Why the Star Ferry’s Boats Are Named After Stars (October 2026)

Every day, green-and-white ferries glide across Victoria Harbour, shuttling commuters and tourists between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Most passengers aboard these boats never pause to wonder about the names painted on their hulls. Morning Star, Evening Star, Celestial Star, Day Star. The naming tradition stretches back over 140 years, and the reason behind why the Star Ferry’s boats are named after stars is one of the most remarkable stories in Hong Kong’s maritime history.

The answer involves a stowaway from Bombay, a Victorian poem about death and the sea, and a Parsee merchant’s vision that transformed a single steam launch into one of the world’s most beloved ferry services. It is a story that connects Alfred Lord Tennyson to Victoria Harbour, and one that reveals how Hong Kong’s Indian merchant community shaped the city we know today.

In this article, I trace the Star Ferry boat names stars tradition from its origins in the 1880s through to the modern fleet. We will look at the founder’s life, the literary inspiration behind the naming convention, the cultural significance of stars in Parsee tradition, and the full roster of vessels that have carried the “Star” name across Victoria Harbour.

Whether you are a Hong Kong history enthusiast, a maritime buff, or simply a traveler who has ridden the ferry and wondered about the story behind its name, this deep-dive covers everything you need to know about one of the most distinctive naming traditions in global public transport. The tale behind those star names is stranger and more moving than you might expect.

The Quick Answer: Why the Star Ferry’s Boats Are Named After Stars

The Star Ferry’s boats are named after stars because its founder, Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala, was an admirer of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Crossing the Bar.” The poem opens with the line “Sunset and evening star, / And one clear call for me!” Mithaiwala named his first vessel Morning Star and continued the pattern with Evening Star, Rising Star, and Guiding Star. When he incorporated the company in 1898, he named it the Star Ferry Co Ltd after his fleet of star-named vessels.

The boats came first, the company name followed. Every vessel the company has operated for over a century has carried the word “Star” in its name. This makes the Star Ferry one of the few transport systems in the world where a single naming convention has survived from the founding era through to the present fleet.

The star naming also carries deeper cultural resonance. Mithaiwala was a Parsee, a follower of Zoroastrianism, a religion in which celestial bodies hold profound spiritual meaning. The stars represented guidance, divine order, and the eternal light that guides travelers home. So while the Tennyson poem provided the immediate inspiration, the Parsee cultural context made the star motif feel natural and enduring.

The Founder: From Stowaway to Ferry Pioneer

Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala arrived in Hong Kong in 1852, hidden as a stowaway aboard a ship bound for China from Bombay. He was a young Parsee, a member of the Zoroastrian community that had settled in India after fleeing Persia centuries earlier. The Parsees were renowned as merchants, traders, and entrepreneurs, and Mithaiwala would prove to be one of the most consequential figures in colonial Hong Kong’s commercial history.

His early years in Hong Kong were modest. He started as a cook, a trade he had learned in Bombay, and gradually built a reputation for reliability and business sense. Before long, he opened a bakery on Queen’s Road, supplying bread to the growing European community in the colony. The bakery prospered, and Mithaiwala expanded into hoteliering, eventually operating several establishments that served the colonial establishment and visiting merchants.

The name “Mithaiwala” itself means “sweetmaker” or “confectioner” in Hindi and Gujarati, reflecting the trade that many Parsee families brought with them from India. Dorabjee’s bakery and confectionery business was a natural extension of this heritage, and it gave him the financial foundation to pursue larger ventures.

What set Mithaiwala apart from other successful merchants was his fascination with steam technology. In the 1870s, steam-powered vessels were transforming maritime trade across Asia. Mithaiwala recognized that the growing populations on both sides of Victoria Harbour needed a reliable, scheduled crossing service. Sampans and small boats had served this purpose for decades, but they were slow, weather-dependent, and unable to handle increasing passenger volumes.

The first recorded steam ferry service across Victoria Harbour was operated by a man named Grant Smith, but his venture was short-lived. Smith’s service began around 1871 but did not survive as a sustainable business. Mithaiwala saw the opportunity that Smith had glimpsed but failed to hold, and he seized it. In 1880, he launched his first vessel, the Morning Star, a single-deck steam boat that ferried passengers between Pedder’s Wharf on Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon side. The crossing took about 40 minutes to an hour, depending on tide and weather.

