i'm in southeast asia with my 1913 bradshaw's handbook published at the height of european
imperialism my 100 year old guy book will leave me on a railway adventure
through archipelagos and peninsulas dotted with hills forests and paddy fields i'll tour
towering mega cities and magnificent mosques i'll encounter golden buddhas and jewelled temples
and experience some of the world's most spectacular and notorious railways as i travel
through the diverse nations of this vast region i'll learn how they asserted their independence
against the british french and dutch empires to become the economic tigers and dragons of today
i'm in hong kong continuing to explore this mega metropolis i visited the kowloon peninsula
and crossed victoria harbour to hong kong island from here i'll head north to visit
the ward villages of the new territories and west to the remote and tranquil lantau island
i'll meet a descendant of one of the region's oldest dynasties your family
has been here how long over a thousand years it makes the british occupation seem like just
learn about the father of modern china sanyasin is the person who came and made
change in a huge way and discover why hong kongers are protesting 20 years after the handover
were not being given what was promised the anger and the frustration is there and it's escalating
i'm exploring hong kong island on a metro system that handles around six billion trips a day
the success of hong kong's mass transit railway is very hard to believe it's
only existed in its modern form since 1979 and yet it has now 91 heavy rail stations
including some which are indescribably huge most unusually amongst metros in this world
it is highly profitable and its punctuality record is just shy of 100 percent
so
i'm traveling to hong kong university to learn about one of its most renowned alumni
bradshaws tells me that the foundation stone was laid in 1910 before that it was the hong
kong college of medicine for chinese and the physician dr sun yat sen graduated in 1892
since he went on to become a revolutionary to overthrow the chinese imperial dynasty
and become known as the father of modern china it makes you wonder what was on the curriculum
my
in 1911 sunyat sen and a group of revolutionaries led a successful uprising against the qing dynasty
and founded a republic in china but he spent his formative years in hong kong
dr ho yin li is an associate professor
in architectural conservation his grandfather was sunya sen's secretary
i understand that sun yatsen graduated from the medical school here was his background before
that in hong kong um before he came to hong kong he was in china as a young person and went to
school as most people who came from a family of reasonable wealth and he wasn't happy obviously
with the educational system and all kinds of systems in china then and so in fact he went to
america to hawaii where his brother lived and he did study for a short while you know in hawaii and
before he came to hong kong while he was studying to be a physician do you think he was already
having political ideas yes very much by the time he went to medical school and he was beginning to
get into contact with like-minded people to form a revolutionary idea to overthrow the qing
government and to establish a modern china why would he have revolutionary ideas what was wrong
with china in those days china i can't even begin to count you know what's wrong with china then
and so if you look at education and china was still stuck in a educational system that is to
say the least you know is not about academic freedom and if you look at the governance
and so it is a huge nation rule by a small family so it's a royal family but you know
essentially it was a dictatorship and the worst part is that there is no
concern by the government to the demand of the people eventually to put it uh simply is that
the people of fedor is looking forward to change you know and so sanya singh is the person who came
and made change in a huge way sunyat sen was a graduate of an open and modern western style
education in 1923 he returned to the university to deliver a speech that's remembered to this day
oh what an impressive room it is this is the place where one summer day in 1923
dr sanya singh the founding father of modern china came to give a rousing speech to the
community of the university of hong kong well if you come on stage i'll tell you what's insane
so in 1923 on that day imagine these rooms completely filled with people professors
students you know they're all anticipating what's understanding going to say and he
said that i feel as though i've come home and hong kong and this university of hong kong
are my intellectual workplace and you can just imagine the crowd must have been cheering
and he continued to say that and where did i get my revolutionary and modern idea and he said that
this idea came from the colony of hong kong here you are a resident in hong kong teaching hong kong
what do you think of sun yat-sen today if you go back to his the three principles of the people
and in which he advocate for a strong chinese nation so that means having pride in the chinese
identity and the second thing is that it's about developing a liberal society with freedom of all
sorts but that's important to this university intellectual freedom and the third thing is
