Gold Storage, The Hong Kong Way

I returned home to Hong Kong after undergoing my last two years of schooling in the UK; I quickly found employment and after work (six days a week) and on Sundays, I began to explore areas of Hong Kong that I had never visited during my childhood and adolescence.

One of the consequences of the several waves of refugees from communist China (the revolution itself, the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s) was the rapid accumulation of informal dwellings on the mountainsides. These shacks were made out of anything handy: packing crates, corrugated iron, planks. They were incredibly hardy edifices: typhoons capable of lifting a battleship, blowing it out of the harbour and impaling it on a rocky island in the South China Seas, would leave the squatter huts crowded onto an exposed side of the island at the harbour mouth intact!
As a child I had always been fascinated by these places: they embodied escape, freedom, the mastering of adversity; they had an air of romance and adventure. Yet I had never visited one: this was something I remedied as I explored Hong Kong anew during 1975.

What I discovered was remarkable. First of all, these places were orderly and clean, the natural drainage of the mountainsides enabling the latter. The homes were sturdily constructed despite their flimsy materials. What was truly astonishing, however, was the discovery that the expensive cars parked at the foot of the hills belonged to the owners of these huts! This was not all: the informal lifestyle of the hillsides meant that the hut doors tended to be left open: there were always a few children or an ancient grandmother (whom we shall meet again) to keep an eye on things. Through these doors I glimpsed the good life inside: the huts had all the conveniences – fridges, deep freezes, television sets, electric fans, air conditioners, electric lighting: the hills were ablaze with electricity, all legally installed.

This lifestyle reflected a dominant desire among the Hong Kong Cantonese: the ambition, if not for themselves, then for their children to emigrate to one of the Anglosphere countries, far from China, which had caused them such grief. This being so, many prosperous people simply did not want to spend on property. The millionaire who lived on the hillside above us had built himself a house – it was in the style of a mansion, to accord with his status but was really very modest: what was the point of investing in substantial real estate when you might have to abandon it?

Portable Purchasing power?

The personal or family memory of enforced flight also gave rise to the idea that if you were going to have to pick up and go, then property should be portable. The wealthy of Hong Kong are unusual amongst the world’s richest in that they spend more of their money on jewellery and watches than any other type of investment and/or luxury good, mansions and yachts coming right at the bottom of their priorities – only a tiny percentage bother with these things. The desire for wealth in a safe and portable form surely means that the idea of putting their assets into gold coins would appeal to the wealthy, economy-stimulating entrepreneurs of Hong Kong.
Enter Grandma: while I was exploring the shacks and shanties, I saw the most revealing thing of all: the family wealth of these entrepreneurs was stored in gold – in Granny’s teeth: the fillings were so abundant that their mouths gleamed with gold!

by Mark Rogers

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GOLD STORAGE, THE HONG KONG WAY was first posted on January 15, 2012 at 9:28 pm.
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