Thoughts on Begonia Road Juvenile Home

Today I noticed that there are some workmen who appear to be gutting the building next door. I never saw anyone coming in or out of the gate, but it looks like a pretty secure building so I had no idea if it was abandoned or just really strict. It's a juvenile home, and from the look of the workmens' progress, it has been abandoned for some time.

It's sort of a weird neighbourhood for a juvenile home. The building is actually called "Begonia Road Juvenile Home". It sounds pleasant. I don't know how the charges of the place were treated, but Begonia Road is actually a laid back pleasant place. There isn't any of the hustle and bustle of the city, although that is accessible from some nearby stairs.

There isn't much evidence that the former occupants of the home came from that area either. It's fairly ritzy looking for the most part. It's not very outstanding by Canadian standards, but for Hong Kong, it is quite unique with its lack of high rises. I expect it's an expensive place to live. The placement of a juvenile home here is in that sense puzzling. If the Canadian federal government were to open yet another prison in Kingston, they probably wouldn't put it smack dab in the middle of Sydenham Ward.

However, what's remarkable is the similarity of the juvenile home's appearance to the other complexes in the area. I imagine that during its occupancy, the home did not have the same run down appearance as it does now in its abandonment, so it would probably have held its own as far as general repairs go. But even in its decay, the building still does not look out of place. As this is an expensive area to live in, the residents are wealthy. Since they are wealthy, these residents no doubt have at least some concern that undesirable elements in the city might envy their prosperity and in some sort of misguided attempt at redistributing wealth, try to procure some of their wealthier neighbours assets for themselves. In order to protect their homes from thieves, most of these places have high walls, on top of which are various deterrants to would-be scalers. Some have electric fences like you would find on a farm, some have barbed wire, and one that I find utterly macabre to imagine being put to practical use is one that has broken glass bottles all along the top. With all this emphasis on security, the juvenile home does not seem out of place. True, it has razor wire instead of the more standard barbed wire (As an aside, how did they test razor wire to find out that it worked?) but it doesn't really look any different from the outside as any of these other residential complexes nearby.

It just makes you think how strange it is that, while people who were living here against their will were being kept in by high walls, gates, and razor wire, people who have paid a lot of money to live here have to deal with the same security measures in their own building complex on a daily basis.