Here's the second section of my Hong Kong diary -

Walking Caged Birds -

The Cantonese are great bird fanciers: anything else that moves,

they eat. The birds range from large mynahs to songbirds the size of

a jenny wren, and you will often see a man walking along the street

carrying a cage containing his favourite bird. They walk them like

the British walk their dogs. If the owner is in a park he sometimes

hangs the cage in a tree and rests his weary feet on a bench. Bus

and lorry drivers take them to work, placing the cage lovingly on the

top of the dashboard.

I can see these bird fanciers love their pets, but what disturbs

me is the size of the cages. Some of them are not much bigger than a

teapot. Whenever you mention this to someone, they always come back

with the old adage, "Bird no happy, bird no sing." It is true, the

birds do sing away for hours on end, but then so did the negro slaves

in the cotton fields of Alabama.

Romantic Hotels –

In various parts of Hong Kong you will find hotels with heart-shaped

neon signs and other romantic paraphernalia in their surrounds.

Rooms at these hotels are for rent by the hour. Whenever a visitor

is told about the short stays, they immediately jump to a natural

conclusion, but these hotels are not brothels. They are very respectable establishments where one can take one's wife. In fact, this is what they're for. Any apartment with a floor space over 400 square feet is a luxury

dwelling in Hong Kong. At the time of writing this (April, 1989) the

annual rent of the apartment in which Annette and I live - at 2000

square feet - is £36,000. If it did not go with my wife's job we

would be living in a bedsit on Lantau Island. It follows therefore

that poorer families, and even the not so poor, live in tiny

accommodation with extended families. When a young married couple

wish do what young couples like doing occasionally, and wish to do it

out of earshot of grandmas, grandpas, aunties and uncles, who probably

sleep in the same room, they take themselves off to a romantic hotel

for an hour or two.

The problem of privacy, or just a place in which to concentrate,

is an acute one in Hong Kong. Schoolchildren and students can be

seen using the parks, the tube stations and even the steps leading up

to shopping precincts, to do their homework, rather than return to

noisy crowded apartments. Two places they do not go, of a Sunday

afternoon, are Chater and Statue Gardens on Hong Kong Island. Sunday

is the day off for all the Filipina maids in the colony, who gather in

these two small parks in their thousands to talk and picnic until dark.