Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong Review

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Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong ReviewChungking Mansions is an infamous building in Hong Kong. It is a labyrinth of exotica, adventure , and otherness. In many ways it is a shadowy unknown place to many who live in Hong Kong and the countless travelers it attracts yearly. What is for sure is that we want to know more about it. Specifically more about the eclectic array of people that walk and work in its corridors each day. This fine work by Gordon Mathews satiates this curiosity quite fully.
Exploring the history of the building, its many personalities, the goods and businesses that pass through, and the new transformations, Gordon Mathews produces a landmark text. This work is particularly compelling because it addresses some misconceptions about Chungking Mansions, namely its safety and criminality and redresses these issues. It shows us that the building is intricately placed in what Mathews terms `low end globalization'. Millions of phones sold in this building sold by Pakistani tradesmen can be traced to the streets of Lagos. Illegal workers support their families in Calcutta by washing dishes or handing out flyers for the many restaurants in the building. Sex workers save money to start businesses back in their home countries. The most contemporary feature of the building is the rise in African traders passing through, this phenomenon is explored in detail and provides context for the transformations visible in the streets around Chungking Mansions.
Another important contribution this text offers is that of acknowledging asylum seekers in Hong Kong and showing their particular struggles in the territory. Many of these asylum seekers who have fled torture or the threat of political assassination frequent Chungking Mansions and contribute to an understanding of the place as a bourgeois location. The truth being that whilst the building is populated with people from disparate parts of the world, they are often the middle class entrepreneurs of their countries, and many of the businesses in Chungking Mansions themselves can be comfortably profitable.
Mathews is astute in pointing out that the fortunes and future of Chungking Mansions are tied to global caprices. Changes in visa regulations, the Olympics, and even 9/11 have changed the people and business practices that occupy Chungking Mansions. These factors reconfirm another important point that the author makes, whilst Chungking Mansions is in Hong Kong, it is not `of' Hong Kong. As such this book will tell you much about the building, much about trade with China, and much about low end globalization, it will tell you less however about Hong Kong. After all Chungking Mansions is an island of otherness in this city, a ghetto at the center of the world.
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