Have you ever been to a truly dark sky area though? I used to think I could see a lot of stars and then I went to a truly remote area 100's of miles from a large city and dozens of miles from even small settlements and my mind was blown away by the clarity of the milky way.
I’ve been to pretty wild places with stark skies, though didn’t especially care to observe it at the time to be honest.
Goes without arguing that outside of a city is generally easier to observe night sky because pollution is weaker. However, if the place far from a city has polluted air for whatever reason it’ll still be a problem—and conversely even in a city air and light pollution are not a given, subject to regulations and climate patterns.
I’ve seen our Milky Way, not in HK but in another city (smaller but stronger air pollution). It was very weak (first, air pollution amplifying light pollution; second, it was not too high above the horizon when I was awake), but not seeing it in all of its glory doesn’t mean city dwellers have to concede that they lost the sky completely even now, much less 100 years ago—because they obviously haven’t.