The service was an immediate success. Mithaiwala added more vessels, each carrying a star name, and by 1888, he formalized the operation as the Kowloon Ferry Company. This is the date many sources cite as the founding of the ferry service, though the original Morning Star had been operating for eight years already. The confusion between 1880 and 1888 as founding dates reflects the organic growth of Mithaiwala’s enterprise from a single boat to a formal company.

Mithaiwala was not just a businessman. He was a cultural figure in Hong Kong’s Parsee community, which included other prominent merchants and professionals. The Parsees were known for their philanthropy, their business acumen, and their role as intermediaries between British colonial administration and local Chinese commerce. Mithaiwala embodied all of these qualities, and his decision to name his boats after stars reflected both his personal literary taste and his community’s spiritual traditions.

Sir Catchick Paul Chater, another towering figure in Hong Kong’s Parsee community, eventually acquired the Star Ferry and brought it under the umbrella of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company. Chater was an Armenian-Parsee businessman who shaped much of colonial Hong Kong’s infrastructure, from land reclamation to banking. His involvement ensured that the Star Ferry would survive the transition from its founder’s personal enterprise to a corporate entity within a larger business empire. But the star naming tradition remained untouched through every change of ownership.

The Literary Inspiration: Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar”

The key to understanding why the Star Ferry’s boats are named after stars lies in a poem. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Britain’s Poet Laureate from 1850 until his death in 1892, wrote “Crossing the Bar” in 1889. It is one of his most famous and deeply personal works, composed when he was 80 years old and recovering from a serious illness at sea. The poem is a meditation on death, imagined as a departure from harbor into the open ocean.

Here is the full text of “Crossing the Bar” by Alfred Lord Tennyson:

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

The opening line, “Sunset and evening star,” is widely understood to be the spark that inspired Mithaiwala’s naming convention. The image of a star guiding a traveler across the threshold of the sea resonated with the ferry operator’s daily work. His boats were literally carrying people across a body of water, guided by the stars in their names.

The thematic resonance is striking. “Crossing the Bar” uses the metaphor of a harbor bar, a sandbar at the entrance to a harbor, as the boundary between life and death. The speaker hopes for a smooth passage, a gentle tide, and the guidance of a divine Pilot. For a man whose entire business was built on crossing water safely, the poem’s imagery must have felt deeply personal.

Tennyson reportedly wrote the poem while crossing the English Channel, and he instructed his son that it should always appear last in any collection of his works. It was, in effect, his own epitaph. He asked that it be placed at the end of all editions of his poetry, as the final word from a man who had spent his life wrestling with mortality, faith, and the nature of the soul’s journey. Three years after writing it, Tennyson died and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Some sources note that Wikipedia’s entry on the Star Ferry carries a “citation needed” tag on the Tennyson connection, suggesting that the literary link is based on tradition rather than documented proof. However, the story is repeated consistently across the official Star Ferry company website, the Industrial History of Hong Kong Group, and numerous historical accounts. Whether or not Mithaiwala left a written explanation of his naming choice, the tradition has been affirmed by the company itself and by over a century of historical writing.

What makes this connection especially poignant is that “Crossing the Bar” is a poem about endings, about the final voyage. Yet Mithaiwala used its imagery to name vessels that would make countless crossings every day, carrying living passengers safely between two shores. The star became not a symbol of departure but of safe arrival, a guiding light for the daily commute of a city. In a beautiful inversion, the poem about death gave its name to boats that sustain life and connection across a harbor.

The Parsee Star Connection

The Tennyson connection is compelling, but it does not tell the whole story. To fully understand why Mithaiwala chose stars as his naming motif, we need to consider his Parsee heritage. The Parsees are followers of Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest continuously practiced religions, originating in ancient Persia.

