Then & NowIn Hong Kong, farewells were once a drawn-out affair

That Hong Kong is a transient place for most of its residents has been a truism since the colony’s mid-19th-century beginnings. People arrive in the city, know (and feel) themselves to be less permanent than in almost any other place in the world and, eventually, leave.

Poet W.H. Auden’s Nocturne brings to mind those who, having spent some (or most) of their lives in Hong Kong, even­tually depart for a new chapter in other parts of the world.

“Now through night’s caressing grip /
Earth and all her oceans slip; /
Capes of China slide away /
From her fingers into day…”

But how was the actual point of sliding away from this particular “cape of China” marked by departing former residents? And how has this changed over time?

“Leaving parties” have always been a staple of Hong Kong life, with friends and acquaintances foregathered to wish the repatriates well in the future or, in some cases, quietly reassure themselves that the departees really were going for good this time. On these occasions, hugs, handshakes and floods of heartfelt tears mingled with discreet sighs of relief. Promises were made to write, to keep in touch. Mail took several weeks each way, international telephone calls were so exorbitantly expensive that – except for emergencies, and even then telegrams usually sufficed, or to hear the sound of a loved one’s voice on a special occasion – they were almost never made.

More than a few “close friendships” that had been cold-bloodedly maintained for years for reasons of business expedi­ence, community solidarity, form’s sake, politeness and self-preservation with­in Hong Kong’s interconnected small-pond world, were gently sloughed off and aban­doned without further thought, like a rep­tile shedding its skin.