CNBC Business | CHINA’S BREAK WITH TRADITION

CHINA’S BREAK WITH TRADITION

Lamma Island is a world away from Hong Kong’s hubbub, as Jonathan Margolis discovers

Hong Kong is synonymous with high-speed, high-pressure, high-cost living. Business here is conducted at a ferocious pace, and even leisure is somehow done at breakneck speed. The noise level, day and night, is often unbearable. And the air is notoriously polluted.

But for some Hong Kong people, including thousands of expat workers and residents, part of Hong Kong, at least, is a laid-back paradise where you can combine the revved-up business culture with an almost surreally dreamy existence – and all you can hear in the clear, rural air is birdsong, people talking and the sea lapping on the clean beaches.

Welcome to Hong Kong’s best-kept secret, Lamma Island, 35 minutes by commuter ferry from Central, but conceptually a world away. It’s lush, hilly and interesting, cheap and safe to live, quiet – there are no cars – and it’s healthy; the air is clean and laden with the scent of tropical flowers and grasses.

The island, which is brash, dynamic Hong Kong’s hippy hangout for writers and artists, also offers a superb weekend getaway if you’re on business in Hong Kong, over the border in frenetic Shenzhen, or even 90 minutes away by air in crazy Shanghai.

The problem with trying to grab an rural or seaside weekend in China is that, for the main part, the Chinese don’t do unspoilt countryside, and, although they have beaches and beach resorts, they still don’t quite get the beach holiday concept.

Sanya, on the southern tip of China’s southernmost point, Hainan Island, is a case in point. It’s developing at a pace only China can achieve, with new high-end, international hotels opening almost monthly. But on the beach, the bulk of Chinese people still look oddly lost and baffled. They have an unsettling habit of wearing hotel dressing gowns on the sand. Or, when I went to Sanya, cowboy hats … with Hawaiian shirts.

Lamma Island is somewhat more sophisticated – and, at the same time, more rustic. As you walk or cycle around the tiny island – there’s no other method of travelling – you see that much of it consists of tiny villages, meadows and smallholdings tended by old Chinese islanders.

But alongside this old-school version of rural China is a vibrant seafood restaurant scene equally popular with Chinese locals and the in-the-know international set. Lamma also has many idiosyncratic western style organic and vegetarian cafés.

In truth, there’s not much to do on Lamma, so walking, cycling, eating, drinking coffee, hanging out in bars and lounging around on the island’s many beaches are the major pastimes. The walking, in particular, is sublime, especially if you go to Lamma in spring or late autumn, when the humidity is low and the temperatures pleasant with a cool sea breeze.

There are well-marked footpaths everywhere. It’s often a little crowded at weekends, but there are delights round every corner – an old man practising Tai Chi, a stall selling some foodie treat, a group of friends playing mah-jong, a herb garden, a pretty hamlet, a Chinese family taking their dog for a walk … in a pram.

It would be negligent at this point not to mention that Lamma’s major landmark is a giant power station. It isn’t dirty, polluting or noisy, but it is unsightly, even though the Chinese are proud of it, and often choose to have picnics in spots directly facing it.

For me, though, the power station just adds to Lamma’s wacky charms. It’s a supremely happy, spirit-elevating island and you’d have to have no heart to let this one mild eyesore spoil the fun.