Hong Kong’s face, the one it tries hard to present, is one of opulent wealth. That glossy skyline lighting the harbour, those imported European super-cars creeping around tight corners – these are the beauty marks of this city. Towering overhead or dotted throughout, we are reminded of what wealth we ought to be pursuing.

Yet, it is rare to see inside such wealth and rarer still to learn that the magisterial extravagance we have in our minds for such wealth is exactly as we thought it would be. Or so it appeared in this house, this bedroom of a successful doctor and member of a successful family.

The wooden canopy bed, draped with a careless beauty. The matching vanity and chest of drawers exquisitely detailed with brass fittings. The house and bedroom expertly oriented to catch the afternoon sun. This is how wealth sleeps at night and where it prepares itself for events we won’t be attending.

Though, there is a depression here. Like a mausoleum, the cream-colored walls and sheet-less bed feel lost in time, never to be changed. This house, this room will stay dark when the sun retreats. This is the idea of wealth’s bedroom without a person to give it life.

But somehow this image of wealth’s bedroom has been unaltered in our mind, even as the skyline and striking cars become more distinctive in Hong Kong. But maybe no one truly lives here anymore. Maybe it is just a tombstone that reminds us to look somewhere else for satisfaction.