by Kylie Chan
‘True,’ Xuan Wu said. ‘And you want to discourage him from staying here, without resorting to anything…’
‘Unnecessary,’ Gold finished for him.
‘Easily fixed,’ Xuan Wu said. ‘Take him out to look for rental accommodation. Show him what is available on the budget of a freelance photographer — one that is not being financially helped by me, because I am so offended by him.’
Leo’s face filled with understanding. ‘He won’t be able to afford anything bigger than about two hundred square feet!’
‘In Western District,’ Xuan Wu said with grim humour. ‘Next to both the crematorium and the abattoir.’
Michelle clapped her hands with glee. ‘Oh that is perfect, Lo Wu! You have such a streak of cruelty in you sometimes!’ She raced around the desk and kissed him.
Xuan Wu bobbed his head, his smile wide. ‘I thank you, my Lady.’
‘Come on, gentlemen, let’s find him a truly awful place to live,’ Michelle said to Gold and Leo.
‘The major real estate agents have websites with full information on all the flats available, with floor plans and prices,’ Gold said as they walked back to Leo’s room. ‘Give me a couple of hours, and I can sift through them all, check the buildings, and choose the very worst.’
‘Then we can call an agent, and take Daniel to see some tomorrow,’ Michelle said with delight. ‘Oh, this will be fun.’
‘Does that mean you’re gonna be offline for a couple of hours?’ Leo said as he opened the door for them.
Gold nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll have to thoroughly phase out for a search like that.’
‘What do you mean?’ Michelle said, curious.
‘He sits like a zombie on my couch, eyes wide open, processing data,’ Leo said. ‘It’s freaky.’
‘Can you display the search results somehow?’ Michelle said.
Gold nodded. ‘I can show you on the TV or computer monitor.’
‘Fascinating,’ Michelle said. ‘And all of this because you are stone?’
‘Yes,’ Gold said. He sat on the couch and wriggled to make himself comfortable. ‘Once I shut down, you won’t be able to rouse me unless you call me or email me; I’ll be in full data mode. Is that all right?’
‘Go right ahead,’ Michelle said. ‘I would like to see this.’
‘There goes our evening of gaming,’ Gold said to Leo ruefully. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh!’ Michelle said. ‘No! Do not work after hours!’
‘It’s fine, if it helps us to shift Daniel,’ Gold said. His eyes went blank. ‘Shutting down, if you need me, email me or call me.’
‘You were planning to play games with him?’ Michelle asked Leo.
Leo gestured towards his Playstation. ‘Yeah, he’s complaining that I always beat him on the racing game.’
‘Racing game, eh?’ Michelle said. ‘Want to show me?’
Leo grinned. ‘Sure!’
‘I’ve already told Cynic that your budget is a maximum of about two hundred and fifty Canadian a week, which adds up to roughly six thousand Hong Kong dollars a month,’ Gold said to Daniel as Leo drove them in the Mercedes to meet the real estate agent at the first property. ‘Her name’s Cynic, but she pronounces it “Kainick”.’
Cynic was waiting for them at the base of the building. She was about twenty, with a broad face pockmarked with acne that was concealed by a heavy layer of extremely pale make-up, making her look as if she was wearing a white mask. She wore a poorly fitting pink polyester suit and carried a folder and keys for the properties they were visiting. She greeted them without smiling, handed Gold a business card with both hands and a small bow, then marched into the building with them trailing behind.
The building was a nondescript grey-tiled high-rise tower, ten metres across, with two small shopfronts on either side of the residential entrance. Above the single glass door the name of the building was inscribed in brass in both Chinese characters and English: ‘Wealthy Mansion’.
‘The building is a wealthy mansion, perhaps it can lend me some money,’ Daniel joked as they went in.
Cynic turned to Gold, obviously confused.
‘Just a little joke about the name of the building,’ Gold said in Cantonese.
Cynic nodded without smiling and led them past the rusting letterboxes in the lobby. At the end of the dirty, green-tiled corridor there was an ancient wooden desk with a half-asleep elderly bodyguard.
