The Quiet Corners

A reluctant traveler finds more than skyscrapers on a merit trip to Hong Kong.

I had never counted myself among the kind who collect cities like stamps.

Travel, for me, was a necessity for work, a means to an end. The postcards others kept as memories, I kept as dust in drawers. So when I agreed to join a merit trip to Hong Kong—an itinerary thick with temples, traditional markets, and historical districts—I suspected it would be polite endurance rather than personal discovery.

The temples were neither solemn nor entirely sacred in the way I imagined. People moved in and out—some in quiet devotion, others simply passing through on their way to lunch. I lit incense, not out of belief, but out of a willingness to be part of the moment. The smoke curled into the high beams like a slow-drawn thought, reminding me that rituals are often less about faith than about presence.

Markets were another kind of theatre. Stalls pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, their colors almost overwhelming at first: the bright reds of dried chilies, the polished greens of tea leaves, the unpolished grays of salted fish. Vendors spoke in rhythms that seemed to belong to the streets themselves, a language made of price, pride, and persistence.

I realized that while I didn’t know the words, I could still read the meaning.

In the quiet hours—between scheduled stops—I found myself walking alone. Not in search of anything, just moving through back streets where laundry swayed from high windows and cats regarded me with the slow blink of indifference. Here, without a guide’s voice or the anchor of the group, I began to feel the city rather than see it.

Photography became my way of listening. Each frame caught something I hadn’t noticed until the viewfinder revealed it: the chipped paint on a temple door, the layered reflections in a shop window, the way light turned the harbor into liquid silver. I wasn’t capturing Hong Kong to remember it later; I was photographing it to notice it now.

By the end of the trip, my skepticism hadn’t transformed into an unshakable wanderlust. But I had learned that places speak in tones you can only hear when you stop trying to translate them into meaning. Sometimes you just stand there, let the smoke rise, and allow the city to be exactly what it is.

Discover more...