Just a few hotels in the world are known to almost everyone – Raffles in Singapore, Reid’s Palace in Madeira, The Dorchester in London, Waldorf Astoria in New York spring easily to mind. Add to this short list the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, opened in 1928 to receive intercontinental rail travellers from the Kowloon and Canton Railway station then opposite.
The location remains magnificent, with upper floors overlooking Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island’s famous cityscape.
Visitors arrive to the greeting of a grand fountain, carried in some privileged cases by one of the hotel’s thirteen distinctive green Rolls Royces, to a door opened by white and gold braid uniformed bell boys and girls.
The hotel lobby sets an immediate tone of calm in the middle of Hong Kong’s pace and noise. Grand, elegant and overtly colonial, it is simply a joy. Lofted ceilings carry gilt decoration and gently turning fans, furnishings are comfortable and spacious. And at Christmas…
….one is struck by the floor to ceiling tree, perhaps 18 feet high, simply decorated but with giftbags and giftbags and giftbags around the bottom. The giftbags represent the very high end retail concessions available in the hotel, of course. Simply, the best real Christmas tree in Hong Kong. Going up two flights of the grand staircase brings one to the Swiss restaurant. Outside this, the regular Christmas tableau of an Alpine scene: snowy peaks with toy trains running through tunnels underneath, the lights of moving cable cars and the flashing of a big wheel rotating in the fairground. Animals in snowy fields are bordered by snow sprinkled fir trees with the shops and bars and chapel of the village lit and welcoming. Some of the ‘buildings’ are made of gingerbread, straight from a Christmas story. Real gingerbread with that glorious smell. Children from 3 to 83 stop to look at this for a time. Or even a long time. It reminds me of the Santa’s grotto tableaux which I saw in department stores as a child. Here, though, there is no Father Christmas – but Father Christmas ‘helpers’ will take a letter for him and in return offer a gingerbread biscuit or a couple of home made sweets. There is no charge for this though charity boxes do encourage donations. It is all very understated, particularly for Hong Kong, and all very charming.
Descending the staircase back into the lobby, we take seats for light refreshments. Coffee or tea or chocolate is beautifully served (the hot chocolate almost a do it yourself kit of liquids and bits!) and predictably expensive. But of course, one pays for the ambience, the service, the occasion, the photographs which the tree almost begs you to take. And as midday arrives so does the quintet, to perform as luncheon commences. A curious quintet of violin, bass guitar, flute, drums and keyboard allows a wide range of music, a medley of carols followed by stalwarts such as ‘Chestnuts roasting by an open fire’ and ‘White Christmas’. And then another medley from ‘The Sound of Music’. No, I don’t know either.
I took my daughter to the Peninsula for the first time at the age of three or four. Seeing the toy train go into a tunnel she tried to run round fast enough to catch it coming out of the other end. Many years on, she still does. Descending the staircase on this first visit she asked for ‘a juice in this café’. Referring to the Lobby of one of the best hotels in Asia as a café made me smile. Letters to Father Christmas finished a good few years ago now but the Peninsula outing – and the ‘juice’ – remain as part of the annual ritual. Good.
Sir John Betjeman’s famous poem ‘Christmas’ refers, as some may remember, to the Dorchester Hotel which was listed in our opening. The poem might now conjure up a vision of a lost time when society as a whole celebrated the nativity. But some things remain constant, despite what we are sometimes told. So, with apologies to Betjeman, allow your correspondent to wish you the blessings of Christmas and offer a Canto-update of part of his poem as follows.
And K-pop girls remember Dad,
And Minecraft boys remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Midnight service bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Peninsula Hotel
Happy Christmas to all: 圣诞快乐
© text & images Hongkonger 2024
