Vignettes of the World
Phu Quoc, meaning “prosperous land” in Vietnamese, is an island that lies south of Cambodia and west of Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand. Known as the “Pearl Island,” this largest island of Vietnam is blessed with pristine waters and long stretches of beautiful white …
The Old Wan Chai Post Office is the oldest surviving post office in Hong Kong. Built circa 1913, the Old Wan Chai Post Office served its original purpose since 1915 for 77 years, until 1992. Thereafter, it served as the resource center for the Environmental …
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority Information Centre Exhibition really is a lesser-known thing in Hong Kong. It has been there since 2003 and I had never known about it. I went for a look a couple days ago and enjoyed myself thoroughly.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is Hong Kong’s central bank. It was established in 1993 by merging the Office of the Exchange Fund and the Office of the Commissioner of Banking.
Perhaps it goes without saying that the prosperity of Hong Kong depends on the policies and work of the HKMA, because the economy here is so heavily dependent upon finance. The HKMA maintains the currency peg, regulates the banking system and manages the Exchange Fund. In terms of the interest rate, the HKMA does not actively manage it in Hong Kong. Instead, it follows the trend of interest rate as the Federal Reserve determines it.
The exhibition at the HKMA Information Centre is thus all about money, from the history of Hong Kong’s currency to the technicalities of monetary policy.
The exhibition is simple, educational and fun. There are the three sections: the policy section, the historical timeline of Hong Kong’s legal tender and the currency section.
I found the historical timeline to be the most effective part of the exhibition (as in, communicating through words in proper paragraphs instead of interactive gadgets). I will retell the history of Hong Kong money briefly here.
In the pre-British days, several kinds of valuables were used in transactions, as the Qing dynasty government set the rules. For small transactions, bronze, iron and copper coins were used. Large transactions were concluded with silver.
In the early days of British administration, there were periods where foreign coins were used in Hong Kong. In 1845, the Oriental Bank Corporation was the first bank in Hong Kong that issued banknotes, in 5-dollar denominations. In 1863, the Hong Kong Government declared the silver standard. In the following year, Hong Kong makes its first coins. The first mint opened in 1866 but it closed down two years later.
The next significant development came in 1935. Due to a worldwide silver crisis, the Hong Kong Government declared the sterling standard, and Hong Kong’s monetary system is linked to the British sterling. The Exchange Fund, which carries on with the same functions today, began operating in the same year.
In 1937, various kinds of silver dollars were no longer recognized or redeemable as the Hong Kong Government as the Hong Kong dollar became the only legal tender.
The progression of monetary development was disrupted by World War II. During the years of Japanese Occupation, Hong Kong’ legal tender was exchanged with the military notes of Japan, which had no currency backing. The economy relied on military notes as its tender of exchange.
The sterling crisis of 1972 precipitated another significant change in Hong Kong’ monetary policy. The rapid depreciation of the sterling in 1967 culminated in the eventual floating of the British pound. In July 1972, the government linked the Hong Kong dollar with the U.S. Dollar. The exchange rate then was every one U.S. Dollar for HK$5.65, with the intervention band set at 2.25% plus or minus.
The Bretton Woods system collapsed as the world lost confidence in the U.S. economy following the global recession of 1974. In response, Hong Kong floated its currency. This was again reversed in October 1983. Under the Currency Board System, the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the U.S. Dollar again at the exchange rate of $7.8, a policy that is still in place today.
Historically, the Hong Kong Government keeps an astronomical amount of reserves at the Exchange Fund for the purpose of maintaining the currency peg. There were incidents that the funds there were used to stabilize economic crises, including the stock market crash of 1987 and the bank runs of 1991. The Monetary Authority was established in 1993.
I came away from this visit feeling like I learned something interesting and important in Hong Kong history. There was a conscious effort to make the experience kids-friendly by their interactive and cute, somewhat gimmicky features.
At 55th floor in such a prime location as the IFC 2, the HKMA exhibition room’s full sized glass panels enable a 270-degree view of the most iconic city views of Hong Kong Island. This is certainly a bonus for tourists — not to mention the nice air conditioning in a spacious indoor environment. We visited on the hottest day of 2026 up to that time. This short stop was very much appreciated.
On the first floor of the building, show the receptionist your ID. Both HKID and passports would do. You will be given visitors’ badges. Wear that with you during your visit. Then head up the elevator to the 55th floor.
Note that a party of over 10 visitors must first make reservations with the HKMA for entry into the exhibition.
