Mad rush for the new

Behind Hong Kong's glittering facade is a city that never sleeps. Picture / Linda Herrick

It's overcast in Hong Kong, the temperature a muggy 33C, the growl of thunder rumbling in from China in the north. The air is close, the streets crowded with people rushing about their business ... as much as you can rush through congested streets.

Hong Kong is a pressure-cooker, hard work-ethic kind of place, and sometimes people snap.

During the few days of my visit, the South China Morning Post reported: a 70-year-old man arrested after hacking his ex-wife to death with a meat cleaver in the Lek Yuen housing estate; another man charged with manslaughter after pushing his girlfriend out of a taxi; two radio hosts suspended over a poll asking for votes for female artists they'd like to indecently assault; a 10-year-old boy - in a cause celebre known as the "chop-case" - returns home to live with his mother whom he'd "chopped" with a cleaver after she banned his computer games. Cleavers are obviously big in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is mad, but entertaining. At breakfast each day, a scan of the Post was a delight. All these terrible things going on out there, on the very mean streets I was about to wander. Scarily exciting. The sad truth is that Hong Kong is as safe as modern high-rise houses, the biggest risk being from the ubiquitous touts offering genuine designer bags for $20, and the hustlers for knockoff tailors. But while people are safe, buildings aren't. A British colony from 1843 until 1997, Hong Kong's accelerating appetite for ruthless renewal is reflected in the relative rareness of what were fine examples of colonial architecture. Many have been bowled to make way for the spectacular high-rise towers which line up like tall teeth along the southern edge of Hong Kong Island and the ridges of Kowloon to the north.

One of the most gracious colonial buildings left standing is the iconic Peninsula Hotel on the edge of Tsim Sha Tsui. Built in 1928, it's the height of old-world luxury, and the afternoon teas in the lobby are legendary. It's a survivor.

On the glittering surface, Hong Kong is as globalised as any major world city, with mushrooming McDonald's and Starbucks, along with sophisticated hotel chains and monstrous shopping malls. The malls often replicate each other, with the same international brand names and chains.

Like the Westfields of Auckland, they have become recreation centres on a vast scale. Thousands of Hong Kong Chinese go to the malls every day, gliding up and down the escalators, chattering along the labyrinth of corridors.

But a Westerner could get a complex. "You too fat," said one shopgirl when this Ms Podge tried to buy a hoodie made by singer Gwen Stefani's fashion label Lamb. They didn't go up to size 12.

The Prada shop in department store Lane Crawford in the Harbour City buildings in Tsim Sha Shui, at the southwest tip of Kowloon, was annoying in a different way. It was full of large women from mainland China trying to squeeze their feet into the elegant Italian shoes. Communism has morphed into consumerism. They had the money to buy Prada shoes - I didn't.

Fortunately, Hong Kong has much more to offer than shopping for Western luxury fashions. During a handful of visits I have always enjoyed wandering around the city in a reasonably random manner. It is hard to get lost because the city is relatively small. The whole region - Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the New Territories, and the outlying islands - adds up to about 1000 sq km. Hong Kong Island itself is only 80 sq km.

Navigation is oriented towards the water. If you are on Hong Kong Island's north side, the business hub, the vertical roads lead down to the harbour. Ditto for Kowloon, in reverse.

The public transport system is excellent, cheap and easy to understand, especially the sturdy Star ferries that crisscross the harbour every seven minutes. If you are taking a cab, that's cheap too, but best to have your destination marked on a map you can show the driver. And they get cross if you give them large-denomination notes. But it's also good to walk.

It's in the back streets and older districts where you get a sense of Hong Kong's fascinating history, and a taste of the tenacity of the masses of Chinese working and living in its midst.

Unlike the glossier layer of Hong Kong, enjoyed by the uber-wealthy and status-conscious wheelers and dealers, the back streets are gritty, stinky, noisy and colourful. If you like to watch, without staring (that's not the Cantonese way), the drama of the streets can hold you in thrall for hours.

On Hong Kong Island, turn right from the Star Ferry Pier and head up to Connaught Rd Central, then up Queen Victoria St to the escalator, and hop off at Hollywood Rd. This is the area known as SoHo, where the streets are narrow, the shopkeepers don't speak English, and it is antique heaven. Some do a good trade in fakes, too.

If you give yourself half a day and set your east-west parameters between Central Market, Queen Victoria St, and Western Market, on Morrison St; and north-south boundaries of Des Voeux Rd Central and Hollywood Rd; you will be at the heart of the older part of the city.

Hollywood Rd is where the famed incense-drenched Man Mo Temple smokes away, and a few blocks away you'll find, if you want to, the central police station and Victoria Prison. Jan Morris' book Hong Kong: Epilogue to an Empire, contains some fascinating historical accounts about this area.

There are plenty of yum cha places to sit for a bite and cup of tea, and not a Starbucks sign in sight - yet.

I found comfort at the Good Luck Restaurant in SoHo, when heavy rain - worthy of a "Black Rain Storm Warning" (the worst) - came bucketing down. It was noon, almost pitch black and spooky when the forks of lightning started crashing directly overhead. The staff at the Good Luck were cheerful; it was good for business.

On the same side of Hong Kong Island, but further east, is the Causeway Bay district, just south of the Noon Day Gun and the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. Avoiding the Mitsukoshi arcade on Yee Wo St, it's best to push south down Jardine's Bazaar and the parallel Jardine's Cres, teeming with little hardware shops, small boutique designer outlets and fruit'n'veg shops.

The most melodramatic beggar I've ever seen plays his own theatre here, prostrate in the middle of the street, beating his head on the ground, wailing and groaning. No one takes any notice.

Walking west from Causeway, along Lockhart Rd into Wan Chai, the shops are dominated for blocks by kitchen DIY stores, then bathroom DIY. It's become a big business with aspirational couples out in the high-rise 'burbs. I'm sure the name of one bathroom shop - Eurornate Tiles - was meant without irony.

Proceed along Lockhart Rd and you find yourself in red-light territory, where even in daylight tiny hard-faced Chinese girls ply their wares to redfaced beefy Western men under the beady eyes of Chinese minders from the triads.

You see that too in the byways and sidestreets north of Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon. A local reckons the further you go up along Kowloon's central artery, Nathan Rd, the grubbier it gets, in more ways than one.

Kowloon is where the Russian girls end up, tall blondes who tower over their Chinese minders. All grist to the mill of a city where commerce is the engine. Nathan Rd itself is a putrid stretch of road named after an early governor when Kowloon was scarcely populated.

Its south end is now a motley collection of high-end luxury hotels, budget hotels, ramshackle apartments adorned with bamboo scaffolding and a roaring parade of traffic going nowhere not very fast.

The walk along the harbourside, the Tsim Sha Shui Promenade is a calming way to gaze across the harbour at the sensational vista of the island's skyscrapers. Even better when you have seen a little of what lies behind those skyscrapers, the glittering facade shielding a maze of humanity.

Despite what some people reckon, you don't need a fortune to enjoy yourself in Hong Kong. Looking is free and shopping doesn't have to be expensive. My mate kindly says she enjoys her gift from a little shop off Jardine's Crescent: a battery-charged, handheld Hello Kitty fan. In Hong Kong dollars, it cost at least two figures. And, like Hong Kong itself, it's unique.

* Linda Herrick travelled to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific and stayed at the Peninsula Hotel.