...just give me that countryside.

The past few weeks in Hong Kong have been grey, damp, and cool. London weather, basically. When the sun finally came out yesterday, I decided I had to do something outdoorsy. What do typical urbanites on Hong Kong Island do when they hear the call of the "great outdoors"? (Well, besides jamming their iPod headphones deeper into their ear...) Get on the subway and head to the New Territories!

The New Territories is a vast area seperating Hong Kong Island and Kowloon from the border to mainland China. Traditionally, it was an area of rice paddies, fishing villages, and mountains. This has only changed in the past 25 years. The government, to relieve the overcrowding of Kowloon and HK Island, has built out transport links and established 'suburban settlements' in certain parts of the New Territories. These really aren't suburbs in the American sense: we're talking miniature cities of high-rise towers clustered around subway stops in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, they look about as appealing as they sound.

My first stop was the Sam Tung Uk museum in the 'suburb' of Tsuen Wan. Back when Tsuen Wan was a farming village, the local indigenous Chinese lived in walled compounds. Each clan had their own compound. Sam Tung Uk is a preserved walled compound, complete with furnishings and explanatory material. Visiting the compound really brings home some of the traditional Chinese beliefs I've been taught in class. For instance, with so many relatives living in the same compound, respect for family takes on a whole new meaning! And since one lived in the compound of the father's relatives and not the mother's, different (more respectful) terms of address were used for the father's relatives than with the mother's relatives. This even holds true in contemporary Cantonese.

After visiting the museum, I hopped on a minibus to see some real countryside. Ten minutes out of Tsuen Wan is Shing Mun Country Park. Again, we're not talking about an US National Park here. A better analogy would be to Blue Hills Reservation on Boston's southern border: the scenery may not be world-class, but it is a bit of nature easily accessible to the urban masses. The main hiking trail wound around an old reservoir built by the colonial government in the 1930s. It was an enjoyable, three-hour hike. It was the first time I had seen macaques. These small monkeys hang out mainly at picnic sites along the trail. Reminded me of squirrels for some reason. I wouldn't call it a breath of fresh air -- Hong Kong is way too polluted for that -- but seeing green forest definitely was a nice change from the concrete jungle.