Step onto the Peak Tram today, and something strange happens as it climbs. The skyscrapers outside the window seem to lean and tilt toward the mountain as if they are going to fall over. This isn’t your imagination. The tram’s steep angle and tilted window frames can confuse the brain about which way is vertical, according to a study titled ‘Hong Kong Skyscrapers Appear to Fall in Real-World Illusion’ published in Psychological Science by Chia-huei Tseng and colleagues at the University of Hong Kong. At night, the illusion grows stronger because there are fewer cues outside to correct it. It’s a fitting quirk for a ride that has defied expectations since opening in 1888.
Life on the peak before the tram
Victoria Peak was one of Hong Kong's most scenic places in the 1800s, and the British colonial elite wanted to live there. There was just one problem: getting up and down. The slope was too steep and rugged for wheeled carriages to handle reliably, so residents relied almost exclusively on sedan chairs, wooden cabins carried on poles by porters who hauled people up the mountain by muscle alone. By 1883, only 30 to 40 families had taken up residence on the peak, and one hotel, the Peak Hotel, had opened there in 1873 in the hope of attracting more visitors up the hill. The work was slow and grueling and restricted the number of people who could realistically settle on the peak.
