Read the other features:
The high life
Getting high

When Batman came to town last year, he headed straight to the IFC, our tallest building; in a few months, our dazzling skyline will be in cinemas around the world, with the Caped Crusader swinging and dangling from its dizzying summit. Across the harbour, the ICC is well on its way to tickling the clouds still further, and some other latex-clad movie superhero might be suspended from its gargantuan 484m frame soon enough.

Surely I speak for all Hongkongers when I say that I can’t wait to see our herculean cityscape soaring above me in vast Hollywood Technicolor? Well, apparently not. Unfortunately, for approximately 10 per cent of the population, our blockbusting monoliths are terrifying edifices of Himalayan proportions, which render them paralysed with fear and anxiety. This difficult-to-confirm portion suffer from varying degrees of vertigo, and their daily lives are a constant struggle to negotiate our iconic identity. They know it’s crazy and irrational – but let he who is without irrational behaviour cast the first stone.

Fernando is a visibly strong, physically powerful personal trainer who grew up in Mexico City and came to live in Hong Kong with his wife in 2006. Fernando was only four years old when he experienced his first attack of vertigo, which he can describe with crystal clarity as if it were yesterday. Over the years, he learned to deal with this fear, mostly by avoiding the situations that caused him the most distress. He even managed to live in New York for several years and coped with the frenetic Manhattan skyline.

All that changed, however, when he came to live in Hong Kong. Within days of arriving here, his fear of tall buildings was making his life impossible. Walking along Kennedy Road was a struggle and he was crippled at the prospect of being in Mid-Levels. Things got so bad after only a few weeks his wife suggested they leave. He even started having problems going back to their apartment on Shui Fai Terrace: “When I used to come round the corner off Queens Road East onto Stubbs Road, I’d feel sick with an irrational dread.”

A whole mixture of places were freaking him out and it wasn’t just about the height of the buildings; he couldn’t even walk up Lan Kwai Fong. (I know many people who can’t bring themselves to walk up Lan Kwai Fong, but that has nothing to do with the incline). At that point, Fernando sought medical advice.

So can someone be cured of vertigo? Cured, no. Treated, for sure. I consulted Alice Yu, a Counsellor at ReSource Counselling Centre, who explained a few facts about the condition: ‘“Vertigo” is a misnomer. When most of us use the term, what we mean will be one of three things: claustrophobia (a fear of confined spaces), agoraphobia (a fear of unfamiliar environments, or environments over which the sufferer feels they have little control) or acrophobia (a fear of heights). According to Alice, some people can experience an extreme reaction in any of these three situations – they can have a panic attack and feel like they’re going to have a heart attack or even die.

So can an extreme fear be treated by confronting it head-on? “Don’t be stupid, if the danger is real, avoid it. Not everyone can be [Spider-Man] Alain Robert,” says Yu.

Despite Yu’s words, at first Fernando was encouraged to face his fears head-on – but that didn’t work for him. What did work was avoiding the causes and sources of his anxiety and then gradually, starting to deal with them slowly. Two years later he is visibly enjoying his life in Hong Kong and while you won’t see him up there with Batman and Robin, he is slowly building up to visiting the observation floor in the IFC – unthinkable two years ago.

We know that not all vets are vegetarian and that some heart surgeons smoke, but is it really possible for a pilot to have vertigo? It would seem so. Captain Elester Latham has been a pilot for a major commercial airline for 20 years. He is based in San Francisco and flies 747s into Hong Kong a couple of times a month. He has a genuine passion for the city but despite the fact he flies at 35,000 feet and can land one of the biggest commercial aircrafts in existence, don’t ask him to stand too close to the edge of a raised footbridge.

At his request, I met him on the elevated walkway that runs from Central Plaza to Wan Chai MTR. He was fine as we walked across Gloucester Road but he didn’t want to stop. “It’s the drop. When I’m walking, it’s ok, but if you make me stop and think about it, I’d be in a bad way.” I made him stop – he was in a bad way.

“It’s crazy, I know, but in the aircraft, it’s safe, sealed and I am in control. On a bridge like this or on a terrace, I guess there’s a voice inside my head telling me someone could push me from behind and I’d fall over the edge.”

We carried on walking and eventually reached the platform to take the train up to Central. Captain Latham is a big guy who is clearly in control of his life but his fear is typical of the irrational condition – whilst he can fly huge airplanes, standing on an MTR platform was making him noticeably nervous. He made us walk along the platform, away from the crowds of passengers. “I just feel that someone could push me from behind and I’d fall onto the tracks. I feel completely out of control just standing here.”

According to my search engine, there are only two things we are born with a fear of – loud noises and falling. Both fears are connected with our entry into this world so it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to build an antenatal unit in Mong Kok or Causeway Bay. It seems most of us overcome any problem we have with loud noises by the time we are checked out of hospital, but that fear of falling can stay with us – it can hinder some babies from walking, it can become a deep-rooted hatred of flying and it can reduce grown men to quivering wrecks at the sight of an elevator.

Sian Christina has lived in Hong Kong for nearly four years. She gave birth to twins last year and now lives on Discovery Bay; before the twins were born, she used to live in Wan Chai. Sian misses a lot about the pace and colour of life over on the Island but she clearly doesn’t miss some of the intensity. The Peak Tram is a complete no-go for her and she regularly gets goosebumps driving through Central. But her worst experience to date was trying to go up Graham Street. “The taxi driver zoomed up the first bit and then had to sit and wait for the traffic to move along Staunton Street. He didn’t put the handbrake on and so it felt to me that the car was basically suspended in mid-air, about to plunge backwards any minute. I was literally frozen with fear.” Sian still enjoys going out in Soho – but she walks.

Read the other features:
The high life
Getting high