Then & Now | Hikers have long been escaping Hong Kong's crowds and stress
Guides celebrating the city's green spaces and telling urbanites how to access them were popular as far back as the 1930s, but only enjoyed a resurgence from the late 1980s onwards with growing wealth, writes Jason Wordie
During Hong Kong’s cool, dry autumn and early winter, many residents’ thoughts turn to hiking. Appreciation of the territory’s outstanding scenic beauty and abundant hillside trails is not a recent phenomenon; recreational tramping in Hong Kong’s marvellous, almost wild countryside has been popular since the colony was established.
From the 19th century onwards, travel accounts, memoirs and multidisciplinary works have extolled Hong Kong’s readily accessible open spaces. Hiking guides first appeared several decades ago. Among the earliest was G.S.P. Heywood’s Rambles in Hong Kong, published by the South China Morning Post in 1938. Charmingly written, with delightful line sketches, Heywood’s book radiates satisfaction with the healthy enjoyments found only a short distance from what was – even then, with less than a seventh of today’s population – considered to be an overcrowded, polluted, stressful city.
More substantial and erudite, but still accessibly written, is Geoffrey Herklots’ The Hong Kong Countryside. First published (also by the SCMP) in 1951, this volume draws upon earlier work culled from pre-war journal The Hong Kong Naturalist, which Herklots founded in 1930 with other nature enthusiasts.
A professional botanist, Herklots was a keen observer of Hong Kong’s countryside and the plant species found within it. Specialised knowledge came in handy when he was interned in Stanley Camp during the Japanese occupation. Some of the practical uses local plants were put to by civilian internees, such as brewing potent alcoholic “hooch” from wild ginger roots and making “rabbit tobacco” from various leaves, are detailed in this volume.
