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Ed Peters

There are all sorts of ways to get around Hong Kong – trains, trams, automobiles – but none offers as many diversions as the Monopoly board.
Frequently cited as the world’s most popular board game, Monopoly’s Hong Kong version debuted in 1965. It’s undergone revisions in subsequent years, with a 1997 handover version to mark the British colony’s return to Chinese rule and the addition of funkier tokens such as a dinosaur and a duck.
But the most radical innovation is the latest, the Hong Kong Attractions edition, which introduced smart cards instead of the folding stuff, multimillion-dollar property values and tourist spots purportedly chosen by popular acclaim.
Inevitably, the attractions run the gamut of the usual suspects, from the Avenue of Star [sic] to Tai O, which a particularly waggish guidebook writer once dubbed “The Venice of Hong Kong”.
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If you’re thinking about exploring some new ground in the city, rather than taking the game’s picks as gospel give the dice a rattle and then, wherever you land, veer off to somewhere less busy and more interesting.
Nothing’s changed as far as starting at Go is concerned, although the game’s conception of a “consumption voucher” is a not-too-shabby 2 million Monopoly dollars (M$) each time you pass.


First throw: a 1 – Lion Rock (M$600,000). Magnificent as this 140-million-year-old lump of granite looks from afar, and even though it inspired Cantopop hero Roman Tam to warble the song that incorporates the name in its title, from the summit, Lion Rock not so very different from the other peaks that overlook Kowloon.
Far better to head west to Hong Kong’s highest mountain, Tai Mo Shan (957 metres), in the very centre of the New Territories and on the MacLehose Trail.
The summit is off-limits, but assuming there’s no cloud about, up here it’s not unlike being aboard a drone, with soaring vistas in every direction. Sad to say, the wild tea plants that used to flourish here have pretty much been picked clean.

Throw again: 6 – skip past the swingeing M$2 million income tax levy, land on Chance, and then throw a 1 and hit Pedder Street (M$1 million).
It’s hard to conceive of a less inspiring spot, featuring little more than banks and shopping malls. However, a couple of hundred metres away, Li Yuen Streets East and West have somehow survived the relentless march of progress, and are packed with stalls and hole-in-the wall boutiques that – unusually for a city centre – shout character at full volume.
Tourist tat is at a minimum and there are some useful artisans who’ll fix a watch or restring a pearl necklace. Long may they thrive.

Third throw: a 5 bypasses that simian character staring out from behind the jail’s bars and arrives at the Space Museum (M$1.4 million). Clever as this igloo was in 1980, when it opened, it now feels past it.
Take heart, for more or less next door, with fewer bells and whistles but with nearly 19,000 items in its tender care is the Museum of Art. A HK$400 million (US$51 million) renovation programme (just before Covid struck) ensured the museum is now punching above its weight, with a host of galleries and a constant round of intriguing exhibitions.
Admission, rather amazingly, is free to almost the entire site.

Shake the dice once again: another 5. Oh, dear, it’s SoHo (M$1.8 million). If anywhere summed up the havoc wreaked by the events of the past few years, it’s the closed premises, peeling property agents’ adverts and general air of dilapidation along and around Elgin Street and South Of Hollywood Road.
No matter; head west a short way and, in the environs of Blake Garden, a whole new and rather hip area is emerging from its very metropolitan chrysalis, with smart eateries, one-off galleries, coffee bars and the like growing up rather as SoHo once did back in the 1990s.
Next, a 2: pause to consider the anomaly that is Free Parking – a rarity in any major city in the world and a complete myth in Hong Kong, where somewhere to cool your wheels can cost HK$10 million or more.

The dice falls showing 3 – and it’s Pottinger Street (M$2.2 million), whose gimcrack stalls at its lower end act as a sort of alfresco almanac. Spooky Halloween gear? It must be October. Rugger stuff? The Rugby Sevens are coming up. Jingling bells? Christmas looms.
Much more edifying entertainment lies at the top of the street, where (though it’s not exactly a secret) the one-time Central police station has been given the stardust treatment and now rejoices as the art and leisure mecca called Tai Kwun.
No doubt the property developers who had their eyes on this profitable plot are gnashing their dentures. Everybody else is cheering.

Rattle, rattle – a 3 again. Canton Road (M$2.6 million). Fine if your idea of fun is high-priced, high-end boutiques and snarling one-way traffic. Not much good for anything else.
The solution is to scurry towards Nathan Road, and immerse yourself in the former army barracks that is now Kowloon Park, a 13-hectare lung in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui. Wander about the maze, chill with the flamingos, saunter through the Chinese Garden.
Best of all are the dozen or so Chinese banyan trees, whose spreading branches impart an all-embracing calm.
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Throw a 2: Towngas (M$1.5 million). Then a 6 to dodge Go To Jail and wind up at Ocean Park (M$3.2 million). Is Disneyland better? The jury’s out. Still, if you’re in this particular neighbourhood, Wong Chuk Hang lays on rather more sophisticated ways to pass the time.
As part of an extensive buffet of options, Artjamming, in the Yally Industrial Building, invites all comers to have a go at painting a masterpiece, and there are upmarket second-hand clothes stores, a clutch of smart places to eat and a host of art galleries.
The final throw leads to The Peak (M$4 million), which anyone who has ever been bold enough to venture to will tell you resounds to the clatter of selfie sticks and the metaphorical ker-ching, ker-ching of souvenir shops’ cash registers.