‘Yar A,’ Cynic said to the guard, and scribbled her name on the guest book, then turned and pressed the button for the lift.
The lift had green laminated doors. Inside, the buttons were worn down with use and the walls were black with dirt. Gold, Leo, Michelle, Daniel and the agent altogether barely fitted.
At the twentieth floor Cynic walked through the grimy lobby to a dirt-encrusted door on one side. A single bare fluorescent tube buzzed and flickered in the middle of the whitewashed ceiling’s peeling paint. More green tiles, the grout black with dirt, covered the floor and halfway up the walls of the lobby.
Cynic opened the door with an ‘A’ on it. ‘A flat, studio, six thousand, good location but no facilities. New decoration.’
They went in. The flat was a roughly whitewashed concrete box two metres by three metres with a hardwood parquet floor and a set of three metal-framed windows at one end. At the left of the entrance, a tiny bathroom had been separated from the rest of the area by a painted wooden partition; inside the bathroom was a cheap toilet, small sink, and a flow-through water heater with a showerhead. The bathroom was too small to have a separate shower cubicle; bathing had to be done over the toilet.
The rest of the studio was taken up by a double bed jammed under the window, filling the space from one side to the other. A bookshelf had been placed against the wall between the bed and the front door, and that was all there was space for. There was no kitchen.
Daniel looked around. ‘How much did you say this was again?’
‘Six thousand,’ Cynic said.
Daniel did the math in his head. ‘That’s nearly a thousand Canadian a month. How many square feet is it? I’ve been in bigger hotel rooms!’
Cynic checked her folder. ‘Two hundred square feet gross. Most apartment six thousand dollar, two hundred, three hundred max. You want bigger?’
‘Gross?’ Daniel said.
‘They include all the lift lobby space and the fire stairs in the calculation of the unit sizes,’ Gold said. ‘And divide it up among the units, so the real size — the “net” size — is about seventy to eighty per cent of what they say. With older buildings like these, with no clubhouse, it’s about eighty-five per cent, but with newer ones it can be as low as sixty-five. So a thousand square foot flat is really only six hundred and fifty square feet.’
‘Why do they measure all their real estate in square feet?’ Daniel said. ‘Wouldn’t square metres be easier?’
‘They take it down to the last square foot,’ Gold said. ‘Give us a break, some of us are still struggling to convert from li and catty to feet and pounds, let alone kilometres and grams.’
‘I can’t do that kilometre and gram stuff either,’ Leo said. ‘Too complicated for me.’
‘So you want to rent this one or not?’ Cynic said impatiently.
‘Do you have anything with at least a kitchen?’ Daniel said.
Cynic checked her folder. ‘I have one, further west. Slightly more expensive, but much better decoration, and has a Western kitchen. You will like.’
Daniel grinned broadly. ‘Sounds perfect.’
To get to the next building, they picked their way through the wet market, the ground between the tiny stalls slippery with blood and vegetables.
‘Convenient location next to market,’ Cynic said to Daniel, who had his hand over his nose at the overpowering odour of rotting fruit and stale meat.
The wet market was an old-fashioned street market, a rarity as they were being replaced by government-owned multi-storey market buildings that still had floors a
wash with blood and rotting vegetables. Daniel stopped when he saw a butcher stall, its metal racks holding a variety of cuts of pork and beef hanging in the heat, as well as the hearts, lungs, and livers. He recoiled with horror when he saw that the large bushel bamboo basket of trash next to him held a cow’s head on top of a pile of glistening intestines, the head’s blank eyes staring dully.
‘Good for fresh meat,’ Cynic said. ‘This is a good market, plenty of fresh vegetable and meat.’ She pointed to a nearby stall where the stall holder grabbed a live chicken out of a cage, took it to a large bin, slit its throat, then tossed it into the bin to die. ‘Very fresh, fresher than America, eh?’
Another stall holder had a large flat tabletop of polystyrene foam with pieces of carp and eel laid out, the hearts still beating in the middle of the display of blood, water, and scales. ‘Very fresh!’ Cynic said.
