Mongkok People

One of the best places for people-watching in Hong Kong is in Mongkok, in the evening, especially in the artificial daylight of Sai Yeung Choi Street.

VI. Windows

[Partly translated by Arthur.]

It hits me like a shot of heroin, and I don’t know why.

Light through rain through the bus window, slamming and diving at my reflection, a blur dissolving into the painted world outside. Like in Fallen Angels. I straighten my tank top. Rain droplets wash through and over, sanding away at the winding city, new towers and old blocks, slick line in a window’s light. Open doors hang in black space, naked limbs just visible between pulled blinds. Towers stretch upwards, bodies and minds separated only by concrete, steel, wood, plaster. I stretch in the seat and wipe, cat-like, at the rain droplets. The bus slides, purring, beneath me. I stood huddled beneath the bamboo when it pulled to a halt, the doors slid open and I ran, rain pelting me, swiped my Octopus, and the doors catch.

Caught inside, and I am trying not to think, only to watch, watch and feel. Running along the second story, the people, ants dwarfed by an ever growing hive—the unfinished husks in south Kowloon glower half lit, tower cranes spiked in red so many meters into the storm—give way entirely. I place my hand over my breast and feel myself breathing. The bus comes to a halt, the brakes catch like a whale’s respiration, someone climbs the stairs behind me in combat boots. When I turn around, I can barely catch sight of two, skirts, jeans, spiked hair and rain soaked jackets. Bizarre Wants Awesome Knows. I turn back to the rain. I can feel it even if the air conditioning is washing over me, even if the window glass melts me into the neon gloom. An HSBC sign passes, a solitary white point sliding further and further away. The window lights fade, and I am only staring at my reflection, my own face melting into the rain. The strap of my tank top has slipped from my left shoulder.

More

Making Space in Earth’s Most Crowded Place

Like a feverish dream, Mongkok comes alive at night. Thick crowds grow thicker with the onset of dusk, as the glow of giant billboards consumes its neighbourhoods. Flickering neon bathes the narrow streets in shades of scarlet and ochre. It’s like the Hong Kong you’ve always imagined.

Mongkok is located in Kowloon, the earthier cousin to the more famous Hong Kong Island. Mongkok’s name—Wong Gok in Cantonese—means “busy place” and really, there couldn’t be a more apt description. This is Hong Kong boiled down to its most energetic, narcissistic and astounding self. Unsurprisingly, given the crowds on the streets, this is often said to be the most densely-populated area on earth. The Yau Tsim Mong District, of which Mongkok is a part, hosts 300,000 residents in an area of just 2.5 square miles.

Just sixty years ago, though, Mongkok was a low-rise district on the outskirts of Kowloon. It was the massive influx of refugees from mainland China after 1949 that transformed Mongkok into a crossroads of commerce, regional transportation and everyday neighbourhood life. Now, tens of thousands of people flock to the area’s markets, shops and offices every day. More than 20,000 people spill out of the Mongkok subway station daily—and tens of thousands more come by bus, taxi and foot. In evenings and on weekends, 16,000 people stroll down the pedestrian-only Sai Yeung Choi Street every hour.

More

Mong Kok Fiction: AC

One Night in Mongkok. Photo by Christopher DeWolf.

Wet. One second standing on the sidewalk, screaming at my cell, flick the clock forward, sopping wet. An air conditioner box exploded over my head. I remember it as a cutting, little slivers of time; first droplet, expected if unwanted, second, began inching towards the street, third, full, and I’m standing in abrupt silence, the phone running water and beginning to buzz. I watched water roll down the LCD for a naked minute before looking up. Rationalize, really, it’s like getting rained on out of nowhere, happens a lot in this city, doesn’t it? Sure the water’s dirty, but don’t kid yourself, so’s the rain. But, rationalizing the real damage was harder — but fuck, the cell phone!

More