A recent issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine featured HK in its cover story. I read the article with delight, squealing over the photos of neon-lit Wanchai and glittering Central, flushed at being able to recognize them without the captions, and remember what it was like to walk down those streets. When I reached the section about shopping, though, I laughed aloud. The author, Charles N. Barnard, writes:

"Where do I go if I don't want to buy anything?" I overhear a young Canadian woman ask at a Hong Kong Tourist Association information counter. She was missing the point.
It's true. And although, as Barnard notes, shopping accounts for half of all the tourist money spent in Hong Kong, it's not only tourists doing the shopping. In fact, judging from the nearly impenetrable crowds that fill retail meccas like Times Square on the weekends, the locals are just as addicted. When you go out, you're going out to eat or to shop, or, more likely, a combination of both. With good reason-- after the summer there, I truly believe that anything that can be bought and sold is for sale somewhere in HK.

There are plenty of things I would have liked to take home, but couldn't: the miniature bamboo grown in blue-and-white porcelain pots or the beautiful lotus blossoms for sale at the Flower Market; the quick, bright-eyed, black-and-white finches fluttering against the bars of their cages at the Bird Garden; the full set of RG Veda at the used Japanese bookstore; a dozen semi-precious stone bead bracelets from Shenzhen; a giant Hello Kitty plush doll to use for nefarious purposes. For everything we did buy, there were mountains of things we didn't. Still, Malinda and I especially managed to haul home substantial amounts of loot.

For some, I suppose, it's the thrill of finding bargains, which are out there, although they require great patience to unearth. For some, it's the excitement of finding treasures you can't get back home. But in struggling shoulder-to-shoulder with the masses through Esprit and Sony and local chains with names I couldn't pronounce, I felt that in this, at least, I was doing as Hong Kongers do, even when I came back to my room having bought nothing at all. Buying is the act, but shopping is the experience. Miss it, and you've missed the city itself.


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