Chungking
Mansions
6
Chungking Mansions
Chungking Mansions is a building located at 36-44 Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The building is well known as nearly the cheapest accommodation in Hong Kong. Though the building is supposedly residential, it is made up of many independent low-budget hotels, shops and other services. The unusual atmosphere of the building is sometimes compared to that of the formerKowloon Walled City.[1]
Chungking Mansions features guesthouses, curry restaurants, African bistros, clothing shops, sari stores, and foreign exchangeoffices. It often acts as a large gathering place for some of the ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, particularly South Asians (Indians,Nepalese, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans), Middle Eastern people, Nigerians, Europeans, Americans, and many other peoples of the world. Peter Shadbolt of CNN stated that the complex was the "unofficial African quarter of Hong Kong".[2]
The building was completed in 1961, at which time Chinese residents predominated. Now, after more than five decades of use, there are an estimated 4,000 people living in the Mansions.
Like Hong Kong itself, Chungking Mansions exists to fill a gap between different kinds of economies, the middle-income and low-income. Its residents are the arbitrageurs of goods and labour. In this way it is like the Hong Kong of old, and a living map of the former British empire too. The likelihood is that it will end some time soon. Unmentioned goes the fact that Hong Kong too is likely to pass into history, its special role withering as China integrates more fully with the rest of the world. Chungking Mansions is already becoming more “normal” as the world outside grows everywhere more exotic.