about the livelihood of people so that means having a responsible government that addresses
and respond to people's needs in a timely manner so all of this is exactly what the young people
the protesters are asking for so in fact it's totally relevant and that there's no contradiction
at all so i wish more people would look into sanjay's political thoughts you know and think
more about it i think that way hong kong will be will get out of the trouble that we are having now
i'm heading towards hong kong's northern border
as i travel away from central districts the contrast is remarkable skyscrapers are
replaced by mountains concrete by trees and urban density by thinly populated villages
my preconceptions of hong kong are being challenged
i'm heading towards hong kong's northern border
25 minutes later i'm in kamtin a district in the new territories
this is the walled village of kat hing wai first settled by the tang clan over 500 years ago
it was built to protect the residents from rival clans and bandits
at the time of my guidebook the villager's distinctive brick walls will be tested once more
in 1898 the british wanted to establish a defensive barrier for hong kong and so they
acquired on a 99-year lease the so-called new territories which consisted of more than 600
villages not all the inhabitants were at all happy with british rule and there followed a
very bitter six day war with very high chinese casualties here at the village of cat king y
they closed the gates against the british nonetheless they were overrun the gates were
stolen and sent to britain and restored to the village only in 1925 as a gesture of goodwill
also in camtain another beautifully preserved historic village
shui tauswan inhabited by descendants of the tang clan
featuring traditional cantonese architecture parts of the village date to the 17th century
village leader ying hua tang is showing me the family temple
this is very very beautiful how old would this be oh
200 years yeah 200 years haha tell me about this nidhi haidi sanjibhai
name my daddy my grandfather and all all the generations oh wonderful may i see okay
my father and my grandfather very beautiful and very moving your family has been here how long
over a thousand years a thousand years yeah or mr ten one family one thousand years yeah it
makes the british occupation seem like just a moment
tucked away in the quiet village the yitai's study hall built during the latter years of the qing
dynasty in the mid 19th century was converted into a primary school around the time of my guidebook
at little desks like this countless generations of villagers
will have done their confucian studies and will have learned too
to revere their ancestors it strikes me that in a place where a family has lasted for a thousand
years you probably view history differently it's not so much about the isms imperialism
communism capitalism the empires don't matter so much the qings and the mings and even
for the one-day visitor to the village it makes you perceive the past quite differently
i'm leaving the new territories and taking the mtr back to the heaving metropolis
where i'm navigating a vast open-air market in wanchai on hong kong island
wang chai is an old residential district of faded apartment blocks and on them they have grown air
conditioning units like barnacles on the hull of an old ship but down here by contrast the produce
is incredibly beautiful and fresh well fresh it should be half it is still alive
hello guys hi excuse me are you enjoying hong kong yeah we are wherever you come from well we
both live here yeah you do yeah so this is our local our local market oh how amazing how long
have you lived in hong kong uh i've been here nine months i've lived here for like
a month and a half wow how you enjoy it yeah i love it what do you enjoy about the life here
uh i mean for me we came here because of the the food and the the travel opportunities
um you can really travel anywhere in in south asia very easily from here and it's an exciting
place and there's a lot going on it's never boring there have been protests recently has that been
has that been disruptive that has that had you on edge a bit uh no it's actually been very exciting
i think for me uh i mean it's not very often you see democracy like happen in front of your
eyes that dramatically thank you so much so nice to talk to you yeah your meal tonight
this silent and very dignified demonstration is part of a series of protests that have been
held in hong kong over the proposal for a law by which hong kong people could be extradited
to the people's republic of china for trial on charges presumably including political charges now
the british did not really bequeath to hong kong democracy but they did leave a legacy of laws that
were pretty much fair and non-political and so hong kong people now fear that they're losing some
of those important rights they're losing their special standing and they're losing their autonomy
it's my last day exploring hong kong and i'm heading to one of its outlying islands
my next stop will be lantau which the chinese call big island mountain certainly it's a great deal
larger than hong kong island and although it's vastly populated it is strategically important
it hosts the international airport that opened in 1998.
