‘There is nothing in the world like Hong Kong’: 1923 travel writer impressed on a brief visit; some of his observations remain true to this day
- Australian William Farmer Whyte was entranced by his two-day visit to a place he wrote ‘may be British-owned, but … is Chinese all the same’
- His Asian travelogue lay unpublished until 2022, yet some of what he wrote about Hong Kong, its landscapes and people still resonates today
Australian journalist William Farmer Whyte made a four-month trip around Asia just after the catastrophic 1923 Kantō earthquake and firestorm had flattened Tokyo.
The Awakening Giant: Travels and Reflections in the East in 1923 was the result and – in common with other contemporary travel journals – brief impressions were usual for most locations.
A two-day stay in Hong Kong left Whyte entranced. Arrival through Lyemun was – and remains – one of the world’s great maritime approaches; for maximum effect, passenger liners usually entered the harbour at dawn.
“Suddenly in the distance we saw Hong Kong. I have never seen anything like it before, and never will again – for there is nothing in the world like Hong Kong. Here in China, and over there in Japan, one sees the other side of life […] a civilisation that is older than ours, a culture that is no mean thing. Hong Kong may be British-owned, but it is Chinese all the same.”
While Whyte considered Nikko in Japan to be the world’s most beautiful place, “Hong Kong, [was] the most wonderful. I would say that Hong Kong is the Eighth Wonder of the World. And this for more reasons than one.”