Sai Ying Pun, one of the oldest districts of Hong Kong, means ‘Western Garrison’, and was where the British occupation forces were initially stationed. I’ve been a resident of the neighbourhood since January 2024. Since March 2015, when the Island Line of the Mass Transit Railway was extended into this working-class neighbourhood, it has been subjected, under the direction of the Urban Renewal Authority and the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, to a strategic programme of rapid gentrification. As a newcomer to the area, I have contributed to this process, residing as I do in one of the new developments built on the demolition of several tong lau (‘Chinese buildings’). These are narrow and usually cantilevered tenement blocks that were still being built in Hong Kong up to the 1960s, and in which the residential floors, sometimes rising 9-stories or higher, were built over a ground floor reserved for commercial use.
Under the pressure of a Chinese population fleeing the excesses of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s and the lure of profits to be made from property development following the economic reforms of the 1980s, many tong lau have been demolished. Initially, these were replaced by the residential high-rise blocks that characterise Hong Kong’s extraordinary urban density, and whose podiums typically occupy the same footprint before narrowing into towers of 25 or more floors. However, since the ‘handover’ of the former British Crown Colony to the People’s Republic of China in 1997, this housing is itself being replaced by upmarket investments for the latest eruption of people and money into the Special Administration Region. These include not only Westerners but also, and in greater numbers, Hong Kong’s expanded middle-classes, who have grown rich on forty years of neoliberalism. This has brought to Sai Ying Pun the plagues of gentrification, property speculation, unaffordable housing and the consequent social cleansing of the working-class community.
In ‘A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste’ (Poetry, March 1913), Ezra Pound warned the would-be poet about mistaking verse for descriptions of a view, for which he advises presentation of the image. If, in trying to present an image of this neighbourhood, I have occasionally fallen into describing what I see, my aim has been to show how the legacy of British colonialism has been built not only into the architecture of Hong Kong but also into its economic and social relations. The lanes of Sai Ying Pun, which largely retain their Cantonese names — the origins and meanings of which are obscure even to the Cantonese — constitute a second, parallel economy and society existing between that of the main streets, which were named by the British. These lanes have been my route into this relationship. The geography of this poem flows from south-west to north-east.
This poem is dedicated to Jersey Poon, who walked with me through the lanes of Sai Ying Pun, and helped elucidate their more opaque aspects.
• • • • •
As British administration ends, we are, I believe, entitled to say that our own nation’s contribution here was to provide the scaffolding that enabled the people of Hong Kong to ascend.
— Chris Patten, ‘Hong Kong Handover Ceremony Address’ (1997)
On this dormant volcano’s side, ceaselessly erupting
Roads and towers, last night’s food, this morning’s crowd,
Vomiting into the harbour the victims of its appetite —
00000000fish heads, pig’s cheek, goose intestines,
00000000duck tongue, frog’s legs, chicken feet,
Swallowed on a newly-escalatored street
By the busily indifferent
00000000and the languidly attentive alike,
Each eruption destroys what was
00000000while laying the foundation for what will be:
Profits from the greatest drug deal in Britain’s history.
Aden, Gibraltar, Singapore, Malta,
Bahrain, Brunei, Abu Dhabi, Dubai,
Qatar, Ceylon, Kuwait, Hong Kong.
1
On Bonham Road, named after the third Governor,
In the canyon between the engineering marvels
Of the expat enclaves in today’s Mid-Levels,
Foreign domestic workers in indentured servitude
Walk the poodles of their owners,
00000000collect the children of their masters,
Who use them as they use their smartphones
00000000in the air-conditioned McDonald’s.
水00000000000000000And the schoolboys dressed all in white
街00000000000000000Who clatter, two by two, down the
水00000000000000000Narrow stairs of Anglican schools
水00000000000000000To the broad steps of Water Street
水00000000000000000Where once a river ran as swift
水00000000000000000To the waves of Victoria Harbour
水00000000000000000From the woods of Victoria Peak.
From High Street, so named not only because
The number ‘four’ sounds like ‘death’ in Cantonese,
But because they were banned from living above it
By the British — today, for an epitaph,
The only extant lane is called West End Path
Which runs behind the former insane asylum
Reserved, by the British, exclusively
For the curing of Chinese madmen.