‘I don’t think I want quite that fresh,’ Daniel said, eyes wide.
The next apartment building was slightly newer, with shiny grey tiles in the lobby rather than faded green ones. It was in a very old part of town, the gutters filled with trash and ancient stores selling a variety of pungent dried seafood across the road, the shopkeepers yelling to passers-by in Cantonese. They went through the sign-in procedure with another elderly guard, and went up to the flat.
This one was about the same size, but it had a tiny separate kitchen and bathroom with a miniscule shower cubicle. The kitchen had a clothes washer installed into the cabinets under the single-burner electric stove. The front door opened on the long side, and across from it was a small leather sofa, with a small TV on the wall next to the door. The end of the unit was once again taken up by a double bed, but this one had a cupboard that hung over the end of the bed, providing some closet space over the bed itself.
‘Is this the same size? Two hundred square feet?’ Daniel said.
Cynic checked her folder. ‘Yes, two hundred, only seven thousand a month, very good value.’
Daniel let out a long breath. ‘Are there any around this price that have actual bedrooms?’
Cynic flicked through her folder. ‘One is two bedroom, again further west, bigger again, very good value.’ She glanced up. ‘But not new decoration.’
‘I don’t care too much about decoration, provided it’s clean,’ Daniel said. ‘I don’t need fancy wallpaper and curtains, if it’s bigger that’ll make it much better.’
‘Okay.’ Cynic led them along the waterfront of Western District, the barges in the water unloading bundles from the freight ships moored in the harbour. A few people stared curiously at the group as they passed.
‘Not many foreigner seen around here,’ Cynic explained.
The stores in this area were mostly open shops selling plastic ware or groceries, with elderly Chinese shopkeepers staring suspiciously at them. They stopped outside a large, gleaming fast food restaurant with cafeteria-style chairs and tables inside, one of Hong Kong’s chain restaurants.
‘You can get all three meals a day and snacks here,’ Cynic said. ‘Very clean, very cheap, you really don’t need kitchen.’
‘But they don’t speak any English,’ Gold said, waving one hand at the Chinese menu board.
‘Do they have any English restaurants here? Or American style?’ Daniel said, beginning to sound desperate.
Cynic stared blankly at Daniel. ‘This one serves Western food too.’
‘But I can’t go in there, I don’t speak Chinese!’ Daniel said.
Cynic’s face cleared. ‘You need to learn language if you live here. I can find you language teaching service. Only English restaurant are in mid-levels, where most foreigners live.’
‘Well, show me an apartment there, then,’ Daniel said.
‘I can, I have a good one, two bedroom, nice view, clubhouse, gym, above three good Western restaurant and bars, Hollywood Road, new building,’ Cynic said. ‘Big apartment, you like very much, new decoration, six hundred and twenty square feet gross.’
‘How much?’ Gold said with amusement.
‘Thirty thousand only,’ Cynic said. ‘Very good value.’
Daniel hesitated.
‘That’s four thousand, seven hundred and thirty dollars, and forty-three cents a month Canadian,’ Gold said. He quickly remembered to conjure a calculator behind his back, and held it up. ‘I just worked it out for you. That’s…’ He pretended to use the calculator. ‘Ah, a thousand and ninety-one dollars and sixty-four cents a week.’
‘A thousand dollars a week for six hundred square feet? About sixty square metres?’ Daniel said, incredulous.
‘What is net on that?’ Gold asked Cynic.
‘Sixty-five,’ Cynic said. ‘New building, nice clubhouse.’
‘Actually it’s more like four hundred and three square feet,’ Gold said.
‘Two bedrooms in an area twenty by twenty feet?’ Daniel said, horrified. ‘For a thousand Canadian a week?’
Cynic shrugged. ‘Mid-levels, expat area, more expensive.’
‘Show me the cheaper one, the two bedroom one, near here,’ Daniel said, beginning to sound discouraged.
Michelle, who had remained silent throughout the entire process so far, patted Gold on the shoulder as they turned to go.
