A visit with an energy management company in Shenzhen in October gave me an opportunity to stop over in Hong Kong as well – and it was really great to catch up with folks there once again. Christine Loh, Hong Kong’s new Undersecretary for the Environment, arranged a ten-person gathering for lunch, and this was followed by a meeting (arranged by Hannah Routh at PwC) that quickly became known as “the geeks’ session,” allowing for a more technical discussion about HK’s environmental situation & options.

I stayed in Kowloon on the latter part of this visit, & that also presented an opportunity…. to visit Chungking Mansions! This is a place with a somewhat shady reputation in Hong Kong – not quite as bad as the Walled City I mentioned in my August 2007 posting, but certainly not high on a list of the city’s touted tourist sites either. The anthropologist Gordon Mathews has written a fascinating new book entitled Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong, which describes the Mansions as sort of a ‘Grand Central Station’ for low-economy globalization – the place where traders from Africa, S.E. Asia & other developing regions of the world come to buy large quantities of mobile phones, electronics, watches, and other goods manufactured cheaply (& often surreptitiously) in Mainland China. I’ve passed by the Mansions on Nathan Road many times, of course, but took the opportunity this time to actually wander around in it, informed by Mathews’ book. I also put Wong Kar-Wai’s well-known movie Chungking Express on my movie queue again, since a significant portion of the film takes place there. [Note: I’d forgotten how well that movie – almost two decades old now – captures the frenetic energy of not only Chungking Mansions, but of the city itself….. and with its homage to French New Wave cinema & other influences, it’s really a great way to spend a couple of hours!]

Kowloon arrival on Star Ferry

Staying in Kowloon also gave me an excuse – as if one was needed!! — to ride the Star Ferry once again. This trip’s photo shows a nighttime arrival in Kowloon, the exact opposite of the daytime landing in Wanchai in my July 2010 posting.