The second half of my guided walk

As we continued our walk through Sham Shui Po, Hazel pointed out all the brothels in the area. Prostitution is legal in Hong Kong, but only if it's done by an individual. As soon as you put a few individuals together in a place, it's considered to be a brothel and that is illegal. However, the practice goes on. Many of the prostitutes are poor women from rural China who come to Hong Kong. They're only granted a seven-day tourist visa when they arrive. Some make as much money as they can in those seven days and go home again and then repeat the exercise when they want more money. Others outstay their visa and take the risk of prosecution. Others try to find someone who is legally in Hong Kong that they can marry to facilitate their own stay in the country. It's all pretty desperate. These brothels that we saw were not obviously advertised as such. They were massage parlours with lots of girls sitting in doorways. 

Hazel pointed out that if we looked up and saw a pink neon strip strip light sticking out from the side of the building, then that meant that there was a prostitute there and she was available -  she was at work. These buildings are high rise. They're like a rabbit warren when you get inside. So the girls have their strip lights, and they also have a neon number. For example, we saw one which was 256. That meant that that girl was on the second floor, room 56. 

We then continued our walk through an ordinary market area where locals were out and about shopping. Hazel explained that there were a lot more vegetable shops in this neighbourhood, as well as little cafes that just did vegetarian food. Both are indications that this is a poor area where people can't afford meat and fish on a daily basis. She also pointed out to us the buildings of ten storeys and more with no lift. Often these buildings are occupied by older people who struggle to even leave the building because they can't manage the stairs anymore. It's a tough life. Also in this area there are many more laundry places than you would normally see in a suburb of Hong Kong because nobody has their own washing machine. There are public bathhouses, too.

We then went into a public building, a community space with a shared sports area where people play sports indoors and a library. We took the lift up to the top of the building to see the blocks of apartments on the opposite side of the street where there were roof dwellers. It's debatable whether these roof homes are preferable to living in a cage home or not. There are pros and cons. From what we could see from our vantage point, these roof homes are jerry-built at best. They are very cramped. They have very few facilities, very little running water. And they're incredibly hot. They must be. A lot of them are built out of corrugated iron sheets, so they're going to be roasting, especially in the summer. From where we were standing, we could see rats running up and down. I know there are rats everywhere in big cities, but these were just openly running up and down the roof around these makeshift homes. Hazel, explained that the building we were standing in was a refuge for people who live in places like that because they spend the day in the public building in the air con. They treat it like their living area. And then they just go back to their roof homes to sleep. 

In the background from our vantage point, we could see the public housing behind the block with the roof homes. And we could also see private high-rise apartment blocks. The difference between the two was mainly the fact that the private apartment blocks had bigger windows and balconies for each apartment. The public housing ones had tiny little windows, no outside space at all, and more apartments crammed in on each floor. You could clearly see which was which. 

We ended our tour at the Society for Community Organization or SOCO, which was set up in the 70s as a community project to help local residents. We met a social worker who works there and advises locals on what they're entitled to. They also run an after-school club because working people often don't get home till 10 p.m. so their kids come out of school at half past four and have nowhere to go. So, in the space that we were in, after we'd gone, they were expecting a whole load of kids to turn up. It gives them a safe space to sit and do their homework. I thought that was brilliant.

All in all, it was fascinating to see a completely different side of Hong Kong. Hazel wasn't bitter about anything. She accepted that this was her life and said that she wants to stay in Hong Kong forever. It's her home. Quite sobering really. 

After the tour had finished, I think most people headed straight to the MTR to go back to wherever. Me being me, I had a wander around the local area, took some photos of the market stalls and people just going about their business. And then I was hungry. It was five o'clock or so. So I went to get some food. I found a little local restaurant called Eat Together. Again, there were no foreigners in there at all, just local people. It wasn't as busy as previous places I've been to. So for once I didn't have to share a table. I have to say the meal that I had was the cheapest that I've had in Hong Kong so far and also the tastiest, the most delicious. It was a bowl of broth -  basically noodle soup with egg and tomato, sliced beef, spring onions, and bean shoots. You could choose the type of noodle you wanted. I chose the bigger flatter noodles, thinking they'd be easier to eat with my chopsticks. This wasn't necessarily true. In fact, I made a bigger mess when they fell off my chopsticks because they were bigger and heavier noodles and they splashed the broth everywhere! 😀  There you go. It's a learning process. There was a condiment on the table which was like a very fragrant vinegar sauce. I'm not sure what it was, but squirted on top of the bowl of noodles, it was delicious. I had a coffee again. There were two different coffees on the menu. One just said coffee and one said coffee with milk. So I ordered the coffee and it still came with milk! 😀 I drank it and it was flavoured with something like allspice. It was quite nice and it went very well with my soup.Read more