Saturday afternoon
It looks pleasant enough as an aged building. A four-story colonial building painted in bright blue, with balconies extending from the upper floors. The surrounding buildings are draped with alternating hues: orange, green, purple, yellow – though the immediate neighbor is a stately earth-brown. One wonders if the scene has been painted before.
But on street level, the name – first inscribed in Chinese, then its English translation underneath. 香港故事館: Hong Kong House of Stories.
A house of stories in the middle of Wan Chai (灣仔)? Surely it’s a playful pun on the building itself? But only the English allows for that possibility; the Chinese meaning is resolute.
So what, then, does one find in a “house of stories” in Wan Chai? But as I mull the question over in my head, I can’t help but tinker with it, and ask:
What does one find in Wan Chai in a house of stories?
The Hong Kong Project 