On this Little High Street Kensington
Westerners served by South-east Asian waiters
Dine on fifty-Hong-Kong-dollar oysters
00000000artisanal dishes a la carte
In Japanese or American bars
On French, Italian and Spanish cuisines,
Completing Kau Yan Church’s Tsung Sin Mission
To convert the Hakka immigrants
To the rewards of globalisation —
Ugly white men with pretty Hong Kong girls.
Through which Pok Fu Lam Road descending
From the Wild Duck Woods to the west
And their seventeenth-century village —
000000000000turns and dips into Sai Ying Pun
玫00000000000000000Where Rose Lane runs like a seam
瑰00000000000000000Through a wall of buttressed stone
里00000000000000000Holding up the island’s terraces
水00000000000000000To the banks of a covered stream.
Western Street’s a colonial descent
Through familiar new developments
With names like King’s and Kensington Hill
By Hong Kong’s property developer cartel,
Past the disused Western Magistrates’ Court
To the Western District’s Police Station
At whose entrance stand two British cannon:
Stockholm syndrome of colonialism.
2
英00000000000000000Ying Wa Terrace, where the tong lau
華00000000000000000Were demolished in the 1980s
臺00000000000000000For towers advertised as courts,
水00000000000000000Is signposted ‘private property’.
餘00000000000000000But the exhibition video
樂00000000000000000Does not reveal what happened to
里00000000000000000The residents of Yu Lok Lane
水00000000000000000Evicted for a museum.
長00000000000000000The worn-down steps to Centre Street
安00000000000000000Are all that remain of their passing
里00000000000000000As they crossed into Cheung On Lane
水00000000000000000The dead end of speculation.
兩00000000000000000On the broad steps of Leung I Fong
儀00000000000000000The Puppy Love Pet-Grooming Spa
坊00000000000000000Competes for the childless locals
水00000000000000000With a hair salon and yoga class.
元00000000000000000But in the cool of Un Shing Lane
勝00000000000000000A banyan tree still casts its shade
里00000000000000000On a shrine of smiling Buddhas,
水00000000000000000Guan Yu, the red-faced warrior,
水00000000000000000Guanyin, the goddess of mercy,
水00000000000000000And other demon-warding deities.
Here, for a while, can you hope to escape
The mechanical sounds from Third Street
Electric cars raised on hydraulic lifts
By a vacant lot turned municipal tip.
譚00000000000000000Tam Lane, running over drains
里00000000000000000To the Sai Ying Pun post office,
水00000000000000000Is the only indication
水00000000000000000Of the vanished terraced housing.
福00000000000000000Above the steps on Fuk Sau Lane
壽00000000000000000East meets West where the middle classes
里00000000000000000Dine in Asian-fusion restaurants
水00000000000000000For the waiters’ weekend wages.
常00000000000000000But the man at Fuk Tak Temple
豐00000000000000000On the steps of Sheung Fung Lane,
里00000000000000000Dedicated to the Earth God
水00000000000000000When the residents and prostitutes
水00000000000000000Contracted the Hong Kong plague,
水00000000000000000Refuses to look at, speak to,
水00000000000000000Or otherwise acknowledge me
水00000000000000000An unbelieving foreigner —
水00000000000000000But sits on his stool throughout the day,
水00000000000000000His gaze transfixed, as people pray,
水00000000000000000By a smartphone screen.
水0000000000000000000000000000000000000O Sai Ying Pun,
水00000000000000000What demons walk among you still?
Will the paper dragon that at New Year danced
Down Third Street to lucky number 88
Protect you through this Year of the Dragon
000000000000or deliver you to your fate?
德00000000000000000Tak Sing Lane’s tiled-roof terrace
星00000000000000000Of 1950s tenements
里00000000000000000Sits on land that’s advertised
水00000000000000000By a British estate agents.
爹00000000000000000And up the steps of David Lane
核00000000000000000Overpaid professionals
里00000000000000000Eat overpriced all-day breakfasts
水00000000000000000Where English means inedible.
