Google says that in the New Territories there is one non-chain coffee shop with WiFi in which you can sit and do work. It’s called Accro coffee. The WiFi password is ac041210. I know this from memory; I have probably now spent about eight hours there. The staff members know my face. When we went back this afternoon the woman working at the cash register said, “Again?” She dropped the word two more times while taking my order.
Spending so much time researching in this little corner opened up the surrounding neighborhood. I loved walking through the thin, vehicle-less streets, stopping to buy food based on its appearance and on my level of hunger but not necessarily on any kind of understanding of the ingredients. I loved speaking to the women walking by the bakery as I bought fried dumplings; she told me they were for the new year. I loved talking to the little boy whose mother pushed him out into the street to help us with the menu. I loved examining the storefronts and settling into walking in the middle of a slow moving crowd of people in a Sunday mindset.
Today, studying brought me to a niche of Hong Kong that I otherwise wouldn’t have visited. The space was peaceful and alive. I was surprised to find a space that seemed hidden in such a populous city. I suppose it isn’t really hidden. Maybe things don’t need to be hidden or kept secret to be lovely. In Hong Kong, it seems the crowd creates the peace and quiet; the people make the space, not only fill it.