my first impression of the city was all
apocalyptic urbanist delirium. i felt that city rush through my veins. i wanted
to devour the city, i wanted to eat it whole. i wanted to squat in the corners
of tube lit corridors and cackle with the pimps, i wanted to spit blood on the
pavements and run wild on the sliding floors. i want to meet strangers in the
park and have orgies into the dawn, i wanted to feel the prick of skyscraper
needles in my veins, i wanted my flesh to be skewered on bamboo sticks and
eaten by the whores, i wanted to swallow this city whole as i screamed.
the global city madness begins as soon as
you land. the skyscrapers of the new territories against the deep green lush
mountains that rise from the sea. and then when you get off the bus at kowloon,
the polylingual marketplace assaults you. the first language that you hear is
the rush of hindi- touts pushing tacky visiting cards in your face for tiny
rooms inside the labyrinth of corridors in chungking mansions or in one of the other
hotels in the area. i loved in one of the buildings next to chungking mansions-
another cross cultural melting pot- the lower floors with a shopping centre on
two levels and then the courtyard building with multiple wings- and in each
hotels that are spread across in tiny hired rooms networked together by a
skilled manager. the hotel i lived in was managed by a bengali migrant- all the
way from kolkata while the owner was nepali- an inversion of the usual
relationship in india. the room was tiny- big enough only for a bed and some
leg room- but there was a television and pink wallpaper that was not too
stained. on the same floor thai women worked at tailoring for the
a-suit-in-a-day shops that lined the tube lit corridors below.
that evening i went for a walk to the
kowloon park and watched as men huddled in corners and hid under the shadows of
the trees around the mosque.
on the first day, i decided to explore hong
kong island to the south, the star ferry crosses the bay with views of the
skyscrapers in the distance. it was here that the complicated relationship hong
kong has to the rest of the chinese landscape became apparent. tow opposing
sets of banners faced each other off. on one side (and much more prominent)
were those that protested against taiwan(?) for sending supporters of the
neo-religious group the falun gong to hong kong. the group has been outlawed on
the mainland- but not yet in hk which maintains its complicated relationship
with the communist government in beijing. the banners are supported by a
mainland government supported group. on the other side were banners that
documented the atrocities of the chinese government but were much smaller in nature. most people
from hk seemed to walk by these nonchalantly- but the tourists read every word-
yours truly included.
when you get off the star ferry on hong
kong island the 3 dimensional city begins. covered skywalks zoom in and out of
malls, crossing roads and parking lots, whizzing past the financial centre and
the markets below. it was a holiday for the filipino women who work as
caretakers in the rich chinese households and for them the city was the park.
in the morning they began their day by setting up their temporary homes in the
sky- cardboard boxes opened out to make beds and enclosures. their cell phones
busy trying to make appointments with their friends from the nearby apartment
complexes in the new territories where they spent the rest of the week. they
carried their food in plastic bags, their entertainment in boom boxes and tablets
loaded with music and movies and set up home under the watchful eyes of the
security guards at the doors of the shopping malls. i was told that there is no
real ‘public’ space in hong kong- as most of the space outside the building is
owned by the buildings themselves- yet the urge to sell and to attract as many
footfalls as possible within the buildings seems to have led to this unique
form of appropriation of the ‘public realm’ and although both parties (i.e. the
labour and the malls) seem to be wary of each other- they do realise that they
depend on each other.
the morning walk was to concentrate on the
early colony of hong kong to the west of the star ferry terminal with its
markets, street-escalators and its housing complexes set into the hills-
terrace flats with stair streets leading up. the western market building had
been gentrified into a swanky shop for souvenirs- but the other markets- like
the one for dry seafood or the wet market were reminiscent of the markets of so
many chinese cities- red and gold in colour and smell of fresh fruit and fish.
commerce comes in all kinds of forms in this city. the large malls that allow
you to walk through- in spite of the security to the touristy markets where
hong kong souvenirs and jade trinkets are sold like cat street market to the
cheap stores catering to the migrant labour to the traditional chinese markets
that line the lin wei east and west streets. they all sit over one another and
it is easy to get lost in the maze. it has been almost a month now and all i can remember is walking
through a feverish rush of colours and light, bodies and textures.