3
On Centre Street, site of the first sewer,
The once-crowded slope of market stalls
Has been sanitised, now, in concrete halls —
One for live seafood, fresh meat and groceries,
The other for umbrellas and seamstresses,
Where notice of the seventy-fifth year
Of the People’s Republic of China
Has been kept to a solitary poster.
But outside in the heat, where mainland brides
Pose for the cameras of their sweating grooms,
Grey-haired women the size of children
Born into the Great Chinese famine
Haunt Instagram posts like ghosts of themselves,
Their backs bent double by a state pension
Collecting cardboard boxes off the street
Piled high on carts they push with bunioned feet.
元00000000000000000Un Fuk Lane is interrupted
福00000000000000000By twenty floors of Tong Nam Mansion.
里
郭00000000000000000And the quiet of Kwok Hing Lane
興00000000000000000Is threatened by more construction.
里
匯00000000000000000But by the carpark on Ui On Lane
安00000000000000000Birds still sing in the public garden.
里
On Second Street, where the two ugly slabs
Of Island Crest have been erected
On the ruins of nine demolished blocks
And the names of four lanes forever lost —
子 泰 餘 餘00000000000Yu Po Lane East
同 來 步 步00000000000Yu Po Lane West,
巷 里 里 里00000000000Tai Loi Lane and
0000西 東00000000000Zi Tong Alley —
Hong Kongers buy Western food imported
By an offshore holding supermarket,
While outside, stray cats, looking undernourished,
Strike poses for the phones of Chinese tourists.
三00000000000000000Behind Ping Pong, where cocktails cost
多00000000000000000Four hours of the waiters’ wages,
里00000000000000000A woman, her bedroom window
水00000000000000000Opened wide onto Sam To Lane,
水00000000000000000Sings a lonely karaoke
水00000000000000000To drown out her misery,
水00000000000000000Oblivious to the smokers
水00000000000000000Fallen silent at her beauty.
西00000000000000000Where Sai Wa Lane emerges
華00000000000000000Onto the climb up Western Street
里00000000000000000Unlit stairwells in Chinese blocks
水00000000000000000Ascend like mineshafts into rock.
On First Street, just over two blocks long,
A pizza parlour and a sushi bar
Interrupt the run-down terraces
Of bare-chested men in hardware stores
And scowling women in laundromats
And the workers who queue patiently
At the exit from the Mass Transit Railway
00000000for a bus to somewhere else.
亞00000000000000000On the concrete cross of Algar Court
厘00000000000000000A rat escapes through a hole
架00000000000000000In the lid of a broken drain
巷00000000000000000And an ancient Chinese woman
水00000000000000000Carries two microwave ovens
水00000000000000000Up the steps to her condemned home
水00000000000000000Above which, serviced apartments
水00000000000000000Look down on an urban renewal zone.
4
Laid on a fishermen’s path, Queen’s Road West,
Winding between the mountain and the harbour
To the army camps of the garrison
And the brothels between First and Third Street,
Today services massage parlours and spas,
Purveyors of Chinese medicines,
Imperial Terrace and hotels with four stars
Caught in a web of bamboo scaffolding.
朝 西000000000000000By the rutted steps of Sai Hing Lane
光 興000000000000000A carpenter pulls lengths of timber
街 里000000000000000Through the teeth of a table saw
水00000000000000000As I climb onto Chiu Kwong Street.
荔 兆000000000000000On Siu Cheung Fong a curtain-maker
安 祥000000000000000Converses in fluent English
里 坊000000000000000But in Lai On Lane the hotel staff
水00000000000000000Curse in demotic Cantonese.
石00000000000000000Down broken steps to Shek Chan Lane
棧00000000000000000Hong Kong artists with Western eyes
里00000000000000000Have painted walls they haven’t seen
水00000000000000000In the international style.
奇 忠000000000000000In local defiance of which
靈 正000000000000000On an unnamed lane off Chung Ching Street
里 街000000000000000A bric-à-brac of household gods
水00000000000000000Wards passers-by to Ki Ling Lane.
西00000000000000000And at the end of Sai Yuen Lane
源00000000000000000A waving cat greets supplicants
里00000000000000000To the shrine of a laughing Buddha
水00000000000000000Embraced by giggling Chinese children.
