The 7 million residents of Hong Kong have adapted comfortably to a grand medley of sounds and activities. The Cantonese dialect of Chinese, spoken by the majority of people in Hong Kong, requires eight different levels of sounds just to differentiate meanings of words. So in conversations, when the Chinese seem to be shouting at each other, they are actually just altering the intensity of the sounds to communicate effectively.

The sounds of Hong Kong extend beyond the unique language, however. Jan Morris describes a night along the waterfront of Hong Kong Harbor :

The air is likely to be rich and humid, the sky is lit with the brooding glow of a great city's lights, blotting out the stars. It does not matter where I am, Kowloon or Hong Kong-side; around me always, beyond the little pool of quiet I have made for myself ... the huge endless...