Ghetto at the Center of the World

Chungking Mansions, a dilapidated seventeen-story commercial and residential structure in the heart of Hong Kong’s tourist district, boasts a strikingly diverse group of locals: Pakistani phone stall operators, Chinese guesthouse workers, Nepalese heroin addicts, Indonesian sex workers, traders from all over Asia and Africa and even backpacking tourists. In short, it may be the most globalized spot on the planet. Yet 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 any emblematic of the way globalization actually works for people living outside of the corporate bubble—the vast majority of humankind.