Hong Kong Travel - A Short History Of Hong Kong

The dramatic history of how this once barren rock became the bustling metropolis of 7 million it is now has almost all the themes associated with a Hollywood Blockbuster; Emperors, Drugs, Colonials, Silver, Greed and Trade. If only I could intersperse some steamy sex scenes and pass it of as fiction I'd surely have my movie. Except its true, all of it and, perhaps unfortunately in terms of my dreams of movie stardom, one of the most important elements in this epic saga is one of the most mundane. Tea, yes tea. that hot beverage that I, and probably you, drink every day without so much as a passing thought as to the spectacular events that put it in our hands.

Way back when, in the 1600's, Hong Kong was just a small fishing community and, thanks to its deep safe waters, a haven for the travelers and pirates of the South China Sea. This placid state of affairs though was set for tumultuous change when in 1699 the British East India company made the first successful British sea venture to China and in doing so "discovered" a plant whose existence was to change history. So successful was the Companies trade in tea that by the mid 1700s it had become the most popular drink in the Western Hemisphere. It seemed that the West's thirst knew no bounds and just one off shoot of this were the Indian Tea clippers, some of the most graceful ships ever sailed, sleek, multi-sailed and most of all fast, these boats were designed to get you and your tea back to Blighty before your competitors, and thus hold the highest price. So graceful were these boats that they are held by boating aficionados in the same kind of awe car enthusiasts might show a vintage Morgan or a cigar smoker a good Monte Cristo.

So all was well, everyone was drinking tea, there were beautiful boats everywhere and trade between the British and China was prospering. Well yees, but there was a problem.

The Chinese, who were pretty much self sufficient, demanded payment in silver and by the late 1700's the balance of trade between the British empire and China had become so unequal that, while not exactly teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, The British were certainly feeling the pinch. And, while neither silver nor tea grew on trees-exactly- it was certainly easier in China to lay your hands on a sack of tea than it was in Britain a couple of bars of silver, increasingly so as we'd given it all to the Chinese! There was no way the greatest empire the world had ever seen was going to be held hostage by a bunch of heathen occidentals! (In retrospect it seems that growing the stuff in India a bit earlier might have solved the problem but apparently none of the empire's brilliant minds thought of this.) By the late 1700's "Perfidious Albion" had hatched a dastardly plan…...

In a move that surpasses that of the Columbian and Mexican Drug Cartels of today the British decided to move into the drugs business and began flooding China with Indian grown opium and, with its inherent addictive qualities, they found a ready and increasing market. Job done, Britain had finally found a means of balancing the books and have a nice cuppa.

As the market for this 'foreign mud' increased so did the Chinese government's concern at the alarming number of addicts. It's worth pointing out, if only to highlight the hypocrisy at play, that the trade and use of opium was illlegal in England because of its perceived harmful effects and such was the drugs negative impact on Chinese society that trade in opium was, by Imperial decree, banned in 1836. Not that this meant too much to those making money out of it though, who through bribery and corruption managed to keep the trade going until 1939 when, due to the efforts of one Lin Zexu, a zealous Chinese official, the British Chief Superintendent of Trade in China, Charles Elliot was forced to hand over all remaining stocks of opium for destruction. This didn't really go down too well with the Brits and sparked the famed Opium Wars. After The British Government refused to hand over two British sailors who had attacked and murdered a Chinese citizen, the British were expelled from China along with their 'foreign mud'. "I say bit strong that, probably all a misunderstanding. "

Surely now was the time for tact and diplomacy, or not. British reprisals were swift and efficient. Possessing infinitely greater fire power than their Chinese counterparts a couple of the British Navy's Gun ships quickly won battles at the mouth of the Yangtze and Pearl rivers before finally occupying Shanghai in 1842. The subsequent Treaty of Nanking forced the Chinese to once again open their ports to free trade, including of course opium (the trade of which doubled over the next three decades) as well as cede to the British Hong Kong. It is doubtful whether at that time the Chinese were really very concerned about this tiny island with the few fishermen who lived there but someone, somewhere in the British Government or the East Inda Company had seen its huge potential as a trading base with its proximity to China and peerless harbour; deep and safe from the typhoons that regulaly plague the south china seas.

Following yet more British style diplomacy with the Chinese in the later 1800's the British also gained control of Kowloon and the New Territories. And although the population of Hong Kong at first grew slowly, Japans incursion into China and the later rise of communism meant that by 1950 the population of Hong Kong had reached two and a half million.

Now of course the people once again live on Chinese soil. And the population? Well that rests at around seven million with the land upon which they live being some of the most expensive in the world. It's certainly a very different place than that of two or three hundred years ago but no less fascinating. Its just different. If you take the opportunity to step away from some of the more major roads you'll find that while its façade may be Western, its heart and soul is most definitely Chinese and the island's colorful history is matched by the colorfulness of its bustling streets, hidden alleys, and industrious people.

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