Between Islands: How I See Hong Kong

I was born in Hong Kong, at Mathilda Hospital on The Peak. It’s a fact that sounds more dramatic than it feels. For me, Hong Kong has never been an abstract global city, it’s simply where my life started.

I visit about once a year. Each visit feels familiar, but slightly disorienting. I grew up in New York City, so Hong Kong has always existed in my mind through comparison. I don’t experience it on its own terms at first I instinctively map it onto what I know and what i grew up hearing.

When I was younger, I would compare Kowloon to Brooklyn and Hong Kong Island to Manhattan. Hong Kong Island, with Central’s glass towers and steep hills, felt like Manhattan compressed, finance, density, verticality. Kowloon felt more residential, more layered, more like Brooklyn: busy, textured, lived-in.

The comparison helped me make sense of it. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that the analogy only goes so far.

New York spreads outward. Even Manhattan, dense as it is, feels breathable compared to Hong Kong. Streets are wider. The grid is legible. You can see the sky. In Hong Kong, space feels negotiated at every level. Towers rise directly from podium malls. Pedestrian walkways float above traffic. Elevators and escalators substitute for sidewalks. The city is less horizontal and more stacked.

Growing up in New York shaped how I interpret that difference. In New York, public space feels abundant and expressive, parks, plazas, street corners where people linger. In Hong Kong, public space feels more structured. Efficient. Purpose-driven. There is less room for sprawl, both physically and socially.

When I land in Hong Kong now, I notice how tightly everything fits together. Mountains frame the skyline. The harbor limits expansion. Development pushes upward because it cannot push outward. Geography shapes the city in a way that feels immediate and unavoidable.

From The Peak, the city looks orderly, the harbor dividing Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, towers clustered along the waterfront. But at street level, the density becomes personal. Apartments stacked close enough to see into each other. Laundry hanging between buildings. MTR platforms moving thousands of people with quiet precision.

In New York, density feels expansive. In Hong Kong, it feels concentrated and in a way more dense.

That difference has changed how I see cities more generally. When I was younger, I focused on the skyline, which city looked more impressive, more global, more powerful. Now I think about land scarcity, transit systems, housing prices, and how infrastructure adapts to constraint.

Hong Kong doesn’t compare to New York, but not because one is better. They operate under different physical realities.

New York has room to expand into boroughs and suburbs. Hong Kong is bordered by mountains and water. That limitation forces vertical solutions. It produces some of the most efficient public transit in the world. It also produces some of the smallest apartments.

Each time I visit, I’m struck by how normal that vertical life feels to residents. High-rise living isn’t luxury; it’s standard. Elevators are part of daily rhythm. Commercial, residential, and transit spaces overlap seamlessly.

Being born on The Peak feels symbolic in hindsight. It’s one of the highest residential points in the city, overlooking both the harbor and the density below. But I understand Hong Kong much better at ground level and often as an admirer, specifically as a huge fan of the movies Rush Hour, walking through Kowloon markets, taking the Star Ferry across the harbor, riding the MTR during rush hour.

As someone who grew up in New York but returns to Hong Kong every year, I don’t experience either city neutrally. I’m constantly translating one into the other. Kowloon becomes Brooklyn in my head. Hong Kong Island becomes Manhattan. Then the comparison breaks down, and I have to reconsider.

That process, comparing, mapping, adjusting, is how I’ve learned to see cities.

Hong Kong isn’t just where I was born. It’s a place that challenges my assumptions about space, scale, and density. It reminds me that cities are shaped by geography first, and by policy and culture second.

New York taught me to love urban life, but Hong Kong taught me to notice its limits. And somewhere between the two islands, I learned how to see a place that that i call one of my nationalities.