In Zoroastrian tradition, celestial bodies hold deep spiritual significance. Stars are associated with guidance, divine order, and the eternal struggle between light and darkness. The Zoroastrian calendar and religious texts reference stars and constellations as symbols of cosmic harmony. The supreme deity, Ahura Mazda, created the celestial lights to govern the rhythms of life and to serve as markers of divine will. For a Parsee merchant, naming a vessel after a star would carry connotations that went well beyond Victorian literary appreciation.

The morning star, in particular, has special resonance across multiple spiritual traditions. It represents hope, renewal, and the promise of dawn after darkness. Evening star imagery speaks to completion, rest, and the reflection that comes at day’s end. Rising star and guiding star are directional concepts, evoking navigation and purpose. Each of these names carries both a literal navigational meaning and a spiritual undertone that would have been immediately understood by Mithaiwala’s fellow Parsees.

The Parsee community in Hong Kong was small but influential. Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala was part of a network of Parsee merchants, professionals, and philanthropists who played outsized roles in the colony’s commercial and civic life. The community included the Ruttonjee family, who endowed hospitals, the Shroff family, who shaped banking, and Sir Catchick Paul Chater, who would eventually acquire the Star Ferry and fold it into his broader business empire. The connection between Parsee culture and Hong Kong’s ferry history runs deeper than most passengers realize.

What makes the Star Ferry naming tradition so rich is this dual heritage. The literary inspiration from Tennyson provides the specific origin story, while the Parsee cultural context explains why the star motif resonated so deeply with the founder that he applied it to every vessel in his fleet. It is a naming convention born at the intersection of Victorian poetry and Zoroastrian symbolism, British colonial commerce and Indian merchant culture.

No existing article or forum discussion fully explores this dual heritage. Most accounts mention either the Tennyson connection or Mithaiwala’s Parsee background, but few connect the two to explain why the star naming tradition felt so natural and enduring. The star was simultaneously a literary image from a beloved poem and a spiritual symbol from an ancient faith, and together these two strands of meaning gave the naming convention a permanence that no single inspiration could have sustained.

The Original Four: The First Star-Named Vessels

When Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala launched his ferry service, he began with a small fleet of star-named vessels. The original four boats established the pattern that would define the service for the next century and beyond.

Morning Star was the first vessel, launched around 1880. She was a single-deck steam boat, a modest vessel by any standard, but she represented a revolutionary idea: a scheduled, reliable, steam-powered crossing of Victoria Harbour. The name Morning Star evokes the first light of dawn, the star that heralds a new day. For a service that would transform daily life for thousands of Hong Kong residents, the symbolism was perfect.

Evening Star followed soon after, completing the daily cycle. Together, Morning Star and Evening Star bookended the operating hours of the ferry service, carrying workers to their jobs in the morning and home again at night. The pairing was not accidental. Mithaiwala’s literary sensibility extended to the operational logic of his fleet, and the two names together suggested the full arc of a working day.

Rising Star was the third vessel, a name suggesting aspiration and upward movement. In maritime tradition, a rising star is one that is ascending in the sky, growing brighter and more prominent. For a growing business, the name carried an obvious entrepreneurial message. It also echoes the language of navigation, where a rising star is one newly visible above the horizon, marking a fresh bearing.

Guiding Star rounded out the original four. The guiding star, or pole star, is the navigator’s most trusted reference point. It does not move, it always points the way home. For a ferry service whose entire purpose was to guide passengers safely across a busy harbor, the name was both practical and poetic. The guiding star is the star that appears in countless maritime traditions across cultures as the ultimate symbol of reliable direction.

These original vessels were small by modern standards. They were single-deck steam boats with limited passenger capacity, and the crossing from Pedder’s Wharf to Tsim Sha Tsui could take anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour. But they were reliable, and they operated on a schedule, which was more than the existing sampan operators could promise.

The vessels were coaled on specific days of the week, a detail that the official Star Ferry company website still mentions in its history section. This scheduling requirement meant that not every boat could operate every day, which is part of the reason a fleet of four was needed rather than a single larger vessel. The coaling schedule was a fact of life in the steam era, and it shaped the early operations of the service.

