'Le French May' festival: Are the French taking over Hong Kong?
During this month's Le French May festival, we look at what the 12,000-strong French community in Hong Kong gets up to
Shek Tong Tsui's Les Boules bar.It turns out that pétanque isn't so hard after all. Or maybe it's just that Éric Masson, three-time South China champion pétanque player, makes it look easy. Standing at the foot of a long sandy track, he bends his knees slightly and throws a small metal ball forwards with his palm facing backwards. The ball lands with a thud near the cochonnet, a small wooden sphere; the player with balls closest to the cochonnet gains a point.
"C'est à toi," he says to me, playing my first-ever game of pétanque. The final score? 13-9. "You're gifted," says Masson. More like beginner's luck.
Masson is the founder of Lamma Island's Hong Kong Pétanque Club and the co-owner of Les Boules, a new basement French bar in Shek Tong Tsui with five pétanque tracks, a pétanque shop, Corsican wines, French apéros and HK$50 pints of Kronenbourg. It's probably the first bar in the world where you can play outdoor-rules pétanque indoors.
Masson explains that, after founding the Pétanque Club in 2007, he was approached by Christophe Bonno, owner of the Gecko absinthe bar, about opening a place where people could enjoy pétanque while sipping on some French drinks. Hong Kong's humid climate and lack of suitable in-town spaces made an indoor venue necessary. Luckily the most energetic part of pétanque is the cheering once someone wins, so when Bonno and Masson found 2,500 square feet in Shek Tong Tsui, it was more than enough space.
"There have been so many French businesses opening in recent years, but we didn't want to just do a French bar -- we wanted to share pétanque with everyone," says Masson. "It's a very social game."
According to the French consulate, the city's French population has doubled to an estimated 12,000 people since 2002, and it is growing by about 100 more each month. This has amplified Hong Kong's already well-established roster of French cultural events.
"It's always good to have a strong French population in any country," says the French consul for culture, Gilles Bonnevialle. "It's striking when you arrive here how much curiosity and admiration there is for French culture." Ever since Hong Kong's first French film festival was founded 40 years ago, its French cultural events, like Le French May, on now until June 23, have become a model for other cities across Asia.
There's a lot of behind-the-scenes work, too. Big-name festivals are merely "la partie émergée de l'iceberg," says Bonnevialle. In addition to cultural exchanges and one-off events, the consulate and the local office of the Alliance Française, a non-profit, locally-run cultural organization, work with film distributors to ensure that French films find the audiences they deserve.
It's also becoming more and more common to hear French spoken on the street. Each year, about 7,000 students enroll in the Alliance's French courses. "They learn it because they like it," says Alliance director, Jean-Paul Dumont. "Hong Kong is a very anglophone-influenced territory, yet it's also a place with a surprisingly strong desire to learn French."
"I've never had so many people ask me 'How do you like it?' as in Hong Kong," says Bonnevialle, who came to Hong Kong nine months ago, his first overseas post as a diplomat. But what draws so many French people to Hong Kong? Part of it, says Bonnevialle, is because Hong Kong offers the unique opportunity to live in Asia without leaving culturally familiar surroundings. (That said, mainland Chinese cities, especially Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, have also seen a surge in their French populations.) Part of it might also be because of the low taxes and economic opportunities, which attract entrepreneurs.
When Masson arrived seven years ago at the age of 36, he was taking an early retirement after a career as a bookseller and publisher, and he was drawn partly to Hong Kong's lower cost of living. "I never would have been able to retire so early in France," he says. The Lamma lifestyle also suited him. "There's no other city in the world where you can live in the countryside and still be 20 minutes from the centre of town."
Between the Pétanque Club and Les Boules, though, Masson's retirement has come to an end, and he's happy to stay put and fashion his own kind of Hong Kong, one where pétanque and pastis share pride of place with mahjong and milk tea. "I don't care what anyone else thinks," he says. "I consider myself a Hongkonger."
"C'est à toi," he says to me, playing my first-ever game of pétanque. The final score? 13-9. "You're gifted," says Masson. More like beginner's luck.
I don't care what anyone else thinks ... I consider myself a Hong Konger.— Eric Masson, owner of Les Boules
Masson is the founder of Lamma Island's Hong Kong Pétanque Club and the co-owner of Les Boules, a new basement French bar in Shek Tong Tsui with five pétanque tracks, a pétanque shop, Corsican wines, French apéros and HK$50 pints of Kronenbourg. It's probably the first bar in the world where you can play outdoor-rules pétanque indoors.
Masson explains that, after founding the Pétanque Club in 2007, he was approached by Christophe Bonno, owner of the Gecko absinthe bar, about opening a place where people could enjoy pétanque while sipping on some French drinks. Hong Kong's humid climate and lack of suitable in-town spaces made an indoor venue necessary. Luckily the most energetic part of pétanque is the cheering once someone wins, so when Bonno and Masson found 2,500 square feet in Shek Tong Tsui, it was more than enough space.
"There have been so many French businesses opening in recent years, but we didn't want to just do a French bar -- we wanted to share pétanque with everyone," says Masson. "It's a very social game."
Bienvenue au havre parfumé
According to the French consulate, the city's French population has doubled to an estimated 12,000 people since 2002, and it is growing by about 100 more each month. This has amplified Hong Kong's already well-established roster of French cultural events.
"It's always good to have a strong French population in any country," says the French consul for culture, Gilles Bonnevialle. "It's striking when you arrive here how much curiosity and admiration there is for French culture." Ever since Hong Kong's first French film festival was founded 40 years ago, its French cultural events, like Le French May, on now until June 23, have become a model for other cities across Asia.
There's a lot of behind-the-scenes work, too. Big-name festivals are merely "la partie émergée de l'iceberg," says Bonnevialle. In addition to cultural exchanges and one-off events, the consulate and the local office of the Alliance Française, a non-profit, locally-run cultural organization, work with film distributors to ensure that French films find the audiences they deserve.
It's also becoming more and more common to hear French spoken on the street. Each year, about 7,000 students enroll in the Alliance's French courses. "They learn it because they like it," says Alliance director, Jean-Paul Dumont. "Hong Kong is a very anglophone-influenced territory, yet it's also a place with a surprisingly strong desire to learn French."
French actresses are in focus at the "Femmes, Femmes, Femmes" film festival, see below for more.But why here?
French actresses are in focus at the "Femmes, Femmes, Femmes" film festival, see below for more.
"I've never had so many people ask me 'How do you like it?' as in Hong Kong," says Bonnevialle, who came to Hong Kong nine months ago, his first overseas post as a diplomat. But what draws so many French people to Hong Kong? Part of it, says Bonnevialle, is because Hong Kong offers the unique opportunity to live in Asia without leaving culturally familiar surroundings. (That said, mainland Chinese cities, especially Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, have also seen a surge in their French populations.) Part of it might also be because of the low taxes and economic opportunities, which attract entrepreneurs.
When Masson arrived seven years ago at the age of 36, he was taking an early retirement after a career as a bookseller and publisher, and he was drawn partly to Hong Kong's lower cost of living. "I never would have been able to retire so early in France," he says. The Lamma lifestyle also suited him. "There's no other city in the world where you can live in the countryside and still be 20 minutes from the centre of town."
Between the Pétanque Club and Les Boules, though, Masson's retirement has come to an end, and he's happy to stay put and fashion his own kind of Hong Kong, one where pétanque and pastis share pride of place with mahjong and milk tea. "I don't care what anyone else thinks," he says. "I consider myself a Hongkonger."
