The walk north from Tsim Sha Tsui on Nathan Road always has its pleasant surprises: the aerial roots of the banyan trees, growing longer and longer. The shops that cater to tourists, often a revealing glimpse of what is happening across the border – what is more in demand, Chinese and western medicines that come with fewer risks of counterfeiting, or better-quality “designer” items which are outright forgeries?
New and old restaurants, that small bakery with really soft and crispy pineapple buns, and just the usual number of people walking up and down. You can avoid the crowds through a detour in Kowloon Park, staring at the pink flamingos along the way and trying to identify the other birds – by their looks, or by their chant.
Then, walking farther up, as Nathan Road crosses Jordan Road, there sits the New Lucky House. Even by the standards of Hong Kong’s corner buildings, it is a quirky sight, a large construction with countless windows and entrances.
I do not know how many times I have taken pictures of it. The facade is one of the most recognisable, a faded yellow with green trapezoids alternatively straight or inverted. On one of the lower floors, facing the intersection, is a drawing of the torso of a bodybuilder flexing his unbelievable biceps. The drawing is in black lines on a white foreground, clumsy with impossible proportions – the bulging muscles being so heavy that, if this man existed, he would basically be forced to flex his arms all the time as there is no way he could lower them. This is the logo of what is called Power Gym, in red and all caps. In Chinese it reads 動力健美中心, translated as Centre for Bodybuilding Power.
The New Lucky House was built in 1964 and has more than 200 units – some residential, some commercial, with a number of subdivided flats and cheap guesthouses. I had always promised myself to go in and take a look around, but feelings of shyness mixed with the guilt of intrusion held me back, so I kept putting it off. On 10 April, a fire killed five people, injured at least 43 others and left a few hundred with trauma and damage to their possessions.
It was one of those really tragic Hong Kong moments: a building like this, decidedly unique, even if so clearly neglected as to be screaming out for attention and adherence to fire regulations, hiding hundreds of personal stories that I wish I, or someone else, had been nosy enough to try to disentangle from the myriad electric wires left hanging, the fire safety doors closed by clutter, and the sullen silences of property owners who had no intention of spending a penny to keep the premises safe.
In the days following the blaze, more information emerged – which I want to describe as shocking, simply because getting used to this carelessness that cost five lives would mean callousness. The building, as any intrigued passer-by could have said, was absolutely non-compliant with safety standards. What we could not have known, of course, was that the authorities had been aware of it for 16 years, but that a few disputes among landlords meant things had simply dragged on. Lots of unauthorised changes had been made, especially in the units turned into subdivided flats, and in spite of how crowded the building was, nothing was done. Until five lives were lost.
How such blatant negligence is not a priority in Hong Kong is very hard to fathom, considering the dark history of the neighbourhood. Old buildings are routinely torn down to make space for what the Urban Renewal Authority calls “renewal”: a mixture of gentrification, occasional Disneyfication, and too often wholesale destruction of old neighbourhoods that had a history, a character and complex communities inhabiting them.
I am not romanticising old, uncomfortable buildings with subdivided flats; what I am saying is that Hong Kong has enough knowhow to turn these tenements into livable places with modern amenities, without destroying their nature or their aesthetics, and that this would keep some of the unique architectural oddities Hong Kong possesses alive and functioning.
But of course, if not romantic, I am being naive. Such buildings are not at all a priority – neither for the government nor certainly for the landlords, who have no incentives, and apparently no disincentives either, to comply with rules and guidelines. It is yet unknown whether any legal consequences will be brought to bear on those who contributed to turning the building into the death trap it became, nor if families of the victims will press charges – I have not seen anything written about this possibility so far.
And yet these are the thoughts that circulate in my head when I see the buffaloes on Lantau Island being neutered in order to make the population of wild animals slowly disappear even from this huge, green lung. Or when I see the flower sellers in Prince Edward forced to move their wares indoors because rules are rules, and on certain things rules are applied with every inch of severity. Or when I see the endless expansion of land over the harbour, turning water into concrete. Unable to cherish what we have or celebrate its uniqueness, we pour concrete over it and “renew” it in a way that reproduces the same kind of half-glitzy half-anonymous buildings, with tiny flats and a bit of marble at the entrance to make them look posher.
Hong Kong’s history, its creativity and its natural habitat are all left in the hands of a few brave people who decide to volunteer their time and energy to protect and nurture it, and to take upon themselves to fight long bureaucratic battles that often come to a dead end, to save from encroachment and destruction buildings, animals and natural areas.
With all these thoughts on my mind, I am a bit wary of the next walk northwards on Nathan Road, and of what I will see when I get to the Jordan Road crossing. Most of all, I feel awfully sad and sorry for the five people we have unnecessarily lost.
