Why Hong Kong is rising as a daring new capital of tradition

Few skylines are as immediately recognisable as Hong Kong’s. With its serrated silhouette of glass towers pressed up towards jade-coloured peaks, it’s a metropolis constructed on drama and distinction. However beneath this indelible cityscape lies a posh, multilayered metropolis, the place colonial legacy, Cantonese custom, entrepreneurial spirit and on a regular basis avenue life intersect in some of the densely populated environments on earth. From its landmark lodges and hovering luxurious malls to the bustling avenue markets, Hong Kong has lengthy been outlined by its urge for food for each the refined and the true. However to see solely the floor is to overlook what really drives it.

The Journey to Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s golden age, in an financial sense, might have peaked within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, when it was topped the world’s gateway to China. Again then, it was the place the place East met West, the place offers had been inked over lengthy lunches, and the Star Ferry was each a logo and a commute. Distinctive buildings equivalent to IM Pei’s Financial institution of China Tower, Norman Foster’s HSBC Constructing, and the Lippo Centre got here to outline the town’s vertical ambition.

However there’s way more to Hong Kong than serving as a world monetary centre and a buying paradise. Geographically, it borders Shenzhen to the north, with the South China Sea unfurling to its south. It’s made up of greater than 260 islands and a swathe of peninsulas and bays, giving it a surprisingly huge unfold of inexperienced house. The truth is, greater than 40 per cent of the land is protected nation park, laced with mountain climbing trails and secret seashores. Lantau is residence to Huge Buddha and under-the-radar seashores like Pui O. Whereas on Hong Kong Island, you’ll be able to hike Dragon’s Again within the morning and have Michelin-starred dim sum for lunch.

Colonised by the British in 1841, the town developed from a fishing village into a world powerhouse, propelled by its strategic location and deep-water port. The 1997 handover to China marked a brand new chapter, one outlined by a posh balancing act. Quick ahead to 2019 and Hong Kong discovered itself again within the headlines when widespread protests erupted in response to a proposed extradition invoice, which many feared would erode the town’s authorized autonomy. These demonstrations, adopted intently by the pandemic, painted an image of instability and, for a lot of outsiders, it left an impression that Hong Kong had modified.

The reality is that Hong Kong has at all times been about resilience and, regardless of the headlines, the town continues to be as electrical as at all times. For locals, every day life by no means stopped. Eating places remained full, creativity by no means faltered, and the town quietly redefined itself but once more. As Arthur Bray of Yeti Out, a music collective and inventive company, places it, ‘We created our personal nine-to-five: from 9pm to 5am. The act of resistance grew to become a profession.’

And far of this artistic power is flowing into tasks reclaiming the town’s previous. A spot that bulldozed historical past in favour of high-rise progress, Hong Kong is just not identified for heritage preservation. However that tide is popping. Tai Kwun, as soon as the Central Police Station Compound, has been reimagined by Herzog & de Meuron into a up to date arts and tradition complicated. Close by, Central Market, considered one of Hong Kong’s oldest moist markets and a Bauhaus landmark, has discovered new life as a hub stuffed with espresso retailers, native design shops and group workshops. At PMQ, the previous Police Married Quarters have been reworked right into a artistic house, housing indie boutiques and design studios, whereas in Tsuen Wan, The Mills has given a former textile manufacturing unit a second life as a centre for innovation and cultural experimentation. Extra than simply sensible repurposing, these are considerate interventions – areas that mirror a shifting mindset and honour the previous whereas seeking to the longer term.

Nowhere is that this extra evident than in Sham Shui Po, a neighbourhood in Kowloon that sits simply north of the extra polished enclaves of Tsim Sha Tsui and West Kowloon. A world away from the gloss of Central, it’s a district outlined by grit, character and grassroots attraction. Floor zero of Hong Kong’s public housing historical past, it’s the place put up battle migrants settled, the place markets buzz and neon nonetheless sparkles. The buildings are aged, the group is tight-knit, and it’s one of many few districts the place snake soup eating places thrive alongside conventional tofu retailers. Kung Wo Beancurd Manufacturing facility, for instance, has been in Sham Shui Po since 1960 and evokes nostalgia for a lot of Hong Kongers with its retro interiors. Listed within the 2020 Michelin Information, the store makes contemporary tofu every day and serves all the pieces from scrumptious beancurd puffs to the signature silky easy tofu puddings.

