Aitch-Kay

So I needed to go to Hong Kong to get a new visa.

Why did I need to do this? Because you can't get a new visa in China; you have to "leave the country" to do that, and then apply from a Chinese embassy wherever you happen to be.

Okay, makes sense. A little anal, but whatever.

But, hold the jiaozi a second: Hong Kong is in China--has been since 1997, when the Brits handed it over after more than 150 years of jolly good colonial-ish rule.

Ha! Joke's on you, Chinese visa office!

Well, no: Joke's on whatever hapless idiot thinks Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China area really, truly the same country.

I made that mistake on my way in, when I fell asleep on the bus from the Shenzhen airport and was shocked to find myself lost and disoriented at not one but two alienating customs checks--one for China and one for Hong Kong. Each of these took a ridiculous amount of time, so I amused myself looking at the frightening posters of what happens to you if you bring raw or live birds into Hong Kong from the Mainland (hint: it isn't fun).

The "We're not in Kansas, anymore" feeling just intensified once I got into HK.

Everyone drove on the wrong side of the street. Even stranger, everone obeyed traffic laws. No, seriously.

Everyone spoke Cantonhua. What's more, they were horrifically offended when I tried to get by on the Putonghua that was getting me places on the Mainland.

The common currency is the Hong Kong dollar, which is worth just a little less than the Renminbi. The new coins and bills looked snazzy and shiny. But the old ones had a familiar profile: Queen Liz II, staring back at me for the first time in six months. It was weird.

To my delight, the Internet was uncensored. I got my fill of all the Wordpress blogs I never get to read, and then just to make a point I checked out Amnesty International, Students for a Free Tibet and the World Uyghur Association websites (really mature, I know).

If Shanghai tries to be New York, Hong Kong aspires to embody London. And to a surprising extent, it succeeds. Leaving aside the British architecture, the double-decker buses and trams (or "ding-dings," as a friend assured me they're colloqiually called) and the British-accented voice on the subway telling passengers to "mind the gap," there's a distinctly London-y feel to the place. And Hong Kongers know it--they carry themselves with a much more cosmopolitan air, and are quick to assure you that although they're as Chinese as anyone from Guangdong, Shanghai or Beijing, they certainly aren't the same as Mainland residents.

Okay. Point taken.

The fascinating and puzzling thing, though, is that technically Hong Kong is still ruled by Beijing--the same government that controls Anhui, Qinghai and Liaoning. Through a bizarre series of legislation I'm still trying to get my head around, Hong Kong and Macau (which was handed over by the Portuguese in 1999, two years after HK) get to carry on more or less the same as they were before. In fact, many people who fled to countries like Canada in the mid-1990s, fearing crazy, apocalyptic crackdowns, have returned to Hong Kong because there are fewer market constraints.

What threw me for a loop the most while in Hong Kong was the overt political protest. Within 24 hours of my arrival I passed Falun Gong posters and protesters in two separate locations on glitzy Hong Kong Island, as well as a public protest whose exact purpose I couldn't ascertain but which I could tell wasn't very favourable towards the Chinese government.

Shit like this would get you disappeared in seconds on the Mainland.

But all this political free-wheeling is catching up with Hong Kong: Last month Macau signed into law legislation on Article 23, part of its constitution that deals with acts of sedition, state secrets and other fun stuff.

Article 23 has been part of HK and Macau's "mini constitutions" for years, but there has never been any laws articulated to back it up. In 2003, huge protests erupted in Hong Kong because the government tried to enact Article 23-related legislation and people were afraid the vague definitions used would effectively clamp down on protest and free speech, PRC style.

The government backed down then, but some people fear Macau's legislation could set a precedent for its more politically vocal and economically central cousin to follow suit.

Interesting times.