HAVE you heard of the place where you can eat al fresco, sip iced cocktails, watch live entertainment, rent the latest foreign videos, have a haircut, get a French manicure, sign up for a beauty pageant, have a photograph taken or portrait drawn, get a prescription, exchange foreign currency, send freight overseas, get a house loan, buy almost anything - and all on a Sunday? If you haven't it's hardly surprising, as it isn't mentioned in any of the conventional guidebooks.
Statue Square is widely known as the weekend meeting place for Hong Kong's Filipino community but surprisingly few people are aware of the diverse activities that occur there. Most are under the misconception that all Filipinos descend on the area every Sunday. In fact, only an estimated 15 per cent of the 160,000 Filipinos in Hong Kong regularly spend their days off in the area. 'We don't come here just because there's nowhere else to go,' says Emily, who is having her portrait drawn on Chater Road.
'Sometimes we go to the parks - Quarry Bay Park, Sai Wan Ho Park, Kowloon Park, Ocean Park. Sometimes we go to the beach - Deep Water Bay, Stanley, Repulse Bay - and sometimes we go to the cinema. But many of us come here because all our friends come here. It's our meeting place.' This becomes more apparent as the day draws on. A code of precise rendezvous areas exists to ensure no one gets lost among the throng. For instance, 'the smiling lion' means the entrance to the Hongkong Bank Building (the lion on the left is the angry one), and 'the black man' refers to the monument to Sir Thomas Jackson, former chief manager of the Hongkong And Shanghai Bank, which stands near the MTR entrance in Statue Square. Elsewhere, specific meeting areas need no more than a generic name as everyone knows the exact locations to meet. 'City Hall' inevitably means the area outside Maxims fast-food restaurant beside City Hall, 'Star Ferry' refers to the spot in front of the South China Morning Post Family Bookshop and 'Pacific Place' will be the piano at the entrance of the mall's McDonald's.
For those with relatives working in Hong Kong, mornings are often set aside for meeting family members - sisters, mothers and daughters, aunts and nieces - and afternoons are for meeting friends. By 7.30 am, groups are already beginning to gather at their favourite spots and the air starts to thicken with the various Filipino dialects. The rapid badinage is sporadically injected with infectious laughter as the women catch up with the news of the week and the gossip from home. Ideal areas to meet are those with low walls (which make excellent makeshift seats), away from direct vehicle and human traffic and sheltered from the extremes of Hong Kong weather. The area beneath the Hongkong Bank, for example, is popular because it provides shelter from the rain in wet weather and has 'natural air-conditioning', trapping breezes in the summer.
Across Queen's Road Central and up the steps towards St John's Cathedral the strong scent of ammonia permeates the air. Perched on folding stools, women wearing plastic bibs and bin-bags flank both sides of Battery Path while passers-by gawk in amazement as they walk through this outdoor hairdressing salon. Here, beneath the acacia trees, a cut costs a mere $25 and a perm will set you back $100. The tightness of curl can be unpredictable, however, as the hairdressers have no immediate access to water and perming lotion has to be washed out in a public toilet sink five minutes away. A queue could mean the difference between Cindy Crawford-style bouncy curls and a poodle perm.
Imelda is a regular customer: 'I come here once a month for a trim,' she says. 'It's very cheap and they are professional hairdressers in the Philippines so they know the styles we like and the texture of our hair.' Grace sets up shop on the path most Sundays and formerly owned a salon in the Philippines. 'It's a good way to make extra money,' she says. 'I can make an extra $1,500 on top of my salary every month as a domestic worker. I have plenty of customers because most Filipinos in Hong Kong are women and they like to look good. But they can't afford the nice salons.' Other entrepreneurs targeting this largely female market are the Filipino photographers who ply their trade on the Statue Square bridge. By mid-morning, there is a queue of well-dressed women, all combing their hair and reapplying lipstick while waiting their turn. The photographers' technique is simple but effective. Greeting cards of different images - balloons, cuddly toys, flowers and the like - are taped on to the side of the bridge. The photographer takes a picture of the image, rewinds the film a frame then shoots his subject on top. Voila - for $10, you can have your image superimposed into the centre of a rose. For $6, you can choose to keep it plain.