From Ho Chi Minh to Bruce Lee to John Lennon, in the footsteps of Hong Kong’s most famous international residents and visitors
- Philippine national hero Jose Rizal lived in Central, Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh was jailed there and rocker Michael Hutchence was a regular visitor.
- Lennon and son Sean visited Tiger Balm Gardens theme park in 1977, while English politician Jacob Rees-Mogg attended the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
Fancy a round-the-world trip when nobody’s flying anywhere? Then step up for a tour of the hang-outs in Hong Kong where international celebrities and politicians once trod, taking in Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the gilded shores of Discovery Bay on Lantau Island.
1. José Rizal
Ophthalmologist, artist, poet, engineer and the Philippines’ biggest national hero, José Rizal lived at Rednaxela Terrace for the first half of 1892 and worked from his clinic in D’Aguilar Street, Central.
He was a busy chap, not least when it came to entertaining female company, who ranged – he recorded in his memoirs – from the daughter of a wealthy European tycoon to an aristocratic Japanese, as well as a distant cousin whom he had incorporated, thinly disguised, into his novel Noli Me Tángere (1887), which has been described as the country’s national epic.
Rizal’s sojourn in Hong Kong was perhaps the last truly carefree time in his life. After returning to Manila, he became involved in politics and in 1896 was tried for sedition and executed by firing squad.
2. Ho Chi Minh
Possibly Hong Kong’s most reluctant famous guest, Ho Chi Minh was incarcerated in Victoria Prison in 1931 by the authorities, who were unimpressed by his communist leanings. He was released and deported after his case was taken up by firebrand left-wing British lawyer Frank Loseby, heading to Shanghai and later fame as Vietnam’s first president.
Victoria Prison went on to greater things too, having been sensitively restored to form part of the arts and culture destination Tai Kwun, which thankfully escaped the machinations of Hong Kong’ more avaricious developers.
Complete the Vietnamese experience at Bun Cha Café, which is a short stroll away at 49 Aberdeen Street.
3. John Lennon
Few attractions were more “trippy” than the bizarre, cod-mythological theme park Tiger Balm Garden, once one of Hong Kong’s must-sees but long demolished. It was an automatic choice for John “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” Lennon when he pitched up in Hong Kong with his son, Sean, in May 1977 for a long weekend, on his way to Japan.
