Hong Kong is an outstanding city in many ways, and the interesting facts about it never end.
Did you know that Hong King has one of the world's most efficient subway systems with a 99.9% on-time rate? Apart from this surprising system, it is relevant to mention that the whole subway system is managed via an AI.
Apart from the interesting facts, there are some hilarious ones as well. For instance, in 2012, a Hong Kong billionaire offered $65 million to any man able to woo and marry his lesbian daughter.
There are also some sad facts. For instance, a severe lack of affordable housing in Hong Kong has forced the city's poor to live in small plywood "coffins" or iron cages, costing around US$200 a month.
Did you know that Kowloon Walled City once existed in Hong Kong with no laws or rules to govern it? At the time, the city had an estimated population density of 3,250,000 people per square mile.
Hong Kong uses seawater to flush toilets.
As Hong Kong is overcrowded, burials in public cemeteries are exhumed after 6 years. The remains are either collected privately for cremation or reburied in an urn.
There is no law that forbids selling alcohol to minors in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is home to the world's most expensive district for retailers as luxury-brand companies like Salvatore Ferragamo, Gucci, Channel, Aigner, Christian Dior and Marc Jacobs. In 2012, the average annual rents at Causeway Bay was HKD2,630 per square foot.
Residents of Cheung Chau Island have an annual tradition of organizing a bun festival between April and May. The event is intended to keep hungry ghosts residing on the island content. They build a tower of buns for this purpose but nowadays plastic is replacing the real baked version.
Another interesting fact is that Bruce Lee won the 1958 Hong Kong Cha Cha championship.
A group of musicians successfully fooled the old Hong Kong government into thinking they were the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra long enough to play to over 10,000 people. Meanwhile the real MPO were touring in Europe.
Back in 2003, a Chinese doctor was patient 0 in Hong Kong. He was infected with SARS virus and arrived in the city to attend a wedding. He died a couple of weeks afterwards but he had already spread the virus. About 80% of the Hong Kong cases have been traced back to this doctor.
In 2004, a league cricket match in Hong Kong had to be called off because batsman Hussain Butt was hitting so many sixes, he was constituting "a danger to passing traffic."
You can get married at the McDonalds in Hong Kong. All you need is $2000 USD and they include a balloon wedding dress, balloon rings, venue, and of course, food by McDonalds.
In 2003, Hong Kong ran a tourism campaign with the slogan "it will take your breath away". This coincided with the height of the SARS epidemic, ironically, a particularly lethal form of pneumonia.