The obvious escape route is the leafy Harlech and Lugard roads circular; however, it’s better to tackle the fairly stiff climb up Austin Road, which leads past the mansions and manicured gardens of the rich and famous to the highest accessible point of this 554-metre extinct volcano, Victoria Peak Garden, where the panoramas are just as stupendous and the crowds – excepting a dog walker or two and perhaps a bridal couple posing for photos – are noticeable by their absence.
Finally, as any veteran player will tell you (ask Hong Kong teacher Christopher Woo, who won the Monopoly World Championships in 1996) it’s a smart move to grab the transport squares, which are given over to the Peak Tram, the regular trams, the Ngong Ping cable car and – inevitably – Star Ferry, each priced at M$2 million.
However, all these pale in comparison with a Heliservices helicopter trip aboard a twin-engined MD 902 Explorer, which starts at HK$16,400 for an 18-minute flight – the “Victoria Harbour Experience” that takes in the Victoria Harbour skyline before heading “down and around the beaches and bays of South Hong Kong Island”.


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The Monopoly - Hong Kong Attractions edition board’s starting point hasn’t changed, but the amount of Monopoly money you get each time you pass go certainly has. Photo: Ed Peters

The Monopoly - Hong Kong Attractions edition has players landing on squares representing all the usual tourist draws. But in each case there is somewhere nearby more appealing to explore. Photo: Ed Peters

Lion Rock on the Monopoly – Hong Kong Attractions board. Photo: Ed Peters

Tai Mo Shan is a more worthy Kowloon peak to visit than Lion rock. Photo: Shutterstock

The Pedder Street square on the Monopoly – Hong Kong Attractions board. For authenticity, head to nearby Li Yuen Street East or West. Photo: Ed Peters

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The Monopoly – Hong Kong Attractions board. Photo: Ed Peters

The Peak, the priciest square on the Monopoly – Hong Kong Attractions board. Photo: Ed Peters

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Thomas Wong Chung-hang who designed "The World Rescue" an award-winning board game that is about global warming, in Hong Kong on November 10, 2020. Wong runs the People on Board, a social enterprise which sells board games and which has donated more than 2,000 boxes of board games to 8 social welfare organizations for them to pass onto low-income families.10NOV20 [FEATURES POST MAGAZINE] SCMP / K. Y. Cheng

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Various board games designed by Thomas Wong Chung-hang in Hong Kong on November 10, 2020. Wong runs the People on Board, a social enterprise which sells board games and which has donated more than 2,000 boxes of board games to 8 social welfare organizations for them to pass onto low-income families. Wong's 's board game "The World Rescue" an award-winning board game that is about global warming. 10NOV20 [FEATURES POST MAGAZINE] SCMP / K. Y. Cheng

Princeton Wong poses for a photograph with his board game in Hong Kong. Princeton Wong is a Hong Kong based board game designer who has designed the game called Electioneer, an election-strategy game inspired by the atmosphere in the Legislative Council election in 2016 in Hong Kong. 11NOV20 [FEATURES] SCMP / Jonathan Wong

Thomas Wong Chung-hang's MTR Board Game, in Hong Kong on November 10, 2020. Wong runs the People on Board, a social enterprise which sells board games and which has donated more than 2,000 boxes of board games to 8 social welfare organizations for them to pass onto low-income families.10NOV20 [FEATURES POST MAGAZINE] SCMP / K. Y. Cheng

Thomas Wong Chung-hang's board game "Master Chef" in Hong Kong on November 10, 2020. Wong runs the People on Board, a social enterprise which sells board games and which has donated more than 2,000 boxes of board games to 8 social welfare organizations for them to pass onto low-income families. 10NOV20 [FEATURES POST MAGAZINE] SCMP / K. Y. Cheng

Thomas Wong Chung-hang runs the People on Board, a social enterprise intended to use the power of play to bring people together and which has donated more than 2,000 boxes of board games to eight social welfare organisations for them to pass onto low-income families. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Lifestyle

Travel & Leisure

We roll the dice on Monopoly’s Hong Kong Attractions board, and find better nearby alternatives to the squares we land on as places to visit in real life
For example, swap Canton Road for Kowloon Park or SoHo for Blake Garden. If by misfortune you are on that tourist trap The Peak, head to Victoria Park Garden


The Hong Kong Attractions Monopoly edition takes players to all the usual suspects. Treat them as starting points for explorations of more interesting places nearby.


Hong Kong