Chungking Mansions, the subject of this book, is the haunt of South Asian merchants, African entrepreneurs, Indian temporary workers, African and South Asian asylum seekers and penurious travelers from across the globe.
a hub of "low - end globalization"
Although Chungking Mansions is seen by many in Hong Kong as a mysterious world of otherness strangely set in Hong Kong's very heart, it is nonetheless distinctly shaped by Hong Kong. (查看原文)
By the 1970s, Hong Kong had emerged as a manufacturing hub, and from the late 1980s on as a center for Chinese goods being shipped around the world. At the same time, a sense of a distinct Hong Kong identity, separate from that of China, gradually emerged. (查看原文)
This makes Chungking Mansions' role, as a ramshackle home of the developing world in Hong Kong, seem incongruous. Much of the disdain and fear that many Hong Kong Chinese feel toward Chungking Mansions, as I later discuss, stems from the subliminal sense that "We Hong Kongers have recently left the developing world and become wealthy. Why should these Africans and South Asians be staying in the midst of our newly wealthy home?" (查看原文)
An astute journalist accompanying me to Chungking Mansions remarked that what he saw, among its many different ethnicities and nationalities, was not just globalization but also an echo of British colonialism.
Massive changes have indeed happened to the building since 1997: the coming of African traders, which began around 2000; the upsurge of asylum seekers; the building's improved maintenance and security; and the increase in mainland Chinese tourists.
The building is adjacent to a Holiday Inn and a block from the Peninsula Hotel, perhaps Hong Kong's fanciest.
Its location in the heart of Hong Kong is what makes the building's reputation as "a heart of darkness" so extraordinary. (查看原文)
