Panic in Needle Park

OK, so it's Monday. I'm leaving for Angkor Wat, Cambodia tomorrow.

As I learned at the Hong Kong Museum of History yesterday, the British started Hong Kong as a depot to push opium on the Chinese. See the British loved Chinese tea, but the Chinese could think of nothing they wanted in trade. Cash would be fine, but the British weren't really interested in a trade balance deficit, so they created a demand in China that hadn't existed before: opium. Once the Chinese were addicted, British commercial interests were assured.

Is any of this sounding vaguely familiar?

So Hong Kong is based on the ugliest kind of capitalism, and that's probably still true today. It's still all about the shopping, cheap labor, crappy exports, one of the world's busiest ports, etc. There's no fresh water (it's imported from China). There's almost no place to grow anything. The water's so polluted that almost all of the fishing villages are gone. The air pollution is frequently, like yesterday, almost unbreathable.

Why did the Chinese government want it back? 150 years ago there was nothing here. But 10 years after the handover, it's still booming. It's such an anachronism. Everywhere you go there are still little Britishisms, like the cute British-accented voice on the subway warning you to "Mind the gap." And I suspect that's what the government in Beijing is after: British and Hong Kong capital.

So, I'm leaving tomorrow. I've loved Hong Kong: the grit, the neon, the food, the shopping. It's like New York, but with better scenery. Still, my mind is already firmly fixed on Cambodia.