An iconic, famous building for all of the wrong reasons!

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Insider tip - Visit ChungKing Mansions in Hong Kong

An iconic, famous building for all of the wrong reasons!

click on the image to enlarge

“Chungking Mansions launched as a beacon of prosperity in jet-set era Hong Kong. The building’s fame slid into notoriety soon after, and it has lived for 64 years in the spotlight. Many Hong Kong people avoid it, given its reputed sleazy underbelly, or know it only as a multi-storey souk offering exotic flavours and a cheap bed for an hour or more.

More global exposure came in 1994 with the release of the arthouse hit Chungking Express, directed by Wong Kar-wai and shot by cinematographer Christopher Doyle. The Incorporated Owners of Chungking Mansions initially refused to let the film be shot at the building, fearing reputation damage. But, as treasurer Wah Chun-fat later recalled, it started a flood of movie makers to use the building in future productions.

Crime has decreased, but the notorious building’s image didn’t quite turn squeaky clean. Today illegal activities, from teenage drug parties to the dubiously named “compensated dating”, still go on there.

Chungking Mansions’ role as a comfortable zone for traders and refugees from Africa and the sub-continent can not be ignored, whether it’s the tastes of Nigeria being dished up by Mama Africa or a cheap guest house providing shelter for those fleeing the horrors of home. Chungking Mansions has been generous and flexible.”

© South China Morning Post 2016 article | All Rights Reserved

My insider tip.

Scroll to the end!

Hong Kong has many icons, think Victoria Peak, Hong Kong Harbour, The Peninsula Hotel, Bruce Lee and then there is the ChungKing Mansions which is as iconic as it gets…… for all of the wrong reasons and yet 10 years ago people were predicting it would be torn down as it is so old and it still stands and is positively thriving, hopefully for another 10 years.

First up, I have lost count of the number of times I have been in there, many thousands of times at a guess, sometimes I am in there for 5 minutes sometimes 30 minutes or more and I have been going there since 1972 when I was an 11 year old kid, it was something then.

The building (s) is huge as you can see from the image above that I took looking down from I Square Mall on Nathan Road, ChungKing Mansions is conveniently located basically on top of the Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Station (subway) and fronts onto Nathan Road and is next door to the Holiday Inn Golden Mile Hotel, it is a one minute walk to the Peninsula Hotel, 5 minutes walk to the waterfront and the amazing Victoria Harbour and 10 minutes walk to the Star Ferry in Kowloon.

Anywhere from 10,000 - 20,000 people a day pay a visit to ChungKing Mansions! and another nugget, it is estimated that property developers would pay US$1 Billion (with a B) + to purchase the building and tear it down! and there are 920 titles in use at the building and keeping track of 920 property owners is tough if you want to redevelop the site!

So what is all the fuss about and why is it iconic and by my way of thinking it has always been about the people not the building itself, it is not squeaky clean by any stretch but it certainly has its charms.

The ChungKing Mansions complex of 4 buildings (each of 17 floors) replaced the ChungKing Arcade which had been built in the 1920’s and was also a retail arcade.

Originally the building (s) where apartment blocks for wealthy tenants but over the decades many apartments had been converted to hostel rooms and the building became a magnet for backpackers, tourists on a budget and naturally for sex workers.

It still has a shopping arcade on quite a few floors selling everything and anything and naturally restaurants of variable quality offering just about every food you can imagine abound, cheap and cheerful would be how you describe the restaurants.

So over the past 64 years ChungKing Mansions has developed a reputation as have many buildings in the area like Mirador Mansions just a minutes walk away, very similar but very different.

In the past 25 years the building has had a reputation for being a crime ridden cess pit (accurate I might add) to being a very safe building jammed with tourists from all over the world looking to change money, buy cheap trinkets or have a cheap meal and for some, somewhere to stay in a brilliant location at a reasonable price and cheap when compared to that being charged by hotels in the area and this describes the current state of affairs, it is still a very safe building to visit.

25 years ago saw a huge influx of “non-genuine” asylum seekers coming to Hong Kong and they applied to stay in Hong Kong based on the basis of a Torture/Non-refoulement Claim, Hong Kong recognises the legal charters so these people are allowed to stay in Hong Kong until their case is heard which takes anywhere from 2 years to 10 years. Unfortunately for these people they are NOT allowed to work and get a small payment from the Government.

To put things into context between 2008 and 2024 only 355 cases out of 31,087 where successful and these applicants where allowed to stay or resettled in another country

As Hong Kong is not a signatory of the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, illegal immigrants claiming that they might face torture or inhuman treatment in their home countries are not treated as “asylum seekers” nor “refugees”. Even with a Unified Screening Mechanism set up in March 2014 to screen these non-refoulement (“NR”) claims on all applicable grounds, NR claimants cannot legally stay in Hong Kong regardless of the screening outcome.

