large, complex city like Tokyo often must resort to asking for directions at a local police substation. In Hong Kong, a former British colony, the British and European norm to number houses on one side of the street with odd numbers, and the other side with even numbers, is generally followed. Some roads or streets along the coastline may however have numbering only on one side, even if the opposite side is later reclaimed. These roads or streets include Ferry Street, Connaught Road West, and Gloucester Road. Most mainland Chinese cities use the European system, with odd numbers on one side of the road and even numbers on the opposite side. In high-density old Shanghai, a street number may be either a hao ("号" hào) or nong ("弄" nòng/lòng), both of them being numbered successively. A hao refers a door rather than a building, for example, if a building with the address 25 Wuming Rd is followed by another building, which has three entrances opening to the street, the latter will be numbered as three different hao, from 27 to 29 Wuming Rd. A nong, sometimes translated as "lane", refers to a block of buildings. So if in the above example the last building is followed by an enclosed compound, it will have the address "lane 31, Wuming Rd". A nong is further subdivided in its own hao, which do not correlate with the hao of the street, so the full address of an apartment within a compound may look like "Apartment 5005, no. 7, lane 31, Wuming Rd". In Taiwan, the European system is used in cities, and is mostly same as the cases of mainland Chinese cities and Hong Kong. Longer roads are usually divided into several sections to prevent the road having too many numbers (normally more than 1000). In rural areas, village or settlement name is used in house numbering, where numbering norms are not certain. A xiang("巷" xiàng, translated as "lane") indicates a branch from a main road; and a nong ("弄" nòng/lòng, translated as "alley") indicates a branch from a xiang. For many reasons such as new establishment of buildings or several apartments in a building, the zhi ("之" zhī, normally simply translated as a hyphen, "–") is used. Southeast Asia The most common street address formats in Vietnam are: A number followed by the street name, for example "". This is the most