Hong Kong’s museum exhibits – meager pickings (since most are still in London!).

Hong Kong. Must-see – by everyone – obviously. However, from the sightseeing-tourist point of view, there isn’t actually all that much to do: in just two nice-weather days you can take a ferry ride and get up to the Peak, check out Hong Kong’s Big Buddha (more on that later), take an evening boat ride (more on that later too), and stroll along the promenade – and that’s basically it: you’re just about done; well, that is – if you or the party you’re with aren’t shopaholics. Oh – but if you want to see the “other side” to Hong Kong – the one away from the tourist traps and the famous skyscrapers and the large digital screens – that’s a bit diferent, and for that you need a really good local guide.

I’ve been to HK plenty of times: according to my photo archive, this was my 13^th trip. My first was way back in 2001, for a Virus Bulletin conference. (Woah: I thought Virus Bulletin was no more, but having just looked it up – turns out it’s still alive and kicking!) Wait – another mix-up: it wasn’t for the Virus Bulletin conference; it was for the AVAR conference.

Fast-forward to 2025, and Hong Kong’s Museum of Art made it clear all over again why there are so few tourist attractions in Hong Kong.

Admission is free. Right away, that set off tiny alarm bells in my head; as it turned out – for good reason. There are five floors to wander around, which is kind of nice, but in terms of what’s actually there to look at – not much. Except maybe your own reflection in the mirrors ->

…And bizarre little thingies:

…With two Johnny Walker bottle caps on top:

Imitating old shops in one of the world’s shopping capitals – hmmm. Nostalgia? Irony? Sophisticated cynicism? Up to you…

Here’s where it got weird. Two screens spin around, showing different eyes (I didn’t catch why) ->

Something was clearly messed up with the third screen. Buggy update? ->

A mechanical rig with birds flapping their wings – the idea is decent, but the execution – not really. The wings flap jerkily with awkward pauses ->

You can’t immediately determine the gender of these two statues, but at least they’ve got authenticity :) ->

Not bad! ->

Check out the detail inside the copper piping loop! ->

Now, I wouldn’t put something like this in the office (I prefer our green elephant), but it was interesting to behold it just the once.

And that wraps up the Hong Kong museum topic. It’s hardly a surprise there’s not much of interest here: they had to practically start from scratch since back in the day literally anything that wasn’t nailed down got carted off to London! That must be why there’s not much for tourists in Hong Kong on the whole too – not just in this museum.

But still – don’t underestimate Hong Kong’s tourist appeal. Though there isn’t a huge amount of variety, what there is does leave a big impression – and you want to come back for another couple of days to check out the rest of the must-sees. More about that next time…