Shoeshine Alley is no silent workshop; a steady stream of walla-walla flies back and forth among the boys, and if a passing pedestrian pauses or glances in their direction, several boys pounce on him, demanding his patronage. The moment he selects one lad for the job, the others shower the winner with Cantonese insults and heckle him while he works. The victim pays no attention; it’s an accepted professional hazard. Besides, the boy is too busy studying the customer, trying to decide whether he’s an American. Americans are easy marks; always willing to pay three times the going rate. With an American, the canny lad can simply say “thanks” and pocket twice as much change as he’s entitled to. Fifty cents Hong Kong or 8½ cents American is a generous rate, but few Yankee tourists seem conscious of the local scale. For the tourist whose curiosity extends beyond the Central District, one of the major departure points is the Hongkong and Yaumati Vehicular Ferry Pier, four blocks west of Pedder Street, at Connaught Road and in front of the Fire Brigade Building. Several different passengers ferry lines and the Kowloon truck-and-auto ferry use the pier. The paved area at the pier entrance is the main depot for bus routes to all parts of Hong Kong Island. Until the new Hang Seng Bank building was erected, the Li Po Chun Chambers was the tallest building on the western fringe of the Central District. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong occupies the penthouse of the building, named for its owner, seventy-five-year-old Li Po Chun, eighth son of Li Sing, late multimillionaire merchant who was a founder of the Tung Wah Hospital. Li Sing, one of the most colorful of Hong Kong’s early Taipans, once donated $100,000 for a flood-control project at San Wui, his native village in Kwangtung Province. About a century ago, when a foreign ship carrying thousands of Chinese to California struck a rock near Hong Kong, he chartered a steamer, stocked it with food and sent it to the rescue, saving everyone aboard the stranded vessel. The Central Market, a bare concrete building located a block south of the Vehicular Ferry Pier, offers every kind of meat, vegetable, fish or fowl eaten by the people of Hong Kong. Everything is fresh, because Chinese customers reject any sort of tired produce. It exudes a wide range of smells, with fish out-smelling all the rest. An inexperienced shopper must move cautiously or he may be sideswiped by a hog carcass as it bounces along on a man’s shoulders en route from a delivery truck to one of the meat stands. Visitors who grow tired of walking may increase their range by riding the Hong Kong Tramway. Its green, double-decked streetcars cover the full length of the island waterfront. First-class passengers sit on the upper deck, where the fare is 3½ cents. Starting from the Central District, the car marked “Kennedy Town” goes the farthest west, and the Shau Kei Wan car runs to the eastern extremity of the line.