1980s Hong Kong introduction

Hong Kong in the 1980s

In 1981 I visited Hong Kong on my way to Beijing where I was to attend a Chinese Language summer school at Beijing's Renmin University. A tour of China followed which terminated in Hong Kong - see the China travel pages at this site.

These photographs were taken in the all-too-short time I had in Hong Kong before getting the flight back to London.

Hong Kong had changed since the 1950s. There was the new Mass Transit system, a new network of overhead roads around Wanchai, and most noticeable of all, the fact that the British presence was now largely unnoticeable. But in the 1980s Hong Kong was still the old Hong Kong, still recognizable with the major landmarks unchanged.

Al that was to change very quickly. Stonecutters Island was to disappear to make way for the new airport, and a new Kowloon-side highway was to encroach on the harbour. In the 19950s or the 1980s one could look out over the harbour from the wharves at Mongkok, but not today.