MILESTONES

There are two very important things in Hong Kong – family and food – and they are inextricably linked.

Family is everything here – showing love and respect to your parents and peers is rooted deeply in the culture. Milestones such as birthdays and weddings – and even your first hundred days of being alive – is cause for a celebration. And celebrations call for either mountains of gifts or mountains of food. Or both.

A couple of days after arriving here, we took the bus to Causeway Bay for my sister-in-law's father's birthday meal in a restaurant. It's an honour to be included in such things and it means, in turn, that they respect you and see you as part of the family.

There is a great emphasis placed on the importance of family here, and it is drummed into children from a very young age. Whereas in the West, where we have leaned more to the individualistic approach, in the East, life seems to be a much more collaborative effort. Kudos is placed in familial connections, as it is in education, but we'll return to that in the near future.

It is no surprise then that family occasions are often a good time to indulge in the other great love of eating out. There are hundreds and hundreds of eateries in Hong Kong, and it's for a very good reason.

Forget the Westernised idea of a Chinese meal. It's like calling a McDonald's Happy Meal distinctly British just because there are thousands of outlets across the land. (They're here as well, along with KFC and Starbucks). The quality is far superior and infinetly more varied than the ersatz sugar bombs we get in the West. There's also a big difference in how they're eaten.

Eating is a communal affair, be it with family or friends. Everything ordered is placed in the middle of the table (sometimes on a large lazy Susan) and everyone is encouraged to help themselves from a bit of each dish. However, there are separate chopsticks and spoons for the food in the centre that must remain with their dishes so you're not using the ones you've put in your mouth.

Each person has their own bowl or little plate to eat from, in which to put the rice or noodles and whatever takes your fancy – the fresh veg, the local fish, pork, beef, salmon, sweet and savoury dumplings... and even sweet bean soup.

If it's a special occasion, meals can go on for some time, so if you're visiting and you have been invited out, skip lunch. The birthday meal lasted for thirteen courses. A meal can be an event in itself.

Hospitality and social obligation knows no bounds here. Tonight was the event of my niece's 100^th day celebrations, combined with my nephew's early 2^nd birthday party. It was held in the Regal Ballroom of an opulent hotel in Tin Hau. The walls and ceilings were mirrored and three giant chandeliers sparkled above the proceedings. If the venue glittered any more, it would make Joan Collins blush.

A bouncy castle and ball pool sat in the corner to entertain the children as the one hundred or so guests tucked into the generous buffet and mingled. The names of my little relatives were emblazoned in gold lettering against the red backdrop of the stage, wishing them a Happy 100^th Day and a Happy Birthday.

Aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, parents and children drifted from group to group, catching up with each other's lives and the latest gossip as the ever – present Mah Jong tables were set up in the corner for those who fancied a play. The flashes of cameras bounced off the shiny surfaces as surely every second was captured somehow in a digital frame.

It seems not only to be about love and respect and obligation, but to be seen to be doing the right thing too, and preserving the moment somehow. It is as though there's a collective conciousness about the fleeting nature of life so deeply ingrained in custom that it's never been forgotten – or gone uncelebrated.

And that's no bad thing, surely?

STANDING ROOM ONLY

The thing to remember about Hong Kong is to look up.

We think that England - as an island - is too small for sixty million people to call home. The tabloids cry “We’re full! Immigrants go home!” while others battle the expansion of cities gobbling up the green belt.

Hong Kong - at the last count - is home to over seven million people on a meagre eighty square kilometres. There really is no more room here. So much so, they’re busy reclaiming land around the fringes like a dress being let out for a girl who tried and failed to slim for her turn as a bridesmaid. England, by comparison, is that tedious skinny friend you want to slap. “I only have to look at food and I put on weight!” she cries as she slips into a size eight with a whimsical whimper. England - once you’ve reclaimed Dartmoor, the Yorkshire wolds and half of Wales, come back to us and get measured again. I want to see Barratt homes on all your green bits.

When buildings are constructed here, they’re built upwards - not outwards. It’s something easy to forget when you’re on street level, but if you take a bus, say from Island Resort to Causeway Bay, you can see that Hong Kong is like an island of giant’s fingers, prodding the sky through the haze. They look like behemoths jostling for position on the smallest patch of land they could possibly find. Standing room only.

As I stared out of the bus window on the way to a birthday party, I watched the bleeding orange sun sinking behind a mountain, making silhouettes of the skyscrapers, each layer varying in a smoggy brown matte in an impossibly endless forest of concrete. I had a vision of two hundred years hence then - this would be the future of the human race. Busy, crowded and beautiful at the same time.

In each tower, there can be thousands of apartments and offices, malls, cinemas, restaurants and cafes, shops and bars and meeting places. The complex I’m in at the moment consists of six towers - each containing thousands of people. For the benefit of those living here, it also boasts a huge terrace, a shopping mall, a gym, two swimming pools (the outdoor one is closed because it’s a positively freezing 30c), a band room, piano rooms, study rooms, a bowling alley and a kid’s playroom. It’s entirely possible for someone to live their entire life out inside their own complex and never have to leave its boundaries.

Of course, people don’t do that in real life. On any given night, Causeway Bay (to use an example) is a scrum of people, jostling to get where they want to be beneath flashing neon signs and advertisements - a plethora of beacons guiding you this way and that. It is Blade Runner’s metropolis given flesh.

On one particular corner, as you wait at the curb edge for the ticking clock of the pedestrian crossing to allow you to cross the road, one comes face to face with a cast of hundreds - all random, all with their minds elsewhere. They’re chatting on their iphones, carrying stuff, holding the hands of their kids... and in a moment - once the little green man shows - they’re going to come towards you all at once. And it’s a little bit terrifying. 

Space, as you’ve probably guessed, is at a premium here. Apartments are tiny and expensive - and this has knock-on effects. For example, what would you do about your washing? The solution is to hang it out of the window on a rack. Look up at any apartment block and ten, twenty, thirty floors up, trousers, shirts and pants are hanging out of the windows drying on their pegs. It makes me wonder if Hong Kong is particularly known for its strong line in pegs - and missing items of clothing. The sea breeze is quite strong here - and there’s a lot of coast line for it to blow in from. What would it take for a pair of trousers to go sailing through the air and land on someone else’s rack or wrap themselves around some bamboo scaffolding?

Yes, you read that correctly. The scaffolding here is entirely bamboo. Men in hard hats climb hundreds of feet in the air up seemingly flimsy structures of wood that sway and groan in the wind. Looking down out of your flat window can be a dizzying affair, but looking up from the street can be much worse.

It’s all a matter of perspective.