CARRY A SURFBOARD on the MTR and people stare incredulously. Surfing only took hold in Hong Kong a little more than 20 years ago and swaying popular opinion takes time.
Germinated here by expatriates, wave-riding now has more than 500, mostly Chinese, participants, despite surf that is relatively inconsistent and lacks shape. Today, more than 50 surfers have paid to paddle out in Big Wave Bay as contestants in the Rip Curl-sponsored Hong Kong Surfing Cup 2000, the fourth annual - and only - surfing competition in China.
It is probable that the first surfers here were American GIs on leave during the Vietnam War but the first documented evidence of surfing is of the Hong Kong Surfing Club, a group of 15 expats who surfed Fung Bay in Sai Kung Country Park in the late 1970s.
In 1979, almost 70 years after the sport hit California and Australia, 'hanging 10' hit Hong Kong Island, rather inauspiciously. (Hanging 10 refers to hanging your toes off the nose of the board while surfing).
'I was the first guy thrown off Big Wave Bay,' says Australian Rod Payne, who paddled out with four other expats that summer. 'The cops shut us down.'
Payne, 43, says he caught a wave on the single fin shortboard of the day and headed towards a swimmer who panicked and swam under his board. The man exited the water and phoned the police, who dusted off and enforced a 1960 statute of the Urban Council (now called the Leisure and Cultural Services Department) that designated the bay for 'swimmers only'.