Mid-Levels

Straight up from Central, the heart of Hong Kong, via wide, well-worn stairs, the Mid-Levels hang on the steepness, in a crazy lego patchwork; you feel that if you just pulled out a single building, the whole set of blocks would cascade down in a child’s play pile of rubble. Stiletto heels everywhere, even on these narrow, crooked, cobbled and steep streets. We enter a store that sells curios – hundreds of cheap Chinese teapots and glass ornaments imitating jade. She wants a tea set, not that she will ever use it, but to remind her of these moments, this air. To remind her of how she looks, the store dusty and brightly lit, tawdry, and the street outside garish with multi-coloured neon signs; a thin black shawl hangs loosely down from her bare shoulders which are creamy, mottled with a few freckles. Her breasts strain against her red tank top, spaghetti straps biting slightly into her skin. Her skirt looks like it is patched together with irregular swatches of gauzy rags, in a variety of lengths of red, purple and yellow. The way she is standing, with one leg straight and locked, the other leg bent at the knee, cocks one hip higher than the other, and extends one foot forward. Her heels are thicker than stilettos, and across the band over the top of her foot there are little crescents of silver on the black leather. Her toes are painted the same bright pink as earlier.