水00000000000000000Above which, on an unnamed lane,
水00000000000000000The scent of freshly laundered clothes
水00000000000000000Mixes with the cooking smells
水00000000000000000From the kitchens off Centre Street.
桂00000000000000000On Kwai Heung Street, where a banyan tree
香00000000000000000Clings to a public toilet,
街00000000000000000The last two 60s tenements
水00000000000000000Are shadowed by pencil towers.
梅00000000000000000But in a children’s playground
芳00000000000000000On Mui Fong Street hybrid orchids
街00000000000000000Bloom in the spring, their sterile flowers
水00000000000000000Pink as the red flag of Hong Kong:
水00000000000000000Symbol of the devolution
水00000000000000000Of Sino-British relations;
水00000000000000000A nightingale of Philomel
水00000000000000000In the tree of Communist China.
From the Chinese shops on Eastern Street
Every neighbourhood west has been gutted
By the Urban Renewal Authority
With the tools of their gentrification —
00000000One Art Lane and Two Art Lane
00000000Artisan House, The Met. Sublime,
00000000Ramada Hong Kong Harbour View
00000000a new station on the Island Line
And other speculative investments
Of the Leisure Services Department.
崇00000000000000000Planning for which was granted
慶00000000000000000By the Western District Council
里00000000000000000For the price of a children’s playground
水00000000000000000On the remains of Sung Hing Lane.
5
Off Wilmer Street, piles of seahorses,
Sorted large and small, dry on sun-baked bricks,
Their knightly profiles destined for the guts
Of incontinent and impotent pricks.
And in the window of a restaurant
00000000lobsters waiting to be eaten
Wage war with claws tied in rubber bands —
A metaphor, but for something forgotten.
紫00000000000000000On what’s left of Tsz Mi Alley
薇00000000000000000Where Chinamen laugh at Gweilo
街00000000000000000Stockrooms supply the shops out front
水00000000000000000With every kind of dried seafood.
西00000000000000000But at the top of Sai Woo Lane
湖00000000000000000Above the brand-new football park
里00000000000000000Workers relax in the shadows
水00000000000000000Of the one remaining timber yard.
By the former shore, where Des Voeux Road
Bears the name of a Huguenot Governor
Who segregated European villas
From the Chinese tenements below,
Today, for a flat fare, the same trams carry
The descendants of their residents
Past the old and newer monuments
To their successive colonisations:
Best Western Plus Hotel’s Egyptian style,
Island Pacific Hotel’s postmodern pile,
The ’60s retro of Bohemian House,
Eco Tree Hotel’s virtuous ugliness,
And the Neo-Art-Deco Liaison Office
Of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong,
The glass sphere of its executive clubhouse
Glittering like a star over Sai Ying Pun.
鹹00000000000000000Last of all now, on Ham Yu Street,
魚00000000000000000Where salted fish was bought and sold
街00000000000000000Before Britannia ruled the waves,
水00000000000000000Workers on their evening break
水00000000000000000Remove their masks, smoke cigarettes
水00000000000000000And consult their phones, as they do
水00000000000000000On every lane of Sai Ying Pun —
水00000000000000000Lost networks of a community.
Beyond lies Connaught Road — until recently
A waterfront promenade of wharfs and piers
Named after the third son of Queen Victoria
By a successfully knighthood-seeking Governor;
Now buried beneath a four-lane flyover
Since the land was reclaimed from beneath the sea
For a Memorial Park to Sun Yat-sen,
Father of the Republic, in a town
Where no monument to Chairman Mao can be found.
6
When the yellow smile of an equatorial moon
Is swallowed by a South China Sea monsoon,
And the low clouds’ groping hands reach the waists
Of the high-class skyscrapers they slyly embrace,
And night creeps up the hill, hungry as the tide,
Behind noisy bars and bright-lit restaurants
Unregistered immigrants turn and hide
Down the granite steps of their concrete haunts.
While in high-rise apartments of upmarket families,
On kitchen floors, in corridors and on their balconies
00000000foreign domestic workers
Denied the right of permanent residency
00000000sleep like exotic birds
Under the mesh of Hong Kong’s aviary.
Yet at every new morning’s sun they rise
With turquoise, jade and ruby plumes for smiles.
— Simon Elmer
A Communist in Hong Kong 
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