Visitors and recent arrivals often ask: 'Where is the 'real' Hong Kong?' This mythical spot must, surely, exist somewhere beyond the cliched imagery, far removed from Central's ersatz international gloss, Tsim Sha Tsui's glittering temples to high-end consumerism and every other well-worn postcard view.
There must be a place where you won't see Jackie Chan flinging himself through the bamboo scaffolding like an amphetamine-fuelled marmoset, or sailing junks floating serenely, if improbably, through Victoria Harbour. For the record, these craft vanished from local waters decades ago - a minor, inconvenient detail the Hong Kong Tourism Board hasn't yet acknowledged.
To encounter the 'real' Hong Kong, journey no further than the end of the MTR line and Tsuen Wan. Like other new town conurbations, where the vast majority of Hong Kong people live, authentic, varied Tsuen Wan rewards an afternoon's exploration.
And believe it or not, Tsuen Wan is one of Hong Kong's major tourist destinations - for visitors from the mainland. Chung On Street features heavily on many mainland tourist itineraries and, as in downtown Kowloon, the main attraction is shopping. Favoured purchases are gold and jewellery, mid-range cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, dried seafood and traditional Chinese medicinal items - all can be purchased with reasonable consumer confidence in Hong Kong, unlike on the mainland, where adulterations and fakes are common.
Close to Tsuen Wan MTR station and marooned among tower blocks and expressways, white-washed, pitch-roofed Sam Tung Uk is a pleasant reminder of Tsuen Wan's relatively recent village past. A substantial Hakka complex that dates from 1786, Sam Tung Uk was preserved and gazetted a monument in 1981, when the surrounding squatter settlement was cleared. Now converted into a small, immaculately maintained ethnographic museum, it nevertheless feels strangely dead without the colour and movement, noises and smells typical of village life.
Other rural-era relics survive amid the metropolis; near Tsuen Wan's original waterfront, now several hundred metres inland, a few surviving buildings from Hoi Pa village form part of a shady park close by Yan Chai Hospital.
