Chungking Mansions In Depth.

A
B
C

D

Above are some interesting pictures I took from inside the Chungking mansions from my last blog post. Image A is the view looking down from my window and image D is the view looking up from my window. Image B is an interesting picture of the building superb electric wiring, and image C a picture of the haphazard commercial centre on the first few floors of the building.

The inhabitants of this place are truly international, it's an odd mix of backpackers, of all nationalities, Indian and Pakistani businesses, African businesses, and a few elderly Hong Kongers running shops. I've also bumped into and had conversations with loads of girls (usually) who have come from the phillipines, who are mostly doing "Domestic Hygiene" work. I also found out that this was named as one of the best places of globalisation in action, and that's certainly true.

The businesses are made up of money changers, electronics shops, guesthouse, indian restaurants, food shops, local convienience stores and so on.

At first I found the environment quite threatening, with being pushed and shoved in all directions by various people after my business. The constant callouts, massive queues for tiny lifts, serving large parts of a building. By far the scariest thing that happened was when I was trying to get out of the building. After waiting 25 minutes for the lift and finding it full 3 times, I decided to brave the buildings poorly maintained stairs. I went down to the ground floor but found the door to be blocked by a shelf from a shop someone had set up on the other side. One more floor down took me to the buldings back alley exit, all I could see was one scrawny cat and a load of rubbish, undettered I went outside. This was a big mistake.

I immediately found myself in a tiny alley, it was nighttime so it was occasionally lit by several out of date poorly repaired flourescent lights, most of which did not work, casting errie shadows along the alleyway. The path was covered in planks, rubbish empty cardboard boxes and general filth, from above, what I hoped was water (but was more likely airconditioning vent waste, or possibly something much worse) dropped down frequently almost like rain, and I did my best to avoid this. While walking around shady characters emerged out of the darkness, occasionally leering, or greeting me with the immortal "hashish?" With a sense of panic growing I doubled my pace, expecting to find the familiar sight of the main road just around the corner. To my horror, I just found another alleyway even worse than the one I had already passed, with no way out and no way back, I was thinking that perhaps this was going to get very very messy. Just when I thought I was out of luck and out of time, I spotted a giant double decker bus moving in the distance, inspired, I ran as fast as I could and found myself on the familiar surroundings of Nathan Road.

Aside from this one major mistake (and in reality I probably was never in any danger, but the sheer unfamiliarity with the situation is what almost caused me to panic) I've really warmed to this place. I even found an article on "Time" which sums up the place very well. http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/best_of_asia/article/0,28804,1614524_1614473_1614447,00.html

What it says about Hong Kong's multiculturalism is very true. Hong Kong does pride itself as being a world city, but this is just as much proved by the existence of places like Chungking Mansions as it is by the skyscrapers of Central and Admiralty.

In fact it's hard to believe that this rabbit warren of a building, the absolute opposite of what Hong Kong is known for (wealth and prosperity) exists barely 5 minutes accross Hong Kong bay from skyscrapers built by tycoons who made their billions. It's the first time I've seen such a polarising wealth gap since bangkok. The wealthgap definately exists in communist countries too, but it's no where near as polarising as it is in capitalist ones.

Aside from marveling at the great place to stay, I've found that exploring Hong Kong on foot as revealed many hidden treasures, such as the kowloon walled city park and A SARS memorial.

I'm expecting to stay in Hong Kong for another few days, leaving for Macau on Wednesday and flying back to Vietnam on Friday.