As long as the haze imported from China's coal burning habit continued to hang thick over the city and corporate money continued to outshout the urges of the collective consciousness, being responsible to the Earth just seemed faddish. In terms of a market for health foods and eco-friendly products (in cosmetics, mainly), it was skewed toward the tai tais (housewife married to money) and lavishly paid corporate workers who slavishly followed any trend rumoured to help maintain one's appearance. The 'green' consumer trend was like the yoga craze before it – the preserve of the few and not always adopted for the right reasons.

The reality appears to be different now. As alluded to above, younger generations are walking the walk by staking money and pride on the fledgling green movement. They have become movers of the trend away from the kind of nutritionally-deficient, processed foods that are common fare in the city. They are making, growing and cooking their own. Farmers markets have sprung up – notably the Island East farmer's market in Quarry Bay – in addition to organic farms on Lamma Island and the New Territories. This local activism, however small in scale, gives the 'buying local and organic' phenomenon more than a patina of authenticity. 

One of my favourite discoveries of this 'new wave' is the suitably named Grassroots Pantry. Ensconced in an easy-to-miss cul de sac just off Third Street in Sheung Wan, what this cafe lacks in square footage (the bane of all small businesses in Hong Kong) it more than makes up for with its truly tasty vegan, allergy-free menu offerings. On top of its fresh produce and ingredients, it uses and sells dairy-free ice cream, made from ground coconut, made by a local brand Happy Cow. Both times I went I savoured a pumpkin curry on a generous bed of wild rice, followed by a devilish gluten- and dairy-free affogato. The chilli Mexican chocolate cake wasn't bad either. Each spoonful gave the palate a mild dark cocoa sensation that then burst into a substantial but not overpowering spicy kick. Not surprisingly, after these satisfying naughty-but-nice taste sensations, my self-imposed dietary privations seemed needlessly heavy-handed. I'm still apologising to my gut.

As I did not speak to the proprietor of Grassroots Pantry whose identity is in fact a mystery to me, I can only posit that the cafe is the audacious brainchild of a Gen X or Y'er seeking a bright opportunity within the city's dawning green foodie movement. Here's wishing him/her/they all the very best!

I Heart Sheung Wan

In my mind, the Sheung Wan district, down the hill from my parents' apartment in the Mid-Levels was once a byword for 'uncool'. Dusty and fusty, its narrow, crooked streets croaked with old businesses that the young and progressive had no business in. I'm talking family-run apothecaries helmed by Mahjong-loving men in their 50s and 60s selling a pot pourri of exotic animal parts (including that much maligned sharks fin) for medicinal uses; snoozing antique shops run by passionate collectors; and small food stores flogging anything and everything that could be eaten in preserved form.

Thankfully there still remains a crop of such small businesses in the area, including numerous cha chan teng or Hong Kong-style teahouses. This is despite the ruinous pressures of sky-scraping rents. Why thankfully? I now see these businesses as intrinsic to the unique but endangered flavour and texture of Hong Kong. Their continual but by no means guaranteed presence is touching. They form after all a definitive stand against the city's aggressive mall culture. Picture the little old guy holding onto a bit of localism – his life blood – like a white flag as the crushing wave of sanitised multinational commercialism, fortified behind faceless steel-and-glass facades, washes in.

And now they are joined by a new generation of small independent creative and food businesses that have chosen to make Sheung Wan their home.

If the word 'trendy' can be used to describe an area of Hong Kong, Sheung Wan is no doubt its best deserving contender. It is to Hong Kong what Shoreditch is to London. Roughly a decade has past since the first creative enterprises (in publishing, architecture, interior design) moved in, driven by the wish to be close to the CBD while avoiding Central's killer rents. Expatriates looking for cheaper residences also gravitated to the area surrounding the electric tramway on Des Voeux Road and the antiques and art gallery mecca along Hollywood Road. But, thanks to exorbitant rent hikes, the past few years have seen a mini exodus of creative types and expatriates to other parts of Hong Kong - most notably those offering up disused factory buildings and cheaper postwar walk-ups (i.e. Aberdeen, Kwun Tong, Kennedy Town, parts of the New Territories). This is akin to all those poor artists and young professionals who have set up shop on the fringes of Hackney because they were priced out of Hoxton and Shoreditch.

Yet, like Shoreditch, Sheung Wan retains its cutting edge. Assisted by its historical interest (more on that below), the close proximity of and narrowness of its streets, and the relative lack of commercial outlets bringing unwanted foot and car traffic to the area, it readily lends itself to be a creative cultural hub. Antique shops and art galleries line the streets as does a host of new independent design-oriented boutiques: Square Street, Konzepp, Lomography, Eclectic Cool.

A feast for the senses

On this trip, I came to notice just how visually interesting Sheung Wan is. The old and the new endearingly and peacefully coexist, giving visitors like us a picture perfect example of why more identikit malls do not necessarily = progress. Its colourful array of ramshackle old (ie. circa 1950s) four-storied residences garlanded by water stains, hung laundry and precariously perched air conditioning units have given tourists and seasoned photographers much to snap on. Finally, if one is looking for quirky, one can hardly do better than Square Street, where funeral parlours and coffin makers neighbour design retailers.

Speaking of the dead, Sheung Wan remains a bulwark against the city's rampant development. Hong Kong may have paved and built over much of its heritage, but it is in Sheung Wan that one can just about still capture something of it. A dozen or so remaining colonial buildings appear among new towering residential blocks like lonely vessels in a port that long ago lost its eminence. ('Sampans' might be a better metaphor to use.) Then there is the fact that Sheung Wan's sleepy, carless steep hills and narrow streets form much of the historical trail highlighting the activities (some of them revolutionary) of modern China's founder Sun Yat Sen.

Hong Kong through a new set of lenses

Hong Kong is still very much a place where money is made the old fashioned way – through traditional businesses, trade, financial services and property. It's easy to be critical of its shallow commercial culture, gaping wealth gap, snarky politics and incessant environmental woes. But for now at least, after sensing something fresh and spirited in the air, I am choosing not to promote my misgivings at the risk of becoming blind to the changes taking place at the grassroots. Hey, I may even join in one day!

And speaking out of self-interest, the city's hyper-commercialism is very good for consumers like myself. Shops hardly ever close, services like banks are generally efficient (I got a new ATM card in the post within a week despite running into the Christmas and New Year holidays) and the public transport ticks like clockwork. I may want a bit of soul in my life, but equally, I don't mind being able to travel anywhere within 20 minutes or rustle up some last minute Christmas shopping.

Now for a coffee break...