A look of nervous curiosity clouds the faces of those who walk haltingly past the crumbling facade of Chungking Mansions in Kowloon district. The building, though flanked by some of Hong Kong’s most glamorous malls, has a shifty aura; seedy loiterers and overeager restaurant touts do little to dispel the feeling. But the dimly lit, unimpressive entrance hides a sprawling – and largely harmless – bazaar, where people from a dozen or so Asian and African nations do not just shop, but conduct full-on trade transactions in cheap electronics and textiles.
This mass exchange of goods – paid for in cash and carted across oceans in suitcases or flimsy old cardboard boxes – makes Chungking Mansions one of the most unlikely, but arguably one of the most prolific, centres for low-end globalisation.
While it is the underbelly of a hyperconnected material world, for a range of people – from south Asian and mainland Chinese store owners to entrepreneurial traders from sub-Saharan Africa – Chungking Mansions represents what thousands of others look for in the shimmering skyline of Hong Kong: economic ambition.