The Chungking Mansions

Rewind three weeks and trade Bangalore for Hong Kong. I had a fantastic stay there with visits to open-air street markets, fortune tellers and the most spectacular horse racing venue I have ever seen (more on that next week) but any talk of my time there has to begin with a portrait of the place I stayed.

(Jessie and the Hong Kong Island skyline).

If you have seen photographs of the Hong Kong skyline they probably captured Hong Kong Island–the epicenter of Hong Kong’s financial district. However, the majority of Hong Kong’s seven million residents live across Victoria Harbor on the Kowloon peninsula and in the urban sprawl that spreads from it. Kowloon, like Hong Kong Island, is also the home to an endless forest of skyscrapers but the cost of living, while still high, is more reasonable. Looking to save a few bucks, I made Kowloon my home for a nine day visit to the city.

There is a real art to picking hostels. A little research online helps, tips from Lonely Planet are a must and to really find a good deal you need some luck. My strategy for picking hostels resembles my practice of picking a bottle of wine while on a date at a restaurant that’s simply out of my pay grade. Never pick the cheapest bottle on the list but maybe the second or third.

After doing a little bit of research on hostels in Hong Kong it became clear that I was in for a rude awakening on room prices after almost three weeks in Thailand. I would be aiming not for the shittiest hostel in the city but certainly a close second. And thus, I became a resident of Chungking Mansions, a 20 story apartment building stacked with hostels, Indian and Pakistani restaurants, knock-off electronics and watch stores, and a remarkable number of money exchangers.

The place (shown to the left) is a beehive of activity at all hours. The first floor arcade is especially chaotic and jammed with folks from every corner of the former British Empire. The congestion is partly fueled by the fact that the 20 story building is serviced by eight elevators that threaten collapse at any moment. Each elevator services a different sector of the building and holds six or seven passengers per load. Ten minute waits to get on a sweaty, abysmally-slow lift are unfortunately standard.

In light of the elevator fiasco, I strategically picked a hostel on a lower floor to allow the use of the stairs. The Dragon Inn, on the third floor, was just the shoebox, easy-going kind of place my girlfriend and I could make our own. It was in fact so small, (literally nothing more than a double bed and toilet/ shower combo), that it gave us all the more reason to get out and really see Hong Kong. And so it became that my frequent trips to and from the Dragon Inn through the arcades of Chungking provided some of my fondest memories of the city.

While I’m not going to pretend to do the experience justice, let me try and introduce you to some of my favorite players on the Chungking stage.

Turning into the Chungking Mansions off of Nathan Street, I can already see my escorts awaiting my arrival. If you think we have racial profiling in the US the gangs of peddlers in Hong Kong have taken the art to a new and glorious extreme. My whiteness is a scarlet letter I cannot remove. The moment I’m spotted amongst the masses of people flowing down Hong Kong’s streets I’m swarmed with offers for massages, custom-made suits, fake Rolexes and Indian food.

It’s always the same cast of characters as I swoop into the building. Vijay and Rajkumar give me the one-two-three on why I need to buy a suit from them. I brush them off but they beg me to at least come to their stores and see their wool for myself. Unfortunately for Vijay and Rajkumar, I always keep moving.

Sanjay and the Bombay Bombers then try and lure me up to the third floor to the Taj Mahal Club for the best Tikka Masala west of Wellington Street. Their can’t-miss sales tactic is to offer potential customers VIP cards that give you ten percent off your meal. After about five days at the mansions I managed to neutralize Sanjay’s advances.

My hostel was actually across the hall from the Taj Mahal Club and on one rainy night I hit the place for some fresh naan, some of the famous tikka masala and a few King Fisher beers. My visit made Sanjay quite happy. If he had a trumpet at his disposal to herald my arrival I’m sure he would have blown it.

Following my visit, when Sanjay and I would see each other downstairs, the sales pitch was replaced with a big smile, an exclamatory “Dragon Inn” (I was of course referred to by the name of my hostel) and a high five. I have to give it to Sanjay, the tikka masala was as advertised and my VIP card has found a permanent place in my wallet.

While there are literally dozens of other characters along the trip inside Chungking to the Dragon Inn, only one other cast of players grabbed a piece of my heart. I give you the hash dealers.

Let me explain. This group of hash dealers occupies the side exit of the C block of Chungking Mansions. They are conveniently positioned with three possible escape routes: out the door into the alley, into the mess of people wandering the stalls of the first floor or up the stairs into the hostels and stores above. Their job, as far as I can figure, involves sitting in the exact same spot and whispering “hash” to anyone that passes by or knows where to find them.

Wonderfully positioned at the base of the only staircase leading to my hostel, the gang of dealers was made up of Indian or Pakistani guys in their mid twenties clad in t-shirts and jeans, playing with cell phones or strumming on beat-up guitars. While the advertisements for their product always came with a whisper, those whispers took many forms. Rather ingeniously, they turned “Hashish” into about thirty different and rather comedic abbreviations.

Apparently, they didn’t recognize me the first 20 times I dismissed their offer but our interactions in the second half of my stay took on a wonderful degree of hilarity. These were gentlemen drug dealers.

Realizing I was not buying, but no threat, they abandoned their vocal sales pitch of something like “hash” or “shish shish shish” for a finely choreographed onslaught of eyebrow raises and head nods. The words were gone but the sales pitch remained the same. Eventually, they gave up on me all together and would offer a simple “good morning,” and if I was with my girlfriend, a “hello madam.” Even in the black market, a salesman is nothing without civility.

The Chungking Mansions are certainly not for everyone, but if you find yourself in Hong Kong and have a hankering for a new suit, a fake rolex, a little tikka masala and perhaps some hash, I think you’ll know where to go.

(Looking across Victoria Harbor from Kowloon towards Hong Kong Island).