it is a heady rush to ride the public
escalators of the city. they rise past the markets and homes through the
mid-levels and are used by locals and tourists alike. you can sneak into the
back alleys where the stray cats snore or at the roof top terrace houses. at
the top of one of the escalators you go past the green curls of the mosque and
further up the expensive homes of the super rich in tall high rises- and as is
common in these kinds of areas the streets are cleansed of the activities of
the lower areas.
there are not that many historic buildings
left in hong kong – and those that are have been transformed into more
contemporary uses. the exceptions being the man mo temple and other religious
buildings like the kwang fo ancestral hall and temple near the tung wah
hospital for ancient chinese medicine (the first of its kind in hong
kong-1872). the religious buildings are of the typical buddhist courtyard type.
but the ancestral hall was on the first floor with these incredible spiralling
incense cones that filled the interior of the buildings with a thick fragrant
smoke.
other historic buildings are typical of a
colonial city- a church, the police headquarters, the government centre, etc.
surprisingly none of these have the monumental heaviness of the buildings of
the raj in india- this- in spite of the fact that hong kong was under british
rule until much later. i can only speculate that it might be because of the
different places hong kong and india occupied in the minds of the colonists.
while india was meant to be part of the british raj in perpetuity, hk was seen
as an outpost to be delivered back to china and therefore not a place for heavy
investment in institutional infrastructure. or maybe i am way off mark here.
of the historic buildings that i saw there
was the former civil hospital nurses quarters with its monumental façade
preserved but gutted on the inside completely, the hong kong museum of medical
sciences and the sun yat sen memorial museum, the diminutive wan chai post
office to the east towards causeway; the legislative complex building on the
public square and st john’s cathedral which was once converted to a club under
japanese occupation and was later restored near the peak tramway which was
under renovation.
the history of hong kong as an outpost for
international exchange and intrigue was played out in one of my favourite books
when i was growing up- john lecarre’s ‘the honourable schoolboy’. a lot of the
action takes place in the foreign correspondents club which used to be besides
the harbour. that building no longer exists today and the fcc has been moved
into an old diary farm building in the city. this building straddles the
contours of the hills and is surrounded by streets on all sides. one of the
famous scenes in the lecarre book takes place in the men’s room and sure enough
in the men’s room above the urinals is a photograph of the view from the
earlier building marking the same view that inspired the book. the police
headquarter complex sits opposite this building and seemed to be a collection
of disparate buildings. later on my visit to the museum there was a model of
this complex as a display.
most of the older residential fabric of the
city has been replaced by newer swankier high rises now- but an area that still
retains some of its heritage is the wing lee street development. the housing
complex is in the middle of the street and stair network that forms the structure
of the older city.
on a flattened portion of the hill on a
narrow terrace a row of rcc frame structures that are being restored slowly and
steadily. on the lower floor of the one the buildings was an exhibition that
had these drawings about the history of the area and a detailed description of
the restoration process. directly opposite the housing complex i saw yet
another result of the hyper density of the city- a children’s park on the top
floor of a market where wedding photographs were being taken.
in spite of the mad density of the city
there were more traditional open spaces too. smaller pocket parks like the
hollywood road park, or the hong kong zoo with its aviary and the hong kong
park opposite.
wan chai seemed like a less hyperactive area-
smaller street markets that separated the high commerce of causeway from the
central district. at ‘times square’ a temporary memorial and museum was set up
for gay honk kong star leslie cheung including posters of ‘happy together’ tow
chinese men in each others arms in south america.
sometimes fragments of a shared history
between the two colonial cities – bombay and hong kong pop up unexpectedly like
the modi street or the ruttonjee hospital or the gurudwara where sikh families
were playing with their kids.