As soon as the town’s textile hub, Sham Shui Po has developed however not erased its previous, and at present, artistic forces are respiratory new life into this vibrant neighbourhood. Tai Nan Avenue, particularly, has turn out to be a magnet for native design studios and different retail, the place you’ll discover all the pieces from Savon, a minimalist workshop crafting handmade soaps, and Alri Star, a leather-based studio that provides workshops and shares its house with an upstairs artwork gallery, to No matter Espresso, which describes itself as ‘Espresso. Generally gallery. Experimental.’ Gentrification right here stays a degree of debate, however the artistic inflow hasn’t smoothed over the world’s edges and, if something, it matches proper into Sham Shui Po’s textured character.

One individual actively preserving that previous is sound artist Ka Yan Sze. Her work focuses on the dying Hakka villages within the New Territories, particularly these in and round Sha Tau Kok. Pushed by battle and land shortages in northern China, the Hakka (a Han Chinese language subgroup) settled within the distant, hilly elements of the New Territories – a big area that runs from the northern fringe of Kowloon to the border with mainland China – constructing rural villages that thrived with farming communities and household clans. However as youthful generations left for city alternatives, many of those villages had been step by step deserted, and the traditions tied to them have quietly begun to fade. From Sha Tau Kok, a restricted city on the border of mainland China, the place residents want particular permits to stay and guests require approval to enter, Sze works for the Affiliation for Sha Tau Kok Tradition and Ecology and runs her personal cultural initiative, Aromatic Village. By this, she’s constructing an artwork hub with plans to host artists-in-residence to work with the group and assist doc its fading traditions. 

Sze has based mostly herself on the finish of a row of historic Cantonese shophouses, the 2 storey buildings with ground-floor retailers and residing quarters above which can be emblematic of outdated Hong Kong avenue life. The longest row of shophouses to nonetheless exist in Hong Kong, it’s this atmospheric location that offers her easy accessibility to the encompassing Hakka villages, the place she travels to document former pupils of all ages singing their village faculty anthems. ‘These songs are the DNA of the villages,’ she says. ‘The lyrics describe the land, the sweetness, the individuals. They join generations.’ Sze has collected greater than 30 of those anthems and is engaged on publishing a sound ebook as a form of audio archive to make sure the tales of villages like Kuk Po – deserted however not forgotten – are handed down.

This rooted creativity is what has introduced most of the metropolis’s rising skills again to Hong Kong. Alex Po and Derek Cheng of Ponder.er, for instance, returned after seven years in London to launch their gender-fluid label that’s gaining world recognition for its conceptual but wearable strategy. ‘We each beloved our experiences in London, however we at all times really feel like we need to do one thing that represents the place we come from,’ says Po. ‘There’s a lot potential and sources in Hong Kong, alongside a wave of younger creatives, who’re bringing a brand new power to the town and difficult what it means to be artistic.’

For Derek Chan of Demo, being based mostly right here is intentional. ‘Hong Kong consistently evokes me. It’s a spot the place completely different cultures, histories and aesthetics coexist, creating infinite artistic potentialities.’ His vogue model often references literature, artwork and philosophy and is designed to reframe outdated perceptions of how males gown and specific themselves. ‘What I like most about Hong Kong is its duality; it’s each fast-paced and deeply rooted in custom. You may stroll via towering skyscrapers and immediately end up in an outdated temple,’ he says. ‘That blend makes it an endlessly inspiring place.’

Others, like Nana Chan of Plantation, are gently reviving heritage via ritual. Born in Taiwan and raised in Hong Kong, Chan spent years overseas within the UK and France earlier than returning to the town to carve out one thing significant. By Plantation, she’s on a mission to problem conventional perceptions of tea ingesting, and to remodel it right into a vibrant, evolving expertise that resonates with a brand new technology. It’s a quiet however highly effective type of cultural preservation, one that’s on the rise. ‘It was onerous for us for a few years,’ she says. ‘However I feel there’s a quiet revival. We’re seeing extra tea retailers and tea-related companies popping up in Hong Kong, and extra younger individuals are choosing up the occupation of tea masters.’