In this part of Hong Kong Island, there are a few sites of interest for tourists. Those who stay on the Kowloon side can take the Star Ferry to arrive at the Central Piers. Then they can get up the ferris wheel (the Observation Wheel). Stop by this exhibition at IFC 2 before heading out to other tour areas in Central. Our itinerary that day was to head up the Peak after, because both the buses and minibuses bound for the Peak are in the IFC area. See a four-hour itinerary suggestion here.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is located on 55th Floor, 2 International Finance Centre, 8 Finance Street, Central, Hong Kong.
Descriptions on site at the Monetary Authority Information Centre.
The official website of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
Australia’s Aboriginal art features distinctive and unique elements that are full of unspoken meanings. They convey the contemporary reinterpretations of the native worldview. I visited an art gallery, Yubu Napa, in Alice Springs. This gallery features all kinds of Aboriginal themed handicrafts, besides the display …
There are half-day tours that take you around the historical, cultural and natural sites in Alice Springs. I opted to keep things simple after three days of intense tours in the Outback. In the morning of my day of departure, I walked from my hotel …
In the beginning, Alice Springs (Mparntwe in Eastern Arrernte) was home to the Arrernte Aboriginals for 20,000 years, long before the arrival of the European settlers during the 1860s.
The Arrernte Aboriginals hunted and gathered food in this area. The Lhere Mparntwe (Todd River) determined the course of the sojourns in their nomadic life. The Todd River is, by and large, a sandy creek. The permanent and semipermanent waterholes of the Todd River supplied fresh water to the Aboriginals.
What was originally the town of Stuart sprang up due to the permanent waterhole of the Todd River in now-Alice Springs that provides a source of water in the desert, as the Europeans saw the same necessity as the Aboriginals did.
John Stuart, an inland explorer of Scottish descent, took on a few trips to trek the path between Adelaide and Darwin at the behest of the South Australia parliament. Even on his first attempt in 1860, he had reached the Alice Springs area from Adelaide. The town of Stuart, proclaimed in 1888, was about half way between Adelaide and Darwin.
In his third attempt, he made it from South Australia to Darwin, traversing the full distance in the north-south axis of the middle region of the continent. This successful expedition paved the way for the establishment of telegraph lines and stations along this route later by Sir Charles Todd, soon in 1871.
Alice Springs is thereafter named after Lady Alice Todd in 1933. Lady Alice Todd is the wife of Charles Todd, who, as the Government Astronomer and the Superintendent of Telegraph, successfully completed the journey to set up telegraph lines between Adelaide and Darwin in 1877. He is celebrated as a hero in Australia.
Being the only city in the midst of a vast expanse of red earth, Alice Springs stands at the crossroads in many facets of historical and cultural significance. Historically, Alice Springs was the original settlement area for the European settlers looking for opportunities in a pastoral economy. The Undoolya Station (a cattle station) was set up in 1873 following the establishment of the first telegraph station.
The town would see quite a lot of traffic during the Gold Rush of the late 1800s. The miners eventually set up their operations in Arltunga in 1887, off of East Macdonell. Another round of gold rushers entered the scene in 1902, when gold was discovered at Winnecke’s Depot, north of Stuart.
In the late 1800s, another significant development was the arrival of the Lutheran missionaries, who established a mission for the Aboriginals. Albert Namatjira, the first Aboriginal painter of Outback sceneries that earned national acclaim in Australia, was born and raised in the Lutheran mission. Interactions between the European settlers and the Aboriginals were ongoing, wavering between benevolent and tensely contested over land occupation and water sources.
Worthy of mention is the effort of Mrs. Ida Standley. She established the Bungalow, which was a welfare institution for Aboriginal children. Her contribution to Alice Springs, in educating both the early settlers’ children and Aboriginal children, was recognized as the Standley Chasm in West Mac was named after her.
Before WWII, an event of significance is the Coniston Massacre of 1928, the year in which a four-year drought drove both the frontier settlers and the Aboriginals to desperation. At the time, the European settlers thought that the Aboriginals’ contesting demands for water and food for survival were at odds with their interests in maintaining the cattle stations. Tensions flared between the station operators and the Aboriginals. In the confrontation that was precipitated by the killing of the dingo hunter Fred Brooks by the Aboriginals, the police investigating the murder killed a significant number of Aboriginals in a series of pursuits. The murder of Fred Brooks was tried in court, followed by an inquiry later.
The Coniston Massacre is considered the last known officially sanctioned massacre of Indigenous Australians and one of the last events of the Australian frontier wars.
During WWII, Alice Springs was a major military camp that served as the arsenal and staging point for supplies to Darwin, which was Australia’s warfront in the Pacific War. More on this in the next entry on ANZAC Hill.
Today, the population of Alice Springs numbers 35,000. About 6,000 identify as Aboriginals. The community continues to adapt to the rising trends in immigration and integration. There are immigrant communities as well, mainly from India and Africa.
