How Hainan became the Hawaii of the East – and other such nicknames explained
Kabul was once dubbed the Paris of the East, as was Shanghai, but the Chinese city also went by another name – Whore of the Orient. Read on to find out the stories behind the nicknames
It’s amazing what a nickname can do for a place. When I first visited Tai O village, otherwise known as the Venice of the East, on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island I was anticipating a collision of Gothic, Byzantine and Ottoman architectural styles.
There would be good-looking gondolieri crooning syrupy Canto tunes as they punted starry-eyed suitors along broad, vaporetto-filled waterways. Lovestruck lads would propose to their sweethearts amid the steel uprights and rusty metal chains of the Tai Chung Bridge, Lantau Island’s very own Bridge of Sighs.
Or so I thought. Instead I left with a jar of shrimp paste and a sense of disappointment. Of course, Tai O isn’t the only tourist spot that attracts visitors by comparing itself with a more illustrious destination.
1 Paris of the East
More than 20 cosmopolitan conurbations have been described (or describe themselves) as the Paris of the East. To qualify, it helps to have a decadent nightlife, fine restaurants, iconic monuments, fashionable inhabitants and an air of romance. Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, claimed the sobriquet in the 1960s – a time of miniskirts and modern cafes, jazz clubs and wine production. But that was before the Taliban.