i'd like to see how important it was to the british as they monitored shipping
headed towards the pearl river delta and the great ports of china beyond
be a safe escalator user holds the handrail and don't keep your eyes only on your mobile phone
lantau island was added to the colony in 1898 as part of the new territory's lease
today it's connected to the mainland by a large double deck suspension bridge with road above
and rail underneath the largely mountainous island is often referred to as the lungs of hong kong
a destination for pilgrims the remote poland monastery with its colorful buddhist imagery
sits alongside the big buddha a 34 metre bronze statue built in 1993
i've arrived in tai o a traditional fishing village on the west coast of the island
what a sight the village of tayo on the same island as the intercontinental airport but here
houses on stilts long before people lived in apartment blocks
i suppose this is how they dwelt and long before they made their living
out of financial services and shipping it was with a boat and a fishing net
no need to ask here whether the fish is fresh
hello
let's go for a lovely cruise please thank you
hmm there's a cool breeze upon the water and the modern world seems very far away
the fishing village of tayo offers a glimpse of what life was like in pre-colonial hong kong
and just outside the village with a commanding view over the pearl river delta
is a striking example of colonial architecture
it's now a boutique hotel and carl law is the manager
carl from the veranda we have a terrific view lots of islands and actually quite
a lot of shipping as well yes and if i look out what what can i see if you look all the way far
you can see the macau and jihad so this is quite a strategic point yes he is this building what was
what was this this building it was a marine police station and it was a built in 1902
and during that time there's a lot of pirates around this area so this is why this police
station was built to look after this cold side also look after this fishing village what were
the tasks of the marine police at the night time the police officer will use the searchlight to
scan around the area to look after if any illegal immigrant although also this macro around this
area during that time when did it cease to be a police station uh this police station
was seen close at the 2002 and the reason it was closed is because of this village become
safer and safer they only recorded only five crimes during the period so that's why the
police station was closed and then the police was moved out a happy reason for a closure
i'm nearing the end of my exploration of hong kong and returning to the central district
i came in for a simple cup of char this is wholly unfamiliar to me
red brown liquid boiling hot it's a whole new strain of chai and not necessarily my cup of tea
this i'm told is hong kong style milk tea
thank you very much thank you
the whole place smells strongly of tea
yeah it's very very strong tea with condensed milk
and the tea has been repeatedly strained to make it smooth it is smooth
it's a kind of very strange fusion between british and chinese ways
which actually reminds me that i came to hong kong in the very last days of british rule i
was defense secretary i came to visit the troops it was received by the last governor
a government house and we did feel very sad about giving up hong kong but i think that was
mixed with a certain shame because you know possessing a colony in the closing years of
the 20th century was anachronistic to put it mildly and in 150 years british rule
we had not established british style democracy but still we did fear for the future of hong kong
two decades have passed since the handover ceremony overseen by the prince of wales
and the governor chris patton i want to find out from hong kongers how life has changed for them
radio presenters noreen meer and hugh chiverton and benita chick a ceo of a social enterprise
a long time residence it's nearly a generation since the handover of hong kong back to china
is it still very different to live in hong kong from elsewhere in the people's republic uh things
have certainly changed our education system um a lot of the shops a lot of things but i think
there's something very distinct about hong kong culture and our identity
how we behave how we interact with the word rest of the world people would still want to
come to hong kong because we supposedly have a rule of law or whatever that
make us distinct noreen for you two would this be the fundamental difference the rule of law
i think so i agree with benita the rule of law is very different in china in china it's a civil law
system in hong kong we've still got a common law system i think inherited from um britain
and we trust the judicial system here in hong kong hugh i take it you've lived here before and
after the handover has it made much of a difference to you have you seen many differences
i think the biggest differences i've seen to be honest in hong kong over that period have been
differences that have affected the whole world in terms of globalization i think hong kong is a more
uh it's more westernized place it's more international city than it used to be back in the
80s when i when i came to hong kong but i think that's true of china as well one thing that hasn't
changed that is important i think also is freedom of expression that you can really say we're as
free to say what we want in hong kong as anywhere in the world and you're not over the border
what is at stake now with the demonstrations the crux of the problem is the lack of democracy
or universal suffrage which is enshrined in the basic law people want to vote people
want to vote for their leaders in hong kong and they're not able to 20 years after the handover
were not being given what was promised the anger and the frustration is there and it's escalating
my fear for hong kong would be all of the protests all of the noise all of the international coverage
actually won't achieve anything
amid the pulsating pace of capitalist life in hong kong i've enjoyed perceiving contrasts
my unexpected brushes with village life and with traditional ways of thinking and doing
on my first visit since the end of colonial rule i find the long-established trends have continued
passing under the control of communist china has not prevented the city from becoming bigger
taller and even more international but as sunyat sen observed a century ago
the city's people are used to living freely and expressing their minds and
the question for the future is whether for beijing that contrast goes too far
next time i'm in thailand to find out about one of the kingdom's great monarchs
king long gone is up to today michael uh venerated for i'm saving thailand from this colonial threat
take cover in an umbrella factory how do i look wow you look like an astronaut and discover
the potent ingredients of thai cooking this is a shrimp paste really yeah i can check the smell and
later tonight moving personal recollections and archive footage are brought together in
a powerful documentary belson our story here on bbc2 at nine next top gear
you