That very same need to shift perceptions additionally drives Sara Mossman, the founding father of Brilliance Bay. After rising up in Canada, she returned to Hong Kong to open the town’s first piercing-only personal studio. ‘The physique modification scene right here was underdeveloped,’ she explains. Seeing this hole in high-quality service and jewelry, she says, ‘There was a real want for somebody with genuine expertise and background to deliver correct requirements to the town.’ Brilliance Bay has since turn out to be a trusted native fixture and proof that area of interest creativity can thrive.

And it’s not simply returnees making waves. Some, like Simon Wilson, have chosen to base themselves in Hong Kong for its distinctive artistic potential. Initially from Eire, Wilson moved right here in 2015 and by no means left. His newest venture, Fork Lore, celebrates the personalities shaping the town’s dynamic meals scene. ‘There’s a vibrancy right here that by no means fairly goes away,’ he says. ‘The meals scene wanted a elevate, and storytelling can try this.’ It started as a ardour venture, but it surely has grown right into a content material platform profiling everybody from cooks to bartenders. Wilson believes Hong Kong’s scene is shifting away from over-polished resort eating to extra private, chef-driven areas. ‘There’s nonetheless magic right here. It’s simply being expressed in new methods.’

Others, like Kieran Ho and Gavin Yeung, are pushing creativity ahead via the group. Ho describes Hong Kong as a form of airport terminal – transient, in movement, and full of individuals coming and going – however believes that’s what offers it a artistic chance. ‘There’s fixed motion, and that makes house for brand new concepts,’ he says. A 3rd-culture child himself, Ho is a part of a technology of creatives with hybrid identities and massive concepts, intent on constructing one thing significant in a metropolis that’s consistently in flux.

Yeung, via his bar Kinsman, is crafting cocktails that pay homage to the town’s under-represented culinary tales, utilizing indigenous Cantonese spirits. For Yeung, it was about creating one thing that felt true to the town’s roots. ‘Kinsman is the primary cocktail bar constructed from the bottom as much as rejoice Hong Kong tradition and its liquid heritage,’ he says. ‘Which means all the pieces from the identify of the bar to the music, uniforms, interiors and branding all pay tribute to the distinctive color of the town.’ Kinsman isn’t only a bar however a love letter to Hong Kong served in a glass. And, like most of the metropolis’s new technology of creatives, Yeung is much less involved with status, and extra centered on authenticity, accessibility and constructing group.

Collectively, this refrain of voices presents a counter-narrative to the doubt typically projected onto the town by these wanting in from the surface. Hong Kong might now not be Asia’s undisputed capital of commerce, but it surely’s morphing into one thing simply as compelling: a capital of tradition.

Formidable infrastructure tasks, equivalent to West Kowloon Cultural District, sign a metropolis wanting ahead. Anchored by West Kowloon’s M+, a museum of visible tradition that rivals world heavyweights, the town’s future can also be unfolding at Kai Tak, the place an unlimited venue will host all the pieces from sporting occasions to concert events on the positioning of the town’s former airport, whereas The Henderson, a swirling 36-storey glass tower by Zaha Hadid Architects, is redefining Central’s skyline.

Nonetheless, the very best of Hong Kong may be within the sudden: dawn over Cape D’Aguilar, a trek alongside the rugged MacLehose Path, or a ship journey to Sharp Island – the place volcanic rock formations, a disappearing tombolo, and clear waters make it really feel worlds away from the town. For a metropolis identified for velocity, its slower, greener aspect is simply as thrilling.

Typically misunderstood and often underestimated, Hong Kong continues to shock. The town nonetheless pulses with life – you simply need to look past the headlines.  

A model of this text seems within the June 2025 Journey Situation of Wallpaper*, obtainable in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple Information +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* at present.