So a problem arose back then, with so many non genuine asylum seekers coming here and not being allowed to work quite a few resorted to illegal employment and on average over a thousand of them were arrested each year for various criminal offences and remarkably many of them had some connection to ChungKing Mansions and surrounding buildings.

Most of these non genuine asylum seekers come from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

For the record the Hong Kong Government pays them approximately HK$3,500 or US$450 per month to cover rent, food, transport and utilities.

So many of these so called non genuine asylum seekers work as touts for shops and businesses in ChungKing Mansions and because there are so many ethnic minorities disputes are rampant and I need to stress that for many years now this has been decreasing as the numbers of non genuine asylum seekers drops, they have finally figured out that coming to Hong Kong is a lost cause.

A lot of legal ethnic minority residents work in ChungKing Mansions in the shops and restaurants and many Hong Kong Chinese are more than happy to open up a business in the arcade given the massive flow of tourists into the building 7 days a week.

The smartest thing the owners of ChungKing Mansions ever did was to take security a lot more seriously and with an increased Police presence crime there is very rare, it is also helped that there are anywhere from 300 - 500 CCTV cameras in the building (s) with a 90 - 95% coverage and everyone knows this, there is also a very large and professional security force on site to deter any crime and there are quite often Police patrols going through the building both in uniform and plain clothes.

So one of the more amusing things I think is that local Hong Kong Chinese residents stay away from ChungKing Mansions (my wife refuses to go in there) but Mainland Chinese tourists flock there, I personally know about 15 touts or fixers as I call them who are happy to sell you branded knock off’s (watches, bags, jewellery) or set you up with female company or put you in touch with dodgy businessman who will sell you anything and everything, legal and illegal.

Generally a lot of fixers stand at the entrance to the ChungKing Mansions and can be quite irritating in a persistent sort of way but a smile and a “no thank you” is normally quite sufficient. The shop staff will always shout at you to come in and buy from their store but they are friendly, the same with restaurant staff, remember there are CCTV cameras everywhere!

click on the image to enlarge

Carol Clewlow’s 1978 review of Chungking Mansions as the best place for cheap accommodation in the heart of Hong Kong heralded a reputation that would go worldwide, and a popularity with the global community of backpackers that continues to this day, hence the iconic status!

Apparently this Lonely Planet review was a huge boost for tourism as (and I remember well) many tourists on a budget where put off by the Luxury Lifestyle status of Hong Kong and now here was somewhere to stay on the cheap in a brilliant location.

So here is my insider tip.

Visit ChungKing Mansions to change money, this is where I change my US$ (and explains why I am always in there) just by the entrance is anywhere from 10 - 15 Foreign Exchange outlets which allows you to compare rates, in my experience the closer to the entrance to the building the worse the rates are as the shops are charged a huge rent.

I use Kin Shing Money Exchange Co Ltd about a 10 second walk from the entrance, I have used them extensively since 2010 and they are utterly reliable with great rates and honest and friendly staff.

Do NOT change money at Hong Kong International Airport, on March 21st 2025 the rate at the airport was US$1 = HK$7.05 whilst in the ChungKing Mansions it can vary from US$1 = HK$7.74 to HK$7.79, it trades within a very narrow range.

Kin Shing Money Exchange Co. Ltd. - ChungKing Mansions

**The best money exchange shop in Hong Kong and my favourite place to change foreign currency**

Many of the money exchange stores in ChungKing Mansions open from 9am to between 6pm to 9pm 7 days a week.

So please do visit during the day but at night, well read below.

Frankly speaking my second tip about ChungKing Mansions is NOT to stay the night there, there are so many other options and cheaper and safer I guess, I have read quite a few articles from solo female travellers who stayed the night and had terrifying experiences, 10 minutes research on Google will get you much better accommodation options.

I have been asked by quite a few people if I would recommend the ChungKing Mansions as a place to stay the night and my answer is always a resounding NO and I personally would never stay there, our youngest son and his mates like to visit at night for a cheap curry and they are young enough and big enough not to be intimidated by miscreants and such, so for them it would not be a problem.

As I said above the place is NOT squeaky clean and when it comes to cheap accommodation you get what you pay for and then some.

Finally because of its iconic status there are many, many articles about it which are a google search click away, take the time to read articles and reviews but seriously, if you are just going in there to change money (as I do) or have a cheap meal or you just wander in there to say that you did, you will be just fine and it will certainly liven up your day, ChungKing Mansions is unique!

Well almost finally, what I love to do with my guests is take them to ChungKing Mansions and then cross the road and walk for 1 minute down Nathan Road and into the lobby of the iconic Peninsula Hotel, talks about worlds apart!