HONG KONG: MY CITY
The Unveil of the Unreachable Peak
To the most of us living in this city, the privilege to own a mansion on the Victoria Peak is merely an unattainable dream. Yet, as a local Chinese lady in my mid-‐fifties, I had the “privilege” to live in one of those luxurious mansions in the past several years. Hence, here I am to unveil how it feels to live in the unreachable corner of my city, the Peak.
First of all, I would like to clarify that I obviously do not own any mansions on the Peak, just like any other ordinary local Chinese in the colonial Hong Kong. I am Lucy (a western name given by my Missis), an amah [domestic servant] for a British family.
The home of my Mister and Missis was pampered by an army of Chinese servants. I was told that apparently it would only cost less than one tenth of Mister’s monthly salary to employ around seven of us as their servants. Nonetheless, given that accommodation and meals were provided by my Mister, I was able to afford a part of the book and stationery expense for my nephew, who would always ask me to teach him simple English vocabulary that I learnt at work every time I go for a visit.
The Peak has always been a quiet little corner away from the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong. I have always felt like living in heaven, to a certain degree of exaggeration, on the days when it was foggy and cloudy. A great advantage of living in the Peak was that, in the days during summer, it was five or six degrees cooler than the lower levels at night.
The appearance of public grounds, the roads leading from one level to another being lined with palms, ferns and flowers. It is simply a very different perspective of the Hong Kong that us, as the local Chinese has always been exposed to.
The job as an amah is not tough I would say. Missis would be home most of the time as Mister goes off to work. Although I have been working in the same family in the past two years, I never really got to know Missis too well. She has always been an elegant lady as I can tell from her gestures and the way she spoke. Nonetheless, the language barrier kept the local servants and the western employers apart, even though we have literally been living in the same mansion for years.
As part of my job, I had to climb the mountain via the Old Peak Road every morning to shop for the daily necessities for the family. Obviously, with the smells and bags of food after visiting the market, the Peak tram was never an option for me to travel back.
The climb to the Peak has always been an interesting observation for me as a local amah. Below the Peak lived the local Chinese, grossly overcrowded with rat-‐ infested in low-‐rise tenement buildings. The Peak is cut off from the rest of Hong Kong by its superiority from its height and distance, as if an actual pyramid of social hierarchy was placed right in the centre of the city.
Once you walk pass May Road on the mid-‐levels to the Peak, it somehow signifies a rise in social status. The atmosphere of the surroundings, from the western architecture of the mansions to the fern linings, it was almost like an unwritten rule marked in the city, foreshadowing that only those of well-‐bred foreigners were allowed to live on the mountain, living right above all the other local Chinese
Not only does the architecture implies a separation of social strata, the hygiene conditions is also another significant change noticed as I walk up the Peak. The hygiene conditions has always been one issue Mister and Missis emphasise with extra cautiousness. Missis has always warned the importance for the local servants to stay clean and abandon the way we dealt with waste within the mansion -‐ which I personally do not think it was that much of an issue.
The “privilege” to live in one of those mansions on the Peak has enabled me to become closer with the westerners in the colonial Hong Kong. However, closer only by distance. From the physical built form of the mansions, to the language barrier and the hygienic cautiousness, the city of Hong Kong of what I call home, indeed felt completely different from the “home” up there on the Peak.
R E F E R E N C E S
Contents Reference
Chadwick, Osbert. “Document 1. c2: Hong Kong in 1882, A Description” (original source: Mr. Chadwick’s Report on the Sanitary condition of hong Kong, November 1882, pp 8 -‐ 10, Colonial Office, Eastern No. 38, CO882/4, Public Records Office, London). In Society: A Documentary History of Hong Kong, edited by David Faure. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997. [pp. 29-‐47]
Cunich, Peter. Old Hong Kong. Hong Kong: FormAsia, 2014. [pp. 6-‐15]
Gillingham, Paul. “2. Different Worlds: People Place,” “3. The Peak,” “9. Coolie Life,” “10. Geong Around,” “12. The Line,” “13. Chinese Women” and “20. The Bank: Compradores and Art Deco.” In At the Peak: Hong Kong Between the Wars. Hong Kong: MacMillan, 1983 [pp. 7-‐28; 79-‐103; 109-‐120; 159-‐166]
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