Photo/Illutration Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong in 2005 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

While I was stationed in Hong Kong, I visited Chungking Mansions, a 17-story structure dubbed a "den of vice" by the locals.

Crammed with home electronics and mobile phone shops as well as cheap accommodations for thousands of people, the corridors teemed with loitering Tanzanians.

From "Chungking Mansions no Bosu wa Shitteiru" (The boss of Chungking Mansions knows), a book recently published by cultural anthropologist Sayaka Ogawa, I learned that this place serves as a safety valve for Tanzanian immigrants.

Ogawa frequented it and puzzled out the movement of money that keeps the immigrant community ticking.

At the root is the optimistic belief that when you are hard up, someone will help you. While keeping up the appearances of capitalism through buying, selling, lending and borrowing, the parties involved keep the transactions "flexible" within reason, not caring if they result in bad debts.

This is a mutual-help culture that is inherently irresponsible or insouciant, but Ogawa calls it a "utopian distribution-type economy."

This fickle and loose system I glimpsed in Hong Kong has returned to mind because Prime Minister Fumio Kishida keeps repeating, "Without distribution, there can be no next growth."

He is advocating a "new capitalism" that emphasizes not only growth, but distribution as well. But aside from the unfamiliarity of that term, it is difficult to imagine exactly what Kishida means, because his words are too abstract.

It has been quite a while since the limitations of capitalism were pointed out.

Around the world, people are screaming: "Income disparities have become firmly set, growth does not last, and no amount of effort will enable us to claw our way up."

Kishida is said to be personally invested in the establishment of a discussion forum called "Atarashii Shihonshugi Jitsugen Kaigi" (Forum for the realization of new capitalism).

But will it be capable of coming up with some original policy?

Should it reach an impasse, I respectfully propose that the prime minister invite some polemists from Hong Kong's Tanzanian community to it.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 7

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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