Chungking Mansions

Ahead of its time? Maybe someday we'll all be jammed into these self-contained multicultural living spaces.

The vocabulary to describe Chungking Mansions doesn't come easily. There is nothing like it where I come from. In American terms, "the projects" might come closest. Built in the 1960s as a nice apartment complex for Kowloon's rising middle class, this 16-story fire trap has morphed into a warren of Indian and Pakistani restaurants, money changers and flophouses. You can buy a Samsonite bag or a discount flight to Bangalore here, get a haircut or a tattoo, launder your clothes, buy drugs, whatever.

Vegetarian halal goodies at a place called KDFC, short for the Karachi Delhi Fast Food Centre, on the ground floor.

In the hallway nearest the main entrance are the money changers and phone guys. Shrill voices flail and crack: "SIM card? SIM card?" Past them are several subcontinental curry stalls, their offerings resting in unrefrigerated trays behind glass. The Indian food is out of this world. Maybe it's Bangladeshi. Language is occasionally an issue.

I looked all over but this eatery doesn't have a name. Intense flavors jumped off the plate.

Ordering lunch involves pointing at a couple of curries, holding up two fingers for naan, and saying "with rice." Everybody understands rice. Your plate goes into a microwave. Prices are remarkably consistent from stall to stall: $40HKD, about $5USD.

The potato and red-lentil-based curries have some secret vitality to them, and my body always feels better after the first bite. The only condiments I've encountered have been some kind of red vinegar and a sludgy, salty fermented paste. I've eaten lunch in Chungking Mansions four days in a row and have never felt the cool dryness of air conditioning. It must be hell in summertime.

Old wiring with worn-away insulation is everywhere. Anyone who lives here is insane.

I went to have a look around this madhouse. The elevators are slow and long lines develop, so  I climbed seven flights, checking out floors in Block C. Some of the stairwells were crowded with sinewy African dudes just ... I don't know, hangin' out. Maybe I'm projecting, but a lot of people living in the mansions appear to be running away from something.

Floor 7, Block C. This actually looks like one of Wong Kar Wai's "pillow shots" from "Chungking Express."

Upstairs are more Indian restaurants, many calling themselves "clubs," all seemingly windowless, without A/C. They exist side by side with dozens of guesthouses for Hong Kong's down and out and the itinerant "begpackers" who find these places as if by radar.

One of them, a Slovenian, sat across from me at lunch one day. (Eating out anywhere in Hong Kong often involves sitting at communal tables.) His eyes a blank blue, he said his brain was mush, explaining he had just arrived in Hong Kong minutes before. His visa on the mainland had expired, and he needed to hop out of China for awhile before reapplying. He expressed no interest in returning to Europe. I asked where he was staying, expecting him to say "down the street," but he said "in Block D," meaning he was the mansions' newest resident. To borrow from the Aesop fable, he is more foolish grasshopper than patient ant, but I can't help but admire fearless guys like this: They never get homesick, make friends easily and would go crazy if they tried to hold a regular job.

Hair dye on the right, Punjabi and Jain food on the left.

My first exposure to Chungking Mansions was in Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai's "Chungking Express," which I watched on the plane ride over. Wong says that as a child, he, too, was obsessed with the mansions, but his parents would never let him go inside.

I've eaten in Chungking Mansions four days in a row. Above, my lunch companion on Day 3. We, uh, didn't talk.

Hong Kong police and safety inspectors occasionally visit to look for fire-code violations (of which there are many; 11 died in 1989 in a fire on the lower floors) and to round up people overstaying their visas. The problem is, no one is in charge of the building. Ownership is split up among dozens of proprietors, meaning it is unlikely the building can ever be sold or redeveloped. I suppose it could be condemned ― not sure if that is a thing here. The powers-that-be certainly wish the Chungking Mansions would go away. But to my way of thinking, it has a kind of suspenseful enchantment and fills a thousand needs. Long may it stand.

Eventually, I started using this alley to come in through a side entrance. You can bypass a lot of squalor and get straight to the food.