For Hong Kong’s parkour fans, city is one giant obstacle course

Tim Yeung jumps onto a fence railing at a skate park in Tai Wo Hau and shimmies along before jumping to the ground.

It might be a skatepark but Yeung’s practising another activity – parkour, the acrobatic sport that sees practitioners jumping like cats from rooftops and benches to fences and anything in between.

Yeung runs over and sits on a bench next to me, the slogan on his T-shirt summing up the philosophy of parkour: “We start together, We finish together.”

It’s a Monday night and members of the Hong Kong Parkour Association have gathered in the remote park one stop from the end of the Tsuen Wan MTR line. (Kowloon Park is also a popular training spot.) There’s not much going on outside Exit A but if you’re a traceur – the name for a person who takes part in the activity of parkour, or free running – then the park, with its benches, railings, steps and playground equipment, is a smorgasbord of welcome obstacles.

There’s Ning 27, Gon 25, and 21-year-old Fish. Hecham is the only non-Chinese. He’s from Morocco and for the past seven years has called Hong Kong home. This is his first attempt at parkour. “I saw videos of people doing it and thought I’d have a go.”

A few minutes later Joyce turns up. She won’t tell me her age but says she’s often the only female in the group. “I’ve been doing parkour for almost three years and I love it ... I’m at the beginner stage and I try and practise once a week.”

Yeung says he turned to parkour while searching for a sport at university. “I was immediately attracted to the parkour movements.”