In 1888, Mithaiwala formalized his growing enterprise as the Kowloon Ferry Company. This marked the transition from a personal business venture to an incorporated company with formal structure. The four original star-named vessels became the foundation of a fleet that would grow steadily over the following decades.

Ten years later, in 1898, Mithaiwala incorporated the business as the Star Ferry Co Ltd, officially naming the company after its vessels. This is a crucial detail: the boats gave their name to the company, not the other way around. The star naming tradition came first, and the corporate identity followed. The company celebrated its centenary in 1998, marking 100 years since this formal incorporation.

The Complete Fleet: Every Star Ferry Vessel Name

Over more than 140 years of operation, the Star Ferry has commissioned dozens of vessels, every one carrying a star name. The naming convention has never been broken. This level of consistency is rare in maritime history, where ship names are often changed, recycled, or abandoned by new ownership.

The original fleet, operating under the Kowloon Ferry Company from 1888, included Morning Star, Evening Star, Rising Star, and Guiding Star. These early vessels were wooden-hulled steam boats built in local shipyards. As the service grew, additional vessels joined the fleet, each maintaining the star suffix that connected it to the original naming vision.

By the early 1900s, the fleet had expanded to include Northern Star, Southern Star, and Polar Star. These directional names reflected the expanding geography of the service and the increasing sophistication of the operation. The company was no longer just crossing a harbor; it was building a network, and the compass-point names reinforced the sense of a service reaching in every direction.

The interwar period saw the introduction of Celestial Star, Meridian Star, and Solar Star. These names drew on astronomical terminology, suggesting a fleet that was expanding its cosmic vocabulary. The vessels themselves were also evolving, with larger hulls, more powerful engines, and increased passenger capacity. The Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company built many of these vessels, and they represented the cutting edge of local shipbuilding technology.

A significant milestone came in 1906, when a devastating typhoon struck Hong Kong and damaged or destroyed several Star Ferry vessels. The company rebuilt, commissioning new boats that maintained the star naming tradition. This resilience established the Star Ferry as a permanent fixture of Hong Kong life, not a venture that could be swept away by a single storm. The 1906 typhoon killed over 10,000 people across Hong Kong and remains one of the deadliest disasters in the city’s history, yet the ferry service recovered and continued.

By the 1930s, the fleet included Night Star and Day Star, continuing the temporal pairing established by Morning Star and Evening Star. These names completed a temporal cycle: morning, day, evening, night. The full rotation of the clock was represented in the fleet’s naming, an elegant conceptual framework that few passengers would have noticed but that reflects the deliberate thought behind the convention.

The Second World War and the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945 severely disrupted the ferry service. Several vessels were lost or damaged beyond repair. Some were requisitioned by occupying forces. But after the war, the company rebuilt once again, commissioning new star-named vessels to replace those that had been destroyed. The post-war reconstruction of the fleet demonstrated the same resilience shown after the 1906 typhoon.

The post-war fleet introduced Shining Star, Twinkling Star, Silver Star, and Golden Star. These names carried a warmer, more playful quality than the austere astronomical names of the earlier fleet. They reflected a period of reconstruction and optimism, a city rebuilding itself after occupation. Silver Star and Golden Star, in particular, had a warmth and accessibility that felt appropriate for a service re-establishing its connection with a traumatized population.

The modern era brought World Star, Glowing Star, Electric Star, and Radiant Star. These names acknowledge the technological and global context of the contemporary fleet. World Star gestures outward to the international recognition the service has earned. Electric Star nods to the diesel-electric propulsion systems that power modern vessels. The most recent additions continue the tradition with names that feel both contemporary and connected to the original naming convention.

The company’s official website confirms this unbroken tradition, stating simply: “Its name derives from the ferries, which all bore the name ‘Star.'” Every vessel, from the original Morning Star of 1880 to the newest additions to the fleet, has carried the star suffix. This consistency is a testament to the power of Mithaiwala’s original inspiration and to the institutional respect for tradition that has survived every change of ownership and corporate structure.

Today, the fleet operates under the ownership of Wharf Holdings, which acquired the company through the complex corporate history that connects Sir Catchick Paul Chater’s original investments to the modern Hong Kong conglomerate. The naming tradition remains untouched by corporate restructuring. When a new vessel is commissioned, it receives a star name, period. The convention has become an unbreakable rule, maintained not by legal obligation but by cultural respect for the founder’s vision.