They walked through the dingy streets of Western District, one of the oldest parts of Hong Kong. This area wasn’t frequented by tourists, and many of the residents were elderly people who’d come from China during the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. It was a small piece of Old Hong Kong in an otherwise extremely modern city.
As they arrived at the building, the breeze from the ocean about a hundred metres away carried a bad stench that seemed to be a combination of burning tyres and dusty faecal matter. Daniel stopped, horrified. ‘What is that?’
Cynic gestured dismissively towards the harbour. ‘Not often breeze blows that way, but is “meat killing place”. Not close, you won’t get smell often, no worry.’
Daniel stared at Cynic, obviously not believing her, then shook his head. ‘Let’s see the flat.’
‘The smoke from the crematorium shouldn’t be much of a bother either,’ Gold said. ‘They have advanced air filters.’
‘Where’s that?’ Daniel said.
‘Next to the abattoir and refuse transfer station,’ Gold said cheerfully.
‘Refuse transfer?’
‘All the garbage trucks take the rubbish there, and they put it on barges to take it to the dump, which is an island offshore somewhere.’
Daniel said something under his breath and followed Cynic into the apartment building.
The building was sixties vintage, not even tiled, just plain whitewashed concrete walls, the whitewash so cheap that it formed a powdery white coat over the pockmarked peeling paint layers beneath. The narrow, grimy corridor had a linoleum floor, the red colour in the centre of the hallway worn through to white by years of passing feet. At the end of the corridor, in the narrow lift lobby, three elderly Chinese sat loudly gossiping. They were sitting on tiny stools only fifteen centimetres tall, open newspapers around them providing a makeshift floor cover. The two women, both wearing black polyester pants and jackets, stopped and stared suspiciously at the group; but the man, who wore pyjama pants and an undershirt pulled up over his rotund belly, ignored them and continued to lecture loudly in Cantonese. One of the women picked up her stool and turned her back on them as they walked past, making a loud ‘tch’ noise. The elderly man laughed raucously and said something in Cantonese that made her shake her head.
The lift had a metal gate that slid closed before the external double doors.
‘This lift is ancient!’ Daniel said.
‘Don’t worry, all the lifts are checked yearly. In fact, this lift was probably checked by that professional gentleman sitting outside with those lovely ladies,’ Gold said, enjoying himself.
Daniel silently shook his head.
The floor of the fifth floor lift lobby was green bathroom tiles without grout between them. The
walls had been green a long time ago, but now they were a grimy shade of tan, with a thick layer of dust on the door frames and window ledges. Outside the doors of the five apartments on this floor were red plastic buckets with lids, the rubbish collection for the day, and small altars with jars of sand holding pungent incense burning for the door gods.
Cynic took them to the end of the lobby and slid a filthy metal door gate aside, then attacked the lock in the gloss painted metal door with her key. After much fiddling and grunting she finally managed to heavily shove the door open, slamming it against the wall.
The room they entered was a metre and a half by two metres, with two doors side by side on the far short end, and another two doors on the long side. A faded laminated television unit stood between the two doors on the long side, with a torn black leather couch against the wall across from it, allowing only twenty centimetres room to walk between them.
‘Oh, yes, is part furnish,’ Cynic said.
The walls were the same colour as the lift lobby walls; originally a green that had turned brown from the polluted air. Rough areas on the concrete walls were coated with a thick layer of dark brown dust.
Cynic took them to the two doors at the end of the room. ‘Kitchen on right, bathroom on left.’
The kitchen was a metre square, with a tiny window thirty by sixty centimetres, covered in self-adhesive plastic. A single bathroom-style sink was on a bench forty centimetres long on the left, and a lower platform went from one side of the room to the other on the right. All of the tiles were beige, with a thick layer of slimy black mould in the grout. The floor tiles were cracked beige tiles as well, with another thick layer of mould around the bottom corners of the floor.
‘Where is the stove?’ Daniel said.
Cynic pointed at the tiled platform. ‘Put stove there.’
‘Hong Kong people cook with a double-burner gas stove, you put the gas bottle under the bench,’ Gold said.
Daniel looked around. ‘Where does the fridge go?’