Richard Bangs' Adventures with Purpose

Hong Kong: Quest for the Dragon

Airs Monday, August 2 at 9:00 PM

This time Richard Bangs journeys through a city that blazes like a great pageant of light…a land of giants in both steel and dreams…a place that pushes the limits of the possible…and not so much predicts the future, as invents it.

Why is Hong Kong so prosperous, so energized, so vital, so cutting edge? What makes it the city of the century, the city of tomorrow? It’s not geography; there are spectacular harbors and islands—too many to count—that never spawned such a city. It’s not latitude—many lesser cities share its position on the globe. As Rudyard Kipling said, “Hong Kong beats into a hamlet” other great cities of the world. Richard’s quest this time is to discover what unique forces drive Hong Kong to virtuosity and greatness.

Hong Kong’s uninhibited energy is clear as rice wine….in its corridors of commerce…in its seething alleys of ancient apothecaries…in its earthly rhythms and promethean spirit. What cultural undercurrent runs through this miracle city? What age-old traditions galvanize the fierce devotion to work and family here? To what can we attribute their longevity, health, their unparalleled triumphs against enormous odds, and even their seemingly paradoxical success with environmental protection? Could the answer lie in a legend as old as the land itself?

Richard’s quest takes him from the towering structures in Central and Western Hong Kong and then across the hive-like Victoria harbor to the Kowloon peninsula. He sails to the ecological preserve, the Geo-park and to Lantau Island.

Hong Kong’s allure is unquestionable and unanswerable, from its cloud-busting buildings and exuberant festivals, to its serene shorelines and roar of nighttime neon. Hong Kong belies Kipling’s thesis that "never the twain shall meet." It began as a collection of quiet fishing villages, but found its voice and métier 150 years ago as nexus for trade between East and West. While the population is overwhelmingly Chinese, the fusion of styles and sensibilities from around the world makes this an intoxicating cocktail of cultures. Here—more intimately than anywhere else—civilizations have been thrown together. But two fundamentals stay constant yet in healthy dialectic: the reverence for tradition, and the fierce pursuit of prosperity.

Some say that to understand the heart of Hong Kong one must 'look to the Dragon.' So, Bangs is in Hong Kong for the most dazzling festival on earth, Chinese New Year, when the vital, flowing energies of the Dragon inhabit the jungles of the imagination; when the pyrotechnics awaken the good beasts and usher in a new beginning.

Visit the national Richard Bangs' Adventures with Purpose website for more information on this and other related programs.

Return to Previous Page