Pride of Place: A series in which teaching staff and students from the English Department reflect on a place in Hong Kong. [Read all entries.] [Revisit the “Pet Sounds” series.] [Revisit the “Headspace” series.] [Revisit the “Ongoing” series.] [Revisit the “Interrogative” series.]
Lion Rock Peak, 495 metres high. I’ve been there twice, and I’m planning one more ascent before I leave Hong Kong in mid-August. Despite the heat, it felt good to be drenched in sweat and out of breath and look all the way down on Kowloon, trying to spot the tiny university in the distance. It took me about an hour to get to the peak from the Tai Wai entrance to the Lion Rock Country Park. The way up to Kowloon Pass (not the peak) through the shady Lord of the Rings forest was my favourite, and the quick 30-minute descent on the other side, down the steepest secret stairs with most magnificent views of Lok Fu and Kowloon Tong, past a hidden village with dogs, actually beat the peak: it felt better. I’ve done the Kowloon Pass much more than twice, both ways, so up was down another time. I’m not sure why such trips are called hiking here: it used to take me just an hour and a half to walk from my former place at Tai Wai to Hong Kong Baptist University—check it out on Google Maps. Hiking would imply several days, with tents and fires, wouldn’t it?
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Ivan Delazari is former PhD Fellow and part-time lecturer at the Department of English. He is the author of Musical Experience in Fictional Narrative (doct. diss., HKBU 2018), “Overhearing Diegetic Music in Narrative Fiction” (Narrative 26.2, May 2018), and 60 other publications in English and Russian.[Click here to read all entries by Ivan.]
Department of English, Hong Kong Baptist University 