New Friends in a Globalized World

The first two people I met here in Hong Kong are fellow teachers at HKSYU. I met them the day after I arrived, knocking on one door to make my presence known, meeting another later that night at dinner. They both arrived in Hong Kong via PiA (Princeton in Asia), which is a fellowship that places recent graduates of top universities in the US into different jobs throughout Asia.

Jenny just graduated from Princeton with a degree in English Literature. She was born in Anhui Province, China and moved to New Jersey when she was 4. She taught English for two months in Hunan Province as part of her fellowship program, so she has a little bit of experience in the nuances of teaching English in Asia.

Laura recently graduated from Georgetown with a degree in Culture and Politics, minor in African Studies. She is originally from Milwaukee, but is by no means a traditional "Midwestern girl." She has spent much of her last 4 years drinking grown men under the table, memorizing every gossip rag ever published, and traveling to exotic locations like Senegal, where she volunteered to teach English to the natives.

The two are extremely different, but both are very adventurous and a lot of fun to be around while peregrinating around the city. It was because of our wanderings that we stumbled upon one of the most iconic places in all of Hong Kong, Chungking Mansion.

Prior to the day we boarded the MTR and traveled under Victoria Harbor towards Kowloon Peninsula, we had done most of our exploring on Hong Kong Island. Every day we would board a bus, then hop on the subway, and get off at a different stop. One day it would be Causeway Bay to explore Times Square and check out the shopping. The next would be Wan Chai to find our teaching building and apply for our Hong Kong ID. We would travel to Central, the focal point of the island, and ride the world's longest covered escalator. At night we would meet fellow PiA'ers and head to Lan Kwai Fong, where we would try on fur coats and pose for pictures in the Russian ice bar or smoke apple shisha at a hookah lounge and make friendly with one another.

Then one day we decided to go to Kowloon. After getting off at the Tsim Sha Tsui exit, we stepped outside and were immediately bombarded by touts selling "copy watches," cheap phones, and illicit massages. And then, directly ahead of us, was the monstrosity known as Chunking Mansion. So we took a look inside.

British writer George Adams in his short story entitled "A Night in Chung King," calls Chungking Mansion a "decrepit rabbit warren of a building." On the other hand, TIME magazine, in it's annual The Best of Asia, referred to Chungking as "The Best Example of Globalization in Action." The dichotomy between these two statements are vastly different, however, both ring extremely true.

For those not in the know, Chungking Mansion is a 17 story, complex network of guesthouses, restaurants, clothing shops, junk stores, foreign currency exchanges, and foulness. It is widely known as being the cheapest place to stay in Hong Kong, and because of this, is a haven for backpackers and bargain hunters. This cheapness is put on display for all to see; The exposed electrical wires, the various insects and rodents that inhabit every nook and cranny. It is all part of the filthy appeal.

It is here where you can buy a sari, a pirated Bollywood DVD, a bowl of curry with tandoori bread, a secondhand mobile phone, and a Bob Marley T-shirt, all in the course of 5 minutes. It is a melting pot of Hong Kong's ethnic minorities, from countries spanning the globe. Gordon Mathews, a professor of Anthropology at City University of Hong Kong has "informally counted 120 nationalities" to have spent time on the premises.

While walking around, you feel a sense of fear, yet you also feel safe. You feel that the conditions are unendurable and overwhelming, yet you also feel that this is urbanization in it's most primal and humane form. And it is this polarity that makes you want to go back and do it all again.