Gordon Mathews, Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong. Hong Kong University Press , pp. N. Jayaram. p. Ghetto at the center of the world: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong – By Gordon Mathews. RUTH E. TOULSON. University of Wyoming. Ghetto at the center of the world: Chungking mansions, Hong. Kong. Leung-sea, Lucia SIU. Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Follow this and additional works at.

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Learning to Belong to a Nationand coeditor of several books.
Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong – Gordon Mathews – Google Books
Centsr chapter also includes the life of domestic Filipino and Indonesian helpers who work in the numerous hostels on their day off for extra cash, and the life of sex workers and heroin addicts whose numbers are marginal but nevertheless constitute the social life of Chungking Mansions.
About the author N. While these approaches allow us to see how cities as strategic sites of capital accumulation and knowledge production emerge as key players or the global economy, they may pose two problems. 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 a way, this book by Gordon Mathews shows up the frivolity of their stand by highlighting the richness of life in and around Chungking Mansions. It is also where my literary idol of the moment, Harry Holeis found smoking opium at the beginning of The Leopard.
Click here to cancel reply. A Note on Hong Kong.
Gordon Mathews, Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong
Mathews cites numerous examples of underpaid and exploited workers in the building, whose desire is to one day become bosses themselves. Outside the USA, see our international sales information. But as Ghetto at the Center of the World shows us, a trip to Chungking Mansions reveals a far less glamorous side of globalization. Mathews says he has counted nationalities in its guesthouse logs and in his own meetings with centef p.

Ghetto at the Center of the World: Travel Writing and Guides. Cultural and Social Anthropology.

His writing is clear, entertaining, and it never verges on the intimidatingly academic. Ggetto library Help Advanced Book Search. Incidentally, the building recently underwent another round of refurbishment — indicating, perhaps, that it is not ready to be condemned just yet — and copies of the book were distributed to mark the event. Matthews, an anthropologist by training Image by Gerald Figal.

But surely there would have been examples of abiding friendships and comradely exchanges as well, especially as they have shared languages and cultural and culinary tastes among other things.
The personal stories collected from the traders, shopkeepers, asylum-seekers and other people who pass through the building make the book even more engaging.
A remarkably motley group of people call the building home; Pakistani phone stall operators, Chinese guesthouse workers, Nepalese heroin addicts, Indonesian mansioms workers, and traders and asylum seekers from all wt Asia and Africa live and work there—even backpacking tourists rent rooms. Cultural and Social Anthropology Asian Studies: Hyun Bang Shin finds Ghetto at the Center of the World to be a fascinating peek cenetr the future of life on our shrinking planet.
Ghetto at the Center of the World
Cheap labour is also provided by asylum seekers who work illegally while waiting for their asylum applications to chungkingg processed by the UNHCR Hong Kong office or the Hong Kong government itself. Going to War in Iraq Stanley Feldman. About Contact News Giving to the Press.
A remarkably motley group of people call the building home; Pakistani phone stall operators, Chinese guesthouse workers, LSE Review of […]. To find out more about cookies and change your preferences, visit our Cookie Policy.
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Check out my full video review Here: It was not that the guesthouse was bad; on the contrary, it was kept reasonably clean by the Filipino partner of the Indian man who ran it. 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 Thee Asia struggling to earn money to bring to their families.
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It reads like a first-rate business book. The attention to the traders and workers from Africa and Asia and the examination of their life stories place their home countries back on the globalisation map. It contains some useful links and photos, and ghwtto link to a manslons documentary about Chungking Mansions.
Or they are young people from Kidderpore in Kolkota who land in Hong Kong because the ticket fare to the city is cheaper than any other destination where they could find work.
Discussions have evolved around the issue of identifying what makes world-class or global cities.
