Hong Kong Island: A Bullfrog

 

Author: jeffnaper 

 

The old fishermen, their faces like crumpled parchment maps of a thousand typhoons, would spin their yarns in the humid air of Aberdeen. They'd swear on their last catch that a giant frog spent its days sunbathing on the surface of Victoria Harbour, only to leap ashore at night, its eyes fixed on the Lion Rock of Kowloon. They’d say it was a courtship of mythic proportions, a clandestine affair between a creature of the sea and the stone guardian of the land. Of course, it was all hogwash, the kind of fanciful nonsense born of salty air and too many bottles of Tsingtao beer.

 

And yet… a glance at any map of Hong Kong Island, a fleeting glimpse from a plane, or a dream-like bird's-eye view, and the resemblance is uncanny. The island, in its very shape and posture, looks like a great bullfrog, poised as if to make a monumental leap into the dark expanse of the South China Sea.

This frog-island has a gaping maw, and that maw is Central. It’s a place of ceaseless movement, a relentless engine that inhales and exhales fortunes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments. Every day, it swallows countless individuals—sharp-suited financiers, wide-eyed tourists, hustling vendors, artists chasing a muse—and spits them back out, a little richer, a little poorer, a little more or less complete than when they arrived. The air here hums with the electric charge of money changing hands and deals being struck, the clatter of heels on pavement, the symphony of a city in perpetual motion. It’s a place where you can feel the pulse of the world, a financial heart that never, ever stops beating.

 

The frog’s left leg, that's the Western District. Time, a tireless and unforgiving force elsewhere, seems to have taken a nap there. The district breathes with a quieter rhythm, the scent of dried seafood and incense lingering in the narrow streets. This is where the old-timers live, their faces etched with the history of the city. They play mahjong in the doorways, their chatter a comfortable, familiar drone. They haggle with market vendors with the practiced grace of a long-term partnership, a dance as old as the buildings they inhabit. The tram, a relic from a different era, trundles along with a gentle clang, a patient snail amidst the city's frantic pace. The buildings, with their green-shuttered windows and peeling paint, lean into each other like old friends swapping secrets. Here, the past isn't a museum piece; it’s a living, breathing part of the present, a whispered story in every alleyway.

 

Then there's the right leg, the Eastern District. This is the new-old part of the city, a patchwork of contradictions. It's like a pair of worn-out jeans, meticulously patched with new, vibrant denim, ready to be sold as a fresh, fashionable statement. High-rises with their mirrored glass façades loom over crumbling tenements, their balconies festooned with hanging laundry. Hipster cafes and chic boutiques are tucked beside traditional noodle shops and dusty herbal medicine stores. It’s a place where a startup founder might share an elevator with a grizzled fisherman, a world where the future and the past exist in a strange, harmonious friction. This juxtaposition is what gives the East its energy, a dynamic tension that both grounds and propels it forward.

 

And what about the back? The back of this great, stoic frog-island, that's the quieter, greener part of the island. The hills of the Peak, the tranquil bays of Shek O and Stanley. These are the places where the frog-island rests, where it finds its moments of peace and introspection. The verdant slopes are its shoulders, bearing the weight of the city’s ambition and its history. From up high on the Peak, you can see the entire creature laid out before you, the lights of the city twinkling like a galaxy of dreams. You can see the harbour, the place where it supposedly rests, and Kowloon, the Lion Rock watching over it all.

I've been gone for years now, separated from that island by oceans and time zones. My life has a different rhythm, a different hum. But it’s a hum that never quite drowns out the echo of the frog-island. I could be walking down a street in some nondescript suburban town, the air smelling of cut grass and car exhaust, and a sudden, sharp memory of a humid Hong Kong evening will hit me. A flash of a street vendor's stall, the smell of sizzling fish balls, the chaotic beauty of neon signs a blinding waterfall of light. And in that moment, I'm not in my current life; I'm back on that island.

I often find myself thinking about it, especially in the quiet moments, when the day is winding down and the lights begin to come on. I'll be standing at my window, watching the streetlights flick on one by one, and in my mind, they are not just lights. They are the constellations of the frog-island, the millions of little bulbs that make up its vibrant, beating skin. I can almost hear its great, resonant croak, a sound that is part traffic rumble, part human chatter, part the lapping of waves against the harbour wall. It's a sound that is uniquely, undeniably Hong Kong.

 

The old fishermen were right, in a way. The island is a living thing, a mythical creature. It rests in the day, basking in the light of the world, and at night, it awakens. It doesn’t leap to Kowloon; its leap is into the memories of those who have left it behind. It jumps across oceans and continents, into the minds and hearts of its people. It calls to them, a siren song of home, of a place that is both intensely modern and anciently traditional.

To this day, every time I stop in a place where the lights are dim and the night has just begun, I listen. And without fail, I hear the great croak of the frog-island. It’s a sound that reassures me, a reminder that no matter how far I've traveled, no matter how much time has passed, Hong Kong Island has never left me. It is a part of my story, a piece of my soul, an unwavering presence that calls to me from across the globe. It is a home that I carry within me, a great stone frog, poised forever in its silent, awe-inspiring leap.