place
Hong Kong
also: Гонг-Конг
British colonial port city, the first foreign port of call on Chekhov's return voyage from Sakhalin; he admired its harbor, roads, museums, and botanical gardens, rode a jinrikisha, and used the stop as the occasion for a private argument (in his own head) with fellow Russian passengers over British colonial exploitation versus its material benefits to colonized peoples.
Reading notes
- To V. A. Tikhonov, 21 November 1891. Moscow. §7 a bit of Hong Kong
Hong Kong, the first foreign port of call on Chekhov's return voyage, where he had admired the harbor, ridden a jinrikisha, and reflected on British colonial rule.
- To the Chekhovs, April 1891. Naples. §4 I saw something similar once in Hong Kong, when I went up the mountain by the railway
Chekhov compares the view from the Certosa di San Martino to the view from Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, which he had visited on the return leg of his Sakhalin journey in December 1890 -- a rare moment in the Italian letters where he measures a European sight against something from his round-the-world return voyage rather than against another Italian or Russian point of reference.