Postmodern Housing in Hong Kong
In the neoliberal city of Hong Kong the unfairness of land distribution can be glimpsed in the advertising billboards used by developers to promote their products. In suggesting that a certain lifestyle is not only desirable but actually guaranteed by living in a certain exorbitantly expensive concrete unit, albeit a cleverly disguised one, the property magnates are making use of a simulacrum. As Baudrillard states “it is with the same imperialism that the present-day simulators try to make real, all the real, coincide with their simulation model.”[1] Thus what is hidden behind the mirage of a glamorous lifestyle is not the opportunity for a civilized society where everyone has the chance to live a life of luxury but actually an unfair system of monopolies and frustration involving long working hours for the middle-classes, drudgery for the poor and exclusion for the migrant workers who not only help to build these simulacra but also sustain their existence by enabling the home to function when all the adults are working in order to pay for it.
rachelceramics 