Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 16. 12th July 1973

Beggars

Beggars

Caltex,Ford,Coca Cola — you can see all the familiar names in Hong Kong. Only the environment is different. With block after block of multi-storey tenement apartment buildings and beggars in the streets you realise more clearly than in New Zealand the colonialist nature of these multi-national firms.

After arriving at Canton Railway Station my first impression was, that in a city of about three million people, there were hardly any cars. The roads are full of bicycles, and buses, cars and trucks weave their way through the bikes and the people, tooting madly all the time. God knows what the official road code is (if it exists) because the main idea seems to be to avoid hitting anyone or anything rather than sticking to the right or the left hand side. At night bus and car drivers seem to have the very courteous habit of turning off their lights when approaching bicycles. Motorised transport in Canton appears to be strictly functional; open trucks and buses (a few of which are packed) and very few cars.

Another comparison between Kowloon and Canton is that here there are numerous political slogans on the top of buildings and on hoardings rather than large commercial advertisements.