Always Liminal, Always in Transition: Hong Kong as Staircase City

Abstract

This article analyses the ‘stair culture’ of Hong Kong Island, a place that is constrained by its topography, economic, and social-historical conditions. Staircases are interwoven into an infrastructure of vertical and horizontal pathways. Instead of just being a means of access, staircases play a key role in shaping the urban island. Through a critical examination of these structures and relevant literary and filmic texts (Leung Ping-Kwan’s poems, Wong Kar-wai’s films, and Tsai Ming-liang’s Walker series [2012]), the article provides a way of understanding the extent to which the perception of Hong Kong Island is re-imagined by way of an urbanscape punctuated by staircases. Staircases have the ability to mix up people in different classes in such places as the Central to Mid-Levels area and Sai Ying Pun Centre Street. Both districts are initially connected by staircases and later escalators. By examining the impact of escalators (such as high-speed gentrification, closing down of local stores, and the loss of real public spaces) and the effects of staircases on cultural activities in different areas, this article argues that staircases expose the nature of a classed society in Hong Kong Island – and, by extension, Hong Kong as a whole – and represent a nostalgia that is potentially productive.