On the site of the old docks
If you didn’t know better, you might think you were hallucinating: in the middle of an otherwise ordinary housing estate, on a busy road, suddenly … the hull of a large white ship rises up in front of you, complete with portholes, radar mast, railings, and life rafts.
This apparent illusion is the Whampoa Shopping Centre, part of the second-largest private housing development in Hong Kong. It occupies the site of former Dry Dock No. 1 of Hong Kong and Whampoa Dockyards. If you had been standing on the prow of the huge ship before construction work began in 1985, you would have been looking out over nothing but water.
Info
Address 10 Shung King Street, Hung Hom, Kowloon | Public Transport MTR West Rail Line (purple), East Rail Line (light blue), exits C1 or C2 | Hours Daily: 10am–10pm| Tip You should definitely take the lift that travels to the restaurant at the top, from where outside stairs run up to the top deck, and give the feeling of a fantastic but strange cruise trip.
The sprawling housing estate is part of the empire of one of the richest men in the world, Li Ka-shing, who at the age of 19 laid the foundations of his immense fortune with the export of plastic flowers.
Li Ka-shing features in a recent, gripping, and true story about crime and punishment. On May 23, 1996, the notorious gang leader Cheung Sze-keung kidnapped Li Ka-shing’s son Victor. Armed with machine guns, his gang knocked on Li Ka-shing’s door and demanded a staggering ransom of HK$2 billon - in cash, of course. Li didn’t think twice, procured HK$1 billion he had available, and Victor was released after being kept for one night. The ransom in cash, however, was significantly more bank notes than Cheung had expected, and only with difficulty were the bills packed into the van that he had come in. After leaving, Cheung called and asked Li Ka-shing for some advice about the best way to invest all that freshly won money. It is said that Li Ka-shing recommended that he invest in mainland China, well aware that the People’s Republic actively practises capital punishment. And it was in mainland China that, in 1998, Cheung Sze-keung was caught along with other gang members, tried for murder, robbery and kidnapping, convicted, and then executed.
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