Chungking Mansions

Today I made it to the infamous tenement block that is Chungking Mansions. Usually described as “dodgy”, “seedy”, and “sketchy”, and potentially dangerous, it turned out to be quite tame, but still fascinating. It is in the busy and bustling Tsim Sha Tsui section of HK; I must have walked right past it a number of times during previous trips.

It may be the single most densely multicultural spot in the world.

I like the term the anthropologist Gordon Mathews uses – a center of “low-end globalization” -- in his excellent paper on the facility’s transient population. [2008 “Chungking Mansions: A Center of ‘Low-End Globalization.’” Ethnology XLVI (2): 169-183.]

I was there for -- what else? -- food. There are some recommended Indian and African restaurants throughout the building…hidden in the strangest places on almost every floor. I visited the Taj Mahal Club for lamb vindaloo. It was excellent, and very cheap!

I did not bring my camera so check the photos and additional info about CM at the Wikipedia link above.