i guess i cant end this part of the post
without talking about the two iconic skyscrapers of the hong kong skyline. the
bank of china building by i m pei- with its shard like spire rising from a
neo-oriental base inspired it would seem by the turrets of the great wall of
china that seems like to belongs to another building; and the honk kong and
shanghai bank by norman foster. here too the structure is naked and exposed,
but the lower floor is where the building becomes so much more than just another
high rise- on holidays filipino works throng the spaces sitting on the floor
making it a home for a day. escalators are supposed to rise from here into the
atrium that’s at the heart of the building- but this has been closed off.
unfortunately.
the next day i spent visiting mika and mo
at the china university in hong kong set in the new territories. they had
recently moved into a new building with an atrium in the middle and from the
roof you could see the high rises and hills of the newer areas of hong kong.
later i met johnson at his gallery in central and we went for a lovely lunch at
the hong kong club with its shanghai deco trappings. art deco does have this
ability to exoticize every location. a little like this blog?
later the skyline of hong kong performed
with light and sound and the chatter of american tourists. a celebration of
capital- in song and dance. lasers sliced through the evening sky as clouds
caught their light. the skyscrapers danced. the music ranged from disneyfied
chinese to american pomp. further down the streets the hand prints of hong kong
film stars alongside propos for us to pose along with on the hong kong avenue
of stars.
on the third day i explored the
neighbourhood where i was living – kowloon island- reportedly one of the
densest places in the world. the southern tip was the tourist trap. from one
street where chanel and louis vuitton had their boutiques with people lining up
outside for a look within, the other had the cheap motels like the mirador and
the chungking mansions- third world shopping centres on the lower floors and
labyrinth / dungeon living spaces above.
further north is the kowloon park (not to be confused with the kowloon city
park- more about that later) with its sculpture gardens, mosque and avenue of
comic book stars. on a sunday the pockets of gardens are full of migrant labour
performing the rituals of a displaced community- traditional dances, food and
chatter- even hip hop dance practice. in the middle of all of this you might
find a tai chi or a kung fu performance. the community centre to the north of
the park has a swimming pool where pools cascaded into one another and an
exhibition centre where the new infrastructure being planned for the city was
being promoted.
as you walk further up north towards the
sham sui po district the dense market areas remind you of the history of hong
kong as a port- seamen’s hostels, traditional markets- that were still opening
when i went through, tourist markets like the jade market below the flyover or
the goldfish market and the rehoused bird market; specialized markets for
steel, clothes, etc. and naturally the swanky malls around the metro stations.
the landscape gets more and more working class as you move towards the north.
unlike taiwan, hong kong has a long history
of state sponsored public housing. the shek kip mei area was a huge slum and
was redeveloped in 1954 after a devastating fire. this is the first example of
public housing in hong kong. the choice of architecture seems inspired by
european modernism. very few of the older buildings are still present. one of
the them is block 41 which is currently being conserved and being turned into a
hostel of sorts. around this building are the typical blocks around courtyards
of public housing projects around the world.
kowloon city has reached almost mythical
dimensions in my imagination of hong kong- an old chinese city that lay in
between a territory dispute between the chinese and the british governments
became a haven for squatters and illegal activities. it was also a cheap place
to live for many who came to hong kong. this complex was seen to be too
dangerous in the 1980’s and was controversially demolished in 1993 and replaced
by a park- the kowloon walled city park. only fragments of the rcc frame still
remain but the other chinese government building as still been preserved and
converted into a museum that traces the history of the walled city- from the
initial chinese city to the squatters and their eventual eviction. the stories
of the inhabitants and the plans of the houses along with a terrific section of
the city is part of the park- the cleanliness and order of a monument to
informality replaces the messiness of its reality. death replaces life.
but if you are in hong kong a place that is
recommended by all the tourist guides is the top of the peak, even if you don’t
enter the rather cramped and unnecessary terry farrel buildings there are
fantastic views of the city from the peak. one evening i took a taxi up,
avoiding the long lines at the tramway, and watched the sun set over the
skyline watching the lights come on the distant high rises in the new
territories and the docks in the distance. the spectacle of a city of capital-
its madness, its horrors and thrills – from a distance – a celebration – and
this time without background music.
