My wife and I will be taking a cruise soon, from Hong Kong to Tokyo. Our plan is to get into HK a day early, to provide a buffer in the event of air travel snafus. So if all goes well, we’ll have a free day on our own before we get on the ship.
We’re fairly seasoned international travelers, but mostly in Europe and mostly with tour guides. What can we expect? How confused will we be trying to get around with just a guide book and no Cantonese? Will we be able to communicate with cab drivers? Find a restaurant and order a meal?
We visited Hong Kong in 2011 and loved it. We spoke no Cantonese (I can read a tiny bit of Japanese, but I don’t think it mattered). It’s probably changed some as China has taken a firmer grip, but many in Hong Kong speak English very well.
Forget the Cantonese, your tonal inflection will be so bad (there are 7 tones, I can only even hear 3) and as a foreigner they will assume you aren’t even trying to communicate in their language. I try hard to learn at least 10 basic phrases (‘Thank you’, ‘please’, ‘yes’ , ‘no’, etc.) wherever I go, but I got nowhere in HK. Nowhere.
Spitting in restaurants is a thing.
Public Transportation is cheap and easy.
There isn’t much left of the English Empire and it’s dependencies which is a shame, but there is enough character to make Hong Kong unlike any place on Earth.
There are small produce and fish markets still hidden in back alleys, check them out!
Absolutely try the food stall skewers sold at many street corners, particularly the octopus tentacles. No idea what’s in the sauce they put on them but I went back for more.
If you are there for more than 3 days stop over at Macau’s small old town for a strange Portuguese flair surrounded by Las Vegas like Casinos, dreary communist apartment blocks and a used Olympic Park.
But don’t worry, despite the language barrier I found the Hong Kong people much more friendly than those I met in China in general and with facial expressions and pointing you can get by just fine.
My daughter lived there for a few years, up to 2018, and we visited once. We stayed in a hotel near the Night Market in Kowloon which was much cheaper that the Western hotels - it catered to Chinese tourists. It was great. We had no problem getting around in English. As mentioned, mass transit is wonderful - get a card which you can use to buy things in a lot of shops also.
When we were there food was quite inexpensive. We had dim sum at a nice place at the foot of the escalator that goes up the hill. Three of four bucks a plate and great quality.
We did a walking tour, one of the ones which are free but you tip. We enjoyed it.
We did go to Macao, to a casino with a show that made Vegas shows look like backyard productions by ten-year olds. I doubt it is still there, but it had motorcyclists flying through the air and a flooded stage.
Now, Hong Kong is very crowded, but I’m from New York and felt right at him. YMMV. This was before the crackdown. It was very safe - even when we came back late at night I was never nervous. No guns, and murders with guns happen only once every few years and are big news.
I went to the Hong Kong museum which was good, but expect a Chinese view of history. It took me all day. Plenty to do there, that’s for sure.
My parents were there in 2014 (I remember the year because their cruise ship later went off course to help search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370), and they said that the air pollution levels were notably bad, to the point where it impeded visibility. I don’t know if that’s still the case, but bring masks.
Just to clarify, this is NOT expectorating gobs of phlegm. Chinese typically eat food that is bite sized with chopsticks. For example, a chicken gets chopped up bones and all into pieces. One puts the bite sized piece in your mouth, chew off the meat, and then the bone kinda dribbles out of your mouth next to the plate. Chicken feet in a dim sum restaurant is probably the best example. [That said, it was common in China through the 1980’s or 1990’s for spittoons to be in public stairwells and common for people to hock up lung cookies and spit out on the street. Figured out public hygiene and this is no longer a common nor socially tolerated practice in cities.]
Now, if you’ve never seen this before in a restaurant, it is a bit wierd and off putting but chalk it up to cultural differences.
When I first lived in Taiwan and taught English, I said something to the effect that in the US “we don’t spit chicken bones out.” My student was extremely perplexed and asked “do you swallow the bones?!?”
Hong Kong is very safe, tourists are not abnormally targeted, English pretty widely spoken, restaurants (even tiny local ones) have bilingual menus, public signage in Chinese and English, subway announcements in both Cantonese and English, etc. Honkies tend to be brusk, which can seem rude but it’s how the locals roll. It is very crowded and personal distancing is much smaller, so that can be intimidating if it’s the first time to experience a really big crowded city.
Hit and miss for English. have the destination written out in Chinese characters. Hotel staff can help on this, and suggest best or easiest way to get somewhere. Hotel doormen also used to explaining to drivers where you want to go in Cantonese.
Download a language app on your phone.
A driver that doesn’t speak english may decide to not take you upon learning the destination. Generally speaking, they are not being a dick but might be end of shift in the wrong direction, on a different island that involves tolls (the mainland Kowloon side versus Hong Kong island or Lantau Island where the airport is). Or they may ask for you to pay 2x the tunnel/bridge toll at the toll booth (this is mandated in the government taxi regulations).
My only complaint about the public transportation in HK was that the ceilings on the double-decker trams were held up by rafters at the perfect height for bonking me in the forehead. (Maybe they’ve changed their trams since I visited 10 years ago.)
