Hong Kong Wired

There are waves in Hong Kong, China. But as an American expat living here, finding actual surf is a lot trickier. The best thing is that Indonesia is only a four-hour flight away. 

The second best thing is Big Wave Bay.

People call Big Wave Bay the surfing epicenter of China. Lying flat for more than half the year, it’s what I call a misnomer. I also call this quaint village of a few hundred people my home. The clichéd descriptor of Hong Kong, with a population of 7.5 million, is “East meets West.” But the contrast, the duality, the yin and the yang, is ever present, and it both enthralls and tortures.

Hong Kong has some of the densest neighborhoods on the planet, yet almost half of the territory is mountainous country parks. Such a compression of life in the “Vertical City” enables me to ride my motorcycle in 20 minutes from the neon-lighted, Blade Runner–esque urbanization to Big Wave Bay.

We get consistent windswell in the winter monsoon season. These storms produce sur-

prisingly powerful overhead waves at intervals that never exceed 10 seconds. Anything bigger and the whole bay, only 300 yards wide, shuts down.

Offshore katabatic winds on cool 60-degree mornings groom our 1-foot closeouts. 

My neighbor’s night soil on her choi sum wafts through my windows when it starts to blow.

In summer and fall, Big Wave Bay’s typhoon swell consistency is on par with that of my native New Jersey. Between storms, the surf varies from flat to terrible.

Hong Kong has 42 government-managed beaches, but only four catch swell. This shortage funnels seasonal crowds seeking the surfing experience to Big Wave Bay. I’ve counted more than 70 people party-waving a knee-high closeout.

The choices we don’t make often have the greatest impact on our lives. I came here for a 10-week internship and never left. Twenty-five years later, I’m fending off an existential crisis in which the journey has become the destination, while desperately trying to maintain a wave-rich lifestyle. But catching a proper wave here is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a fortune cookie. I’m not saying there’s surf. I’m not saying there’s no surf. Even if you can surf, I’m not saying you may surf legally.

Since May 2024, a longstanding surfing ban has begun to be enforced. Hyperbolic reporting of “the death of surfing in China” by online surf media compelled me to write this piece. In actuality, surfing is only illegal when typhoons are near. The crime is punishable by a $260 fine and two weeks in jail. To date, just two French expats have been convicted and sentenced to a $130 fine.

Technically, surfing’s always been illegal in China. In the ’80s, lifeguards tried to enforce the ban. Eventually, they formed an uneasy alliance with a handful of Australian expats, who made nearly all the rescues of panicked swimmers sucked out by rip currents.

Not much changed in the ’90s. With only a dozen expats in Big Wave Bay by the year 2000, and only three of us actually surfing, we were on a first-name basis with the lifeguards. Our Gidget years began in 2003 when Quiksilver, specifically Roxy, opened a shop. A flood of bikinis, dark tans, and tattoos emerged on the beach. On small days, I would be the only longboarder, as the art was considered for kooks only.

Our fair share of pros visited during this era. Two-time world champ Damien Hardman was a guest judge at a local contest. In Sipping Jetstreams, filmmaker Taylor Steele and photographer Dustin Humphrey understandably opted for more cityscape B-roll than actual surf action. 

Footage exists of Kalani Robb getting three to the beach (minus two) on our daily one-hit-wonder waves.

Terry Fitzgerald passed through not long ago. I met him in the water at our best spot, which is another setup also known as Big Wave Bay, an hour north of Hong Kong Island. The zone is undeveloped and gorgeous, and the waves can get good. Between sets, I told the Sultan of Speed that a Hot Buttered surfboard would look great on my wall. “I don’t make no fuckin’ wall hangers,” he said and paddled away. Maybe he thought I was pissing in his pocket, as they say in Australia.

Maybe I’ve become the crank. Yes, surfing has given me lasting friendships, motivation to stay fit, and a gateway to open-ocean swimming, spearfishing, and freediving. But who’s to say the rightful place for a surfboard? To me, the waxing or waning of one’s stoke correlates to the duration of their sentence living in a subpar surf zone. I’ve endured Hong Kong’s slop for half my life. That Narrabeen man doesn’t know what it’s like.

[Feature image by Antony Dickson]