Places in the UK that I lived in

中文版

A while ago, Queenie was staying at my place in London. While we were having small talks over a supper, her tone suddenly became serious and said she hoped I wouldn't mind something she did in the afternoon. I thought she probably broke a glass or did something similarly minuscule, and said, go ahead, just say it. It turns out she had taken a set of photographs in the flat and had this idea of starting a photography project. Of course I wouldn't have minded. And then she asked me to connect her with Hong Kong people of our generation who are working in London. I could try my best, I said.

This is how it started. And, inside my mind, I started to recount all the places I've been a tenant in the UK.

I did my A-levels in Hong Kong and went to London to read a degree in 2009. In my first year in university, I lived in Bankside House, a residential hall run by the School. It was a seven-storey high building complete with a basement, right behind Tate Modern. It usually takes me around 25 minutes to walk to school. It was a spacious room - perhaps just over 100 sq ft - carpeted with a subdued hue of greyish blue and with a single bed. It almost feels empty and too big, but I suppose I can't complain about that. My predecessor attached a few Ikea square mirrors to the otherwise plain walls, which were painted in a kind of white-ish cream. The rent was accordingly high: I could still recall that it was £20.27, and it must have gone up quite a bit over the eight intervening years.

Bankside House (2009-2010)

The School only guaranteed accommodation for first-year students; a small number of hall places were allocated to second- and third-year students by ballot, which I had no luck with. I rented a small 3-bedroom flat with two other coursemates from Hong Kong. The flat was on the third floor of a Grade-II-listed red-brick four-storey building in a council estate, which was built in 1905 to resettle former residents of Dickensian dwellings which were being cleared at the time. It had no lifts and we had to use the stairs every day, which we get used to sooner than we thought. To save money, I chose the smallest room, bought a loft bed and placed a worktop beneath. There were many trees in the housing estate. In autumn there were glamorous red and yellow leaves. But we did not stay long there, and the next year I moved out of central London, to Stratford, with one of the friends.

Ledam Building, Bourne Estate (2010-2011)

When I was in Bankside House I had Singaporean and Portuguese friends who had their respective flags on the wall in their rooms. In the summer between my second and third years, I bought a large map of Hong Kong from the Lands Department's stall at the Book Fair. It later became a prominent feature of our flat's living room that year. It was a two-bedroom flat with a view of a car park, plus a multi-storey car park behind it, and a Mark & Spencer's neon sign afar. My flatmate and I started to make cocktails that year. My favourite was Long Island Iced Tea: its ingredients - coke, lemon, and four different spirits - are all kitchen staples. Once, on a cold dark winter night, I was sipping from my glass on my own while I looked/stared at the amber circles that streetlamps make in the heavy fog. Of course, this was an exception of my life: the norm was to seek jobs, apply to master's programmes and study in a general feeling of unease and being lost.

I also came to know Queenie that year. She was travelling in the UK with a friend of hers, and the plan was to stay at our place for a few days and have a feel of the festive atmosphere in London around Christmas before they fly north. While our small talk could still be described as 'brief', I told them honestly, the UK is not like Hong Kong. The law and the customs are different. Over here, Christmas is also celebrated by all - and that's why all shops would be closed, all train and bus services do not run, and everyone spends time with their families. We did not have family with us, so we roasted a small turkey, opened a bottle of champagne, and quietly celebrated Christmas in our own way.

Gerry Raffles Square, Stratford (2011-2012)

I was quite lost when it comes to what I should do after graduation. I applied to three master's programmes and quite a few employers. When I finally made up my mind and decided to do a master's outside London, there were no rooms left on college site. I was sent off to a white two-storey house away from the city centre, which was fairly well-concealed from the road by some tall bushes and a big tree. A teaching fellow and his fiancée occupied the one-bedroom flat on the ground floor. The rest of the house was divided into a big kitchen, a big living room, three bathrooms, and eight single rooms of varying sizes. There was also a tiny garage where we park our bikes. All but one of my housemates were mathematicians, as we were opposite the new Institute for Mathematical Sciences. Behind our house, there was a large garden; I heard good things about the barbeques that had happened on the grass there, but I sadly missed it: the winter was long that year - it was still snowing in April - and I became too occupied with my exams and thesis when summer finally came. The house was on a Clarkson Road, which leads to Wilberforce Road if I turn left as I leave the house - both were named after 19th-century abolitionists who went to the same college. This was truly the edge of the city: if one walks past the University Sports Ground on Wilberforce Road, he comes to the sight of endless fields of wheat. The sky was so dimly lit that I could see not only stars but constellations, whenever I cycled home on a cloudless night.

Clarkson Road, Cambridge (2012-2013)

After I finished my master's, I returned to London and started working. I lodged at a second-degree cousin's place in my first month while I was looking for a place with a friend. And we again ended up in Stratford, in a two-bedroom flat on the fourth floor. It has a large floor-to-ceiling window with a view of London Underground's repairs facilities and training centre and Canary Wharf's skyscrapers further afield. We bought a purple rug, and my flatmate added a coffee machine, and we spent two years there.

Hallings Wharf Studios, Stratford (2013-2015)

I moved again two years ago - back to the apartment building I once lived in when I was in my third year in university. I even stayed on the same floor (1/F) - only the door number changed. And it was in this apartment that the lights and shadows Queenie so artfully immortalised once happened.

P.S.: I tried to put Queenie in touch with a friend who just turned 30. Unfortunately, Queenie had her diary fully packed, and couldn't visit her place. My friend later read "aged 20-30" in the description, and enquired whether she was excluded because of her age. Well, I'll hand this question back to the organiser...