The reality for ordinary Hong Kongers

I had another really bad night. I didn't sleep at all before 4 a.m. but then I must have gone to sleep. I woke up at 10:15! I just feel like my body clock is upside down - goodness knows why. Anyway, I had a walking tour booked for this morning, but luckily they messaged me last night and asked if I would change to the afternoon slot. So that worked out well. It meant that I could spend some time this morning sorting out my photos and my travel notes.

I left the hotel at 1:45 to go to the meeting point for the walking tour, which was described as a walk around the dark side of Hong Kong. The meeting point for was Prince Edward metro station, which is a few stops up the line from where I'm staying. It was a different direction to Central where I've gone before. The districts that we were walking around were Prince Edward itself and also Sham Shui Po.

Our guide was Hazel. She began with an introduction to the housing situation for ordinary working people in Hong Kong. The figures she was quoting were shocking. It's difficult to remember all the specific information she gave us. One thing that stuck in my mind was that the average salary for people like teachers would be around 20,000 Hong Kong dollars a month. So about two thousand pounds a month. But it's impossible to rent anything of your own for that. You just can't afford it on that salary. And if you're earning even less as a road sweeper, for example, you've got really no chance at all. We stopped outside an estate agent's window and Hazel was explaining to us the property prices to buy for a start, which is just out of any realms of possibility for most ordinary people in Hong Kong. And in terms of rent, you can't rent anything for less than equivalent of 1800 pounds a month for your own space. And these are very small spaces - 20 square metres or less. There were some shocking figures and you just wonder how people cope. We went to look at a subdivided apartment, which has been one of the solutions, if you can call it that, to the housing crisis here in Hong Kong for many years. So what you would consider to be a normal small apartment, let's say 40 square metres or less, is subdivided into mini apartments that are rented out by landlords. The extreme of this is cage homes. So these homes are two metres square and they are literally a single mattress in a cage that's lockable to give you some kind of security. At the extreme, a 50 square metre apartment can be divided into 20 cage homes for 20 individuals all paying the landlord rent of around 600 US dollars a month for a two square metre cage home. Then you've got 20 people who are sharing one bathroom and one kitchen in that same space. It's mind-blowing! These homes are mainly let to single men, there's a growing number of single women who are forced to rent these spaces as well. It's quite shocking to see. I'm used to tiny living, but at least it's mine and I have all the home comforts that they don't have. There were quite a few people on the tour who are considerably wealthier than I am. They were most shocked by the fact that the shower was over the toilet in a space about three foot square. I explained that I'm quite used to that, living in a van for months at a time 😀. The difference is that it's mine. I don't need to share it with anyone.

At the outset of the tour, Hazel did explain to us that poverty tourism is illegal in Hong Kong. They present this tour as the reality for people. The subdivided apartment and the cage home that we actually went into were mocked up, recreated if you like, by the tour company as a representation of how people live. But before you think that this is not real, at the end of the tour, Hazel explained to us her story. Her parents came from mainland China many years ago with the promise of streets paved with gold - they were going to earn their fortunes. Obviously, that's not the reality. But back then it was slightly easier to get public housing. So after they'd been in Hong Kong for a few years, they did get public housing, even though it was well away from the centre of Hong Kong city itself. They did had a 50 square metre apartment for themselves and their three children - Hazel, her older sister and her little brother. Although this is not a lot of space, it's quite luxurious for an ordinary working family compared to today's standards. Her dad had set himself up as a street hawker, so they didn't have a huge amount of money. Before they got the publuc housing when Hazel was five years old, the entire family lived in a subdivided apartment which was only about 10 square metres.

Hazel's own story is that she's in her late 20s and not married. When she wanted to leave home and get her own space, all she could afford to rent was a cage home. She lived in it for two years before she moved into the apartment she's in now - a tiny place which she shares with one friend. There is only room for one small mattress that they share, but they have two cupboards whech serve as small study rooms to give them a little personal space. So Hazel was talking to us from an angle of personal experience. It wasn't just hearsay. It wasn't something that she'd been told to say. This was her lived experience. She works three jobs and all she can afford is a tiny shared space with a friend.

When we'd seen the subdivided apartment, we visited a park where there are homeless people living. We met a few of them. The authorities regularly move these people on. They come round with power hoses and jet wash the parks, soaking all the belongings of the people and forcing them to move on somewhere else. There's no solution. They just move them from pillar to post. So there are people who are homeless, there are people who choose to be homeless rather than live in a two square metre cage.Read more