Exploring Hong Kong’s Cape D’Aguilar
By: Emily Li
Tags: Hong Kong, Hike, Culture, Friendship, Sea

Sauntering in Hong Kong’s Cape D’Aguilar feels like a return of my University days, when I used to frequent Sai Kung’s beautiful seaside with cascades of spectacular cliffs and pounding tides flapping against the rocky shores. Besides the similarity in scenic beauty, hiking with S*****, a friend since second year of uni, added another layer of the “student-times” ambience. “People come and go, yet our cherished ones always stay.” was what that I said to J***** without much conviction when we parted in 2019. With the testaments of time, distance, and personal growth, I guess this has proved to be true, as our hearts answers the distant callings of a friend — and we should cherish those that reconnect as in the old days despite periods apart.

During weeks when work schedules are busy, I sometimes wonder if that curious explorer spirit that I had fade away. As Charles Handy said, “Work will be central in our adulthoods — it will dominate as you get more engrossed in it — either because the demands take your waking hours, or you find it so fulfilling to take it down the road of life.” Engaged and fatigued during the week, I sometimes loose the momentum to actively search “novel” places to explore — yet with better understanding that the island is full of gems yet undiscovered. Yet, novel ideas of friends contribute to part of the puzzle that pieces together where we’d like to explore next, the colors in our personal palette become more colorful. Cape d’Aguilar was a proposal from S*****, and despite being a relatively easy hike (no steep ascents or sharp descents, nicely paved roads, nearly no crossroads), the views were spectacular on a bright and chilly weekend in December.

S***** and I studied very different fields in University, she studied sciences while I studied business, and our path further diverged after University, when she took on further studies while I started in the workplace. After 3 months into work, it occurred to me that most of my friends whom I’d met up with in the weekends were navigating in similar arenas — recently graduated and working full time in Hong Kong’s finance sector. That made the conversations easy (as we had mutual topics and similar experience) … yet not totally relaxed I guess, as the topics covered our daily work, hobbies, and weekend ventures. And so I pondered before meeting S*****, what would conversations be like, when mutual experiences were literally none in terms work that dominated most of our waking times during the day? It turned out to be an authentic ride in cultural crossroads, family, and pursuits — thanks to her bluntness, curiosity, openness, and down-to-earth practicality.

With our divergent cultural backgrounds and professional pursuits — our work-related pursuits, country knowledge, and cultural rituals were exotic knowledge for both of us. In fields of work, her working in lab from morning until late evenings (and even half-day weekends!) that would be commonplace practice for the next 5 to 6 years was quite unfathomable for me; while me working in the office floor with 400+ people in one open-space office was hard to envisage for her too. Cultural practices, geographic landscapes, discipline for daily prayers, loose virus government measures, and family festivity preparations in Bangladesh were drastically different from that Taiwan. These disparate upbringings and cultural knowledge provided spectacles for the other to zoom into and understand cultural practices, societal values, family orientations, and ways of life in the other part of the world. It was extremely interesting to get a sneak peak of S*****’s exotic practices and values that diverged with my upbringing — yet we found more mutual ground as compared to disparities.

In terms of history, S***** talked about her grandparents who immigrated from India to Bangladesh (along with a huge Muslim population) in 1947, with relatives left behind across the border in India, which she hasn’t got a chance to visit and know well. I talked about Grandpa who crossed the Taiwanese strait in 1949 as a soldier who was barely 20 years old and settled in Taiwan along with a huge influx of Mainland population. Similarly, relatives and family were left back in China, which we’ve never visited (Grandpa once) and got to know well. In terms of language learning, Shaoli talked about navigating between the three languages Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu and asked if I picked up Cantonese easily because I was a Mandarin and Taiwanese speaker. And in family, we both share our tight bonds across borders, that despite limitations in travel and parallel schedules, we still keep treasured daily communications with family. (Huge joys in observing growth and transformations of our brothers haha) In the end of the day, there might be huge crossroads in terms of professional pursuits, cultural backgrounds, and childhood upbringings, yet there are things that are universal — love for family and friends, hardworking virtues and ethics, culturally influenced values, curiosity in learning about diverse cultures and natural landscapes, and fear for uncertainty.

Cape D’Aguilar was a beautiful hike, and I guess the landscape was made all the more spectacular with a friend alongside sharing mutual cultural rides and pursuits. After exploring the spectacular cliffs and taking pictures with the chilly breeze flapping on our faces, we had a picnic with one of the best views — on a plain overlooking the cliffs along the azur seaside. This reminds me of the past seaside picnics that I’d always cherish (I guess outdoors picnicking was a hobby imported since my exchange in Paris haha) — the mackerel sandwich with J******* along the bridges of Istanbul overlooking the Bosporus Strait, the raw scallops and Camembert picnic with J***** overlooking the Etretat cliffs, or the saucissons and baguette picnic in the Calanques with Dad. All were wonderful memories, treasured deep with the magical element of sea views, that stay with us. When I visualize them from time to time, if offers connection with/ contrast to/ relief from, present beautiful times/ challenging difficulties.