The dynamics in Alice Springs can be troublesome at times. As I said in a previous entry, a month before my trip, I learned that the rival gangs (consisting of descendants of different Aboriginal tribes) got into a huge fight. The story was that they were at a funeral and fights broke out, resulting in multi-day violence rising to the level of a riot. There was a prolonged youth curfew as a result. I got the sense from Kirsty of Red Earth Roaming that this was quite exclusively within the aboriginal community. But it does go to show that deep-seated animosity amongst different groups can disturb the peace of a small city in this vast region of peaceful nature.
There are half-day tours that take tourists around the historical, cultural and natural sites in Alice Springs. I opted to keep things simple after three days of intense tours in the Outback. In the morning of my day of departure, I walked from my hotel to ANZAC Hill, where you can see the city in a 360 panoramic view. Coupled with the Aboriginal art gallery that I saw a couple days ago, this served all my purposes in learning about Alice Springs.
Descriptions on site at ANZAC Hill, Alice Springs.
The Wikipedia on Alice Springs.
The Wikipedia on Albert Namatjira.
The Wikipedia on the Coniston Massacre.
Perhaps I can take a break from the history, culture and the nature and discuss the food that I had in this part of Australia. Surely, I heard all about the bush tucker and the kangaroo tail, which are considered essential and delicacies in Aboriginal …
Located right next to the Bethanie in Pok Fu Lam, the Old Dairy Farm of Pok Fu Lam is a wonderful lesser-known heritage that tells plenty about the history of Hong Kong’s milk production. Along with the Former Cowsheds, which is now within the administration of …
Due to this part of the Uluru being the women’s section, there is no photo on the safe site for women. The Kitchen Cave could be photographed on the inside and the outside. Please respect the rule.
Up close at the Uluru, you would naturally focus attention on the geological features of the monolith. But don’t miss the amazing flora and fauna that make the rusty desert their home. There are 546 kinds of birds, 4 types of frogs, 12 types of snakes, 7 types of which are the most venomous snakes of the world. Besides, there are foxes and dingoes, etc., although no kangaroos. More than 400 types of plants thrive here as well.
Let’s just say this is a full food chain as far as survival goes. There is a practice for the nomadic life at the Uluru. The Aboriginals venture the area, from Uluru to Kata Tjuta, following water and food. When they did leave a habitat behind, they burned it. By the time the tribe returned, the environment would have regenerated, the plants thriving again to welcome them back.
The final walk at the Uluru tour is a visit to the kitchen cave. As kulpi minymaku in the native language, the kitchen cave is the province of the women, who also camped around this area. When it comes down to food, the division of labor is also clear as between men and women. The men brought over the meat of the games they hunted. Women took the girls along in search of bush tucker in the wild.
For the girls’ training, the mothers imparted upon them the knowledge of the bush tucker and what was safely edible. This is the knowledge that is expected upon the Aboriginal girls and it is passed down as age old wisdom of survival (even now). For there are poisonous fruits in the wild.
Once picking the edible bush tucker, then the women and the girls would be cooking at the kitchen cave, where they pounded the seeds (such as the Mulga Tree seeds) with round stones. The resulting flour was then made into flatbread. The menu would feature the flatbread, meat, fruits (such as the sweet native fig and bush plum) and other bush tuckers. When the men brought over the game of the day, the community gathered to share food. The families took their share of the food home to the older members of the community. Everybody was taken care of.
On the floor of the kitchen cave one can still see the smooth surface that resulted from the stone pounding in making flour. The cave shows honeycombed structures.
Today the community of the Anangu peoples still live here. Men do outdoor work while the women make arts and crafts.
We visited the Cultural Centre as our last stop at Uluru and bid farewell to a day-long adventure shuttling between the manifold secrets amidst the Uluru’s natural and cultural crevices.
The thought of food came to mind at the Kitchen Cave, and our dinner was half-way Aboriginal, as in an open charcoal fire barbecue in a semi wild setting, in a large parking lot facing the monolith afar.
I must say the hospitality exceeded expectations. We literally wined and dined with generous servings of steak.
The sunset viewing was great at the Uluru, although the views were not as dramatic as I’d hoped. It was a long day, and I was satisfied, having seen the Uluru in its many different faces up close. I was ready to head back to Alice Springs for a nice night’s sleep.
Tour with White Emu Run.
Descriptions on site at the Uluru.
We had a fascinating lesson of the Uluru being the beloved nature that bestows life and meaning upon the Anangu peoples. But a basic understanding of the geology of the rock is another way to appreciate the Uluru. The Geology of Uluru Within its embrace …