Chungking Mansions

Anna is doing some research on English teaching and so I tagged along with her to visit a program helping asylum seekers. It was on the top floor of a block of the infamous Chungking Mansions, a warren of hostels and canteens and little businesses in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui. I stayed there a couple of times in my youth. Anna is walking into the building here, in front of the currency exchange booth.

I followed her inside. The ground floor is filled with little hallways lined with shops that are mostly run by South Asians. The building is divided into blocks, each with its own elevator, and each floor of each block has numerous hostels or restaurants or businesses, mostly run by or catering to low-income immigrants.

We were early so we stopped for a snack at a little vegetarian place that sold 'Indian, Punjabi and Jain' food. I had a potato-stuffed bread pakora, or so I think after looking it up later. I also had a can of sweet Badam milk - badam, I discovered, is the Indian English word for almond. Anna had a delicious cup of hot Masala tea.

Their refrigerator was stacked with Amul brand butter. Amul, the biggest dairy brand in India, is synonymous with butter there and has quite an interesting history (which I just read online).

We went up to the 16th floor and had an interesting meeting with a guy who helps run a center that helps asylum seekers. It was quite a moving conversation.

Hong Kong is a place to which people come because it has one of the most liberal visa policies in the world - it gives visas upon arrival to nationals from about 170 countries and territories. But it does not allow asylum seekers to work, so many are in limbo for years waiting for their cases to be settled. The place we visited helps these people survive.

Later, we walked around Tsim Sha Tsui, still one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in Hong Kong.