The Green-and-White Icon: Design and Identity

The star names are only part of the Star Ferry’s visual identity. The green-and-white livery is equally iconic, and the double-ended ferry design is an engineering signature that has remained essentially unchanged for over a century.

The double-ended design means each ferry has a bow at both ends. The vessel does not need to turn around after each crossing. Instead, the crew simply switches the direction of travel, and the adjustable seats can be flipped to face the new direction. This design was traced back to as early as 1904, according to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, and it has been a defining feature of every generation of Star Ferry vessel.

The practical advantage is obvious. Turning a ferry around in a busy harbor takes time, fuel, and space. By eliminating the turnaround, the double-ended design maximizes efficiency and minimizes the crossing time. As Victoria Harbour shrank over decades of land reclamation, this efficiency became even more important. The crossing that once took 40 minutes now takes about eight to ten minutes, partly because the harbor is narrower and partly because the vessels are more powerful.

The adjustable seats are themselves a piece of design history. The wooden benches can be flipped to face either direction, depending on which end of the vessel is serving as the bow for that particular crossing. According to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum’s director, Richard Welsey, this seat design has been traced to 1904 and has remained essentially unchanged ever since. Passengers today sit on the same type of reversible bench that their great-grandparents would have recognized.

The green and white color scheme has become inseparable from the Star Ferry brand. The deep green hulls with white upperworks are instantly recognizable against the gray waters of Victoria Harbour and the glittering skyline behind them. While the exact shade of green has evolved slightly over the decades, the overall scheme has remained consistent. It is one of the most recognizable color combinations in global public transport.

Together, the star names, the green-and-white livery, and the double-ended design create a cohesive visual identity that has barely changed in over a century. When you board a Star Ferry in 2026, you are stepping onto a vessel that would be immediately recognizable to a passenger from 1920 or 1950. This continuity is increasingly rare in a city that demolishes and rebuilds itself on a regular cycle.

The interior of each vessel reinforces the heritage atmosphere. The reversible wooden benches, the brass fittings, the slightly creaking wooden floors, and the open-air upper deck all contribute to a sense of traveling through time. The crew still wears classic sailor-style uniforms, and the sound of the engine and the slap of water against the hull provide a soundtrack that has not changed in generations. The experience is intentionally preserved, not as a museum piece but as a living, working transport service.

Why It Matters: Cultural Significance of the Star Ferry

The Star Ferry is not just a mode of transport. It is a cultural institution, and the star naming tradition is central to that identity. Over the years, the ferry has accumulated recognition that places it alongside the world’s most iconic travel experiences.

National Geographic Traveler named the Star Ferry crossing as one of its “50 Places of a Lifetime,” a list that includes the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Amazon rainforest. The Society of American Travel Writers voted the Star Ferry as first place in their “Top 10 Most Exciting Ferry Rides in the World.” These are not just tourism awards; they are recognition of the ferry’s unique place in global cultural consciousness.

Hong Kong residents have long compared the Star Ferry to the Eiffel Tower or the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is the image that defines the city, the experience that every visitor must have. The ferry appears in countless films, most famously in “The World of Suzie Wong” (1960), where the Star Ferry crossing serves as both setting and metaphor for the encounter between East and West. It also appears in “Noble House,” “Dark Blossom,” and numerous other films and novels set in Hong Kong.

The ferry’s cultural significance has been tested in recent years. The demolition of the historic Edinburgh Place Ferry Pier in 2006, a landmark structure built in the Bauhaus style, provoked widespread public protest and helped catalyze Hong Kong’s heritage preservation movement. The loss of the old pier demonstrated how deeply residents feel about the Star Ferry experience, not just the boats themselves but the entire infrastructure that surrounds them.

The Star Ferry is Hong Kong’s oldest form of public transport. The opening of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel in 1972 and the expansion of the MTR subway system fundamentally changed the economics of harbor crossings. Car, bus, and rail travel are all faster and often cheaper than the ferry. Yet the Star Ferry survives, partly because of its tourism value and partly because generations of Hong Kong residents refuse to let it die.

