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| Source: Eslite Bookstore |
(I AM NOT A BOOK REVIEW)
We see Chungking Mansions in Wong Kar Wai's movie, we pass it by shopping along TST, we've been told of a plethora of adjectives attached to this building - mysterious, complicated, exciting, cool, among negative ones.
For a HK fan like me, I want to know about its whereabouts - so as soon as I knew of the publication of "Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong" I ordered it from Amazon (as a Taiwan local you may check on Eslite bookstore). This book indeed provides explanations for a lot of my preliminary doubts.
At any given night you may find some 4,000 people of 129 different nationalities staying in Chungking Mansions. The majority of the people there are traders, business owners, temporary workers, asylum seekers, and tourists. Together, these people form a net of activities which the author, Mr. Mathews, describes as "low-end globalization". Different from the gleaming HQs of MNCs representative of "high-end globalization" (something our concept roughly equals to "globalization"), "low-end globalization" is formed by small traders and illegal workers engaging in the exchange of small amount of cheap goods. The economic activities of "low-end globalization" are what maintain the livelihood of most of the world's population.
Mr. Mathews accounts 3 reasons for the modern representation of Chungking Mansions: cheapness, Hong Kong's loose visa regulations, and China's emergence as the world factory.
A night's stay at Chungking Mansions may be as low as just HKD$100 whereas something similar across the street costs 3 folds. Reasons are the lack of unified ownership of this building and its negative image deeply connected with South Asian and African presence - and hence, with a budget of 300 per night you'd probably rather stay in the building down a few blocks or across the street, leaving those 100 dollar budgeted go for Chungking Mansions.
The relatively loose visa regulations allow the majority of the world's nationalities to enter Hong Kong visa-free (see Hong Kong visa-free country list); they come to Hong Kong to work temporarily or proceed to China to buy goods and bring back home for sale.
The book provides an account of one food stall: a meal costs HK$20-50, they serve about 100 customers per day, and the restaurant may gross HK$100,000 a month. After subtracting from the the rent (HK$23,000 per month) and raw food costs, if the owner is to make HK$30,000, the monthly salary paid to the 8 workers has to be dwarfed to HK$3,500 per person. The economics of this food stall refrain the owner from legally hiring a Hong Kong resident for a minimum monthly salary of HK$8,000, meaning, in order to survive, they have no choice but to hire temp workers, illegally.
Having gained a preliminary understanding of Chungking Mansions, you'd see that if any node is to be altered, the building's whole eco-system is broken. For example, if all business owners hire only legal workers, prices of house rent, food, and products may all double, and once doubled, traders from Africa and South Asia are no longer able to afford coming to Hong Kong for business. If this happens, Chungking Mansions may be yet another commercial building harboring HK standard shops and restaurants just as everyone else in its neighborhood.
這是一本香港迷不可錯過的書。因為研究主體本身的性質，這本書注定親民好讀。和一般學術研究不同的是作者無法將細節公諸於世，不然重慶大廈的非法移民、非法勞工、性工作者、販毒者也不會同意接受作者的採訪。
作者形容重慶大廈為"低階全球化"的代表。當前全球化的論述主要圍繞著全球的商業經濟活動，而從事這些經濟活動的是穿梭在各大城市的富麗堂皇的辦公大樓裡的菁英階級，這是"高階全球化"。出入重慶大廈裡面的人主要是來自非洲和南亞的小生意人，他們到香港或中國帶貨回國販賣，還有一大批人是來香港非法打工賺錢，他們每個月掙的3500港幣，以香港標準來說固少得可憐，卻能讓他們撐起一個家，成為出國賺錢的英雄人物。
三個因素成就了今日的重慶大廈 : 便宜、香港寬鬆的簽證限制(可免簽入境香港國家名單)、以及成為世界工廠的中國。
重慶大廈是由一個非常複雜的人事時地物的網絡所維繫的，任何一個節點被破壞都將改變重慶大廈的面貌。若香港的免簽政策緊縮，許多國家的國民便無法進入香港非法打工，重慶大廈的商家若無法雇用非法勞工，便須花費多出一倍以上的成本聘請本地合法勞工，旅館房費、餐廳、商店的一切價錢皆需調漲，使得來自非洲及南亞的商人無法負擔，經濟活動無法持續。
現在的重慶大廈是這樣一個特殊的地方: 它是處於耀人眼目的東方之珠裡的貧民窟，但這個貧民窟卻是維繫著所謂南亞、非洲、和中東的許許多多商人以及消費者的商業活動的一個經濟中心，對這些人來講，重慶大廈就是他們的世貿、他們的華爾街。
Read book reviews:
- "Inside Chungking Mansions with expert Gordon Mathews" by Jason Beerman on CNN Go (中文版)
- "Chungking Mansions Home to the world" by the Economist
- "Commerce in the Rough : The 17-story Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong is a hive of small-bore arbitrage and 'Nokla' phone sales" by Paul Karl Lukacs on the Wall Street Journal
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