There is nowhere else in the world quite like Chungking Mansions, a
dilapidated seventeen-story commercial and residential structure in the
heart of Hong Kong's tourist district. A remarkably motley group of
people call the building home; Pakistani phone stall operators, Chinese
guesthouse workers, Nepalese heroin addicts, Indonesian sex workers, and
traders and asylum seekers from all over Asia and Africa live and work
there--even backpacking tourists rent rooms. In short, it is possibly
the most globalized spot on the planet.
But as Ghetto at the Center of the World shows us, a trip to Chungking
Mansions reveals a far less glamorous side of globalization. A world
away from the gleaming headquarters of multinational corporations,
Chungking Mansions is emblematic of the way globalization actually works
for most of the world's people. Gordon Mathews's intimate portrayal of
the building's polyethnic residents lays bare their intricate
connections to the international circulation of goods, money, and ideas.
We come to understand the day-to-day realities of globalization through
the stories of entrepreneurs from Africa carting cell phones in their
luggage to sell back home and temporary workers from South Asia
struggling to earn money to bring to their families. And we see that
this so-called ghetto--which inspires fear in many of Hong Kong's other
residents, despite its low crime rate--is not a place of darkness and
desperation but a beacon of hope.
Gordon Mathews's compendium of riveting stories enthralls and instructs
in equal measure, making Ghetto at the Center of the World not just a
fascinating tour of a singular place but also a peek into the future of
life on our shrinking planet.