Many locals I have spoken with over the years describe choosing the ferry over the MTR for emotional reasons, despite the extra time. The eight-minute crossing offers a rare moment of calm in one of the world’s most intense cities. The open deck, the harbor breeze, and the slowly changing skyline create an experience that no tunnel or subway can replicate. The star names on the hulls are part of that ritual, a reminder that this journey has meaning beyond getting from one shore to the other.

The Hong Kong government renewed the Star Ferry’s franchise in 2018 for 15 years, ensuring the service will continue at least through 2033. But declining ridership, particularly during and after the pandemic years, has raised questions about the long-term financial sustainability of the service. The New York Times reported in 2022 that the Star Ferry, described as an “emblem of Hong Kong,” might sail into history after 142 years of operation. Whether or not that prediction comes true, the cultural significance of the star-named fleet is already cemented in history. The Star Ferry has carried not just passengers but the identity of a city.

On travel forums like Reddit’s r/HongKong and TripAdvisor, visitors consistently rate the Star Ferry as one of the best value experiences in the world. For the cost of a few Hong Kong dollars, passengers get a harbor crossing that rivals any paid sightseeing cruise. Locals on these same forums are quick to remind tourists that the ferry is a working commuter service, not a tourist attraction, which speaks to the tension between the ferry’s daily function and its global fame.

Why the Star Ferry’s Boats Are Named After Stars: A Living Tradition

The story behind the Star Ferry boat names stars tradition is more than a historical footnote. It is a narrative that connects Victorian poetry to Zoroastrian spirituality, a stowaway’s ambition to a city’s cultural identity, and a single steam launch to one of the world’s most recognizable public transport services.

Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala could not have known, when he named his first boat Morning Star after Tennyson’s evocative line, that he was establishing a naming convention that would endure for over 140 years. He was a practical businessman who saw an opportunity in Victoria Harbour and seized it. But his literary sensibility and cultural heritage led him to choose names that carried meaning beyond mere identification.

The star names give the Star Ferry a personality that most transport systems lack. Each vessel is not just a numbered unit in a fleet but a named entity with its own character. Morning Star, Evening Star, Celestial Star, Day Star. These are names that invite curiosity, that make passengers look up from their phones and wonder about the story behind them. In a city that moves at extraordinary speed, these names offer a moment of reflection.

If you visit Hong Kong, take the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour. Sit on the open upper deck, listen to the engine, watch the skyline drift past, and read the name on the bow. That name is a direct link to a Parsee stowaway from Bombay, a Victorian poet laureate, and a naming tradition that has survived wars, typhoons, corporate takeovers, and the total transformation of the city it serves. The star on the hull is more than a name. It is 140 years of Hong Kong history, still crossing the harbor every few minutes, every day.

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Conclusion: The Enduring Legacy of the Star Names

Understanding why the Star Ferry’s boats are named after stars takes us on a journey across cultures, centuries, and one of the most famous harbors in the world. The tradition began with a single Parsee merchant’s love of a Victorian poem and grew into one of the most distinctive naming conventions in maritime history.

Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala’s decision to name his vessels after stars, inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar” and his own Zoroastrian heritage, created something larger than a branding choice. He established a living tradition that has survived the Japanese occupation, devastating typhoons, the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China, and the daily pressures of running a heritage transport service in one of the world’s most fast-paced cities.

The star names connect every Star Ferry passenger to a story that spans from ancient Persia to Victorian England to colonial Hong Kong. Morning Star, Evening Star, Celestial Star, Day Star. Each name is a small piece of literary and cultural history, carried across Victoria Harbour dozens of times each day. Each crossing is a repetition of a ritual that began in 1880, a daily act of remembrance disguised as a commute.

If this story has inspired you to learn more about Hong Kong’s rich heritage, the Star Ferry itself remains the best place to start. Take the crossing from Central to Tsim Sha Tsui, find a seat on the open upper deck, and watch the harbor slide past. Read the name on the hull. Now you know where it came from, and why it matters.