Hong Kong, Behind the Utopia

Hong Kong is commonly seen as the golden city in the entirety of the APAC region, with countless skyscrapers forming a skyline that is unforgettable, rivaling that of other major cities like New York City and London. It also serves as a key financial hub in the entire world, often coined as a bridge between the East and West, not only in its ability to bring talent from all across the world. Growing up in this modern city, I have always been exposed to the mainstream aspects of the city in Hong Kong Island, which include its vibrant malls filled with multicultural cuisines, the quaint HK style diners serving affordable, yet tasty western and chinese food, and the modern skyscrapers that look dazzling and pristine. From the outside, it is like living in the future.

However, as I venture towards the northern area of Hong Kong, where the Kowloon and New Territories Area are placed in, I often find a paradox in how Hong Kong is viewed. Behind all the glamour, lies an unfortunate truth for some residents who are stuck in a cycle of poverty.

Due to the high costs of living and properties in Hong Kong, many underpriviliged people can often find themselves lacking an adequate and comfortable space to live in. While Hong Kong does a have a relatively strong public housing system that is able to combat the high cost of living, there is simply insufficient land available to meet the rising demand for housing for all residents. As I pass by some of the less developed areas in Kowloon, such as Sham Shui Po, Nam Cheong, I see people residing in subdivided flats that are barely the size of a small kitchen, where there is absolutely no lighting whatsoever, rats crawling around these cramped buildings. It's hard to imagine that for such a modern city, with dazzling skyscrapers, that such poverty still exists. Even from the outside, these residential buildings look extremely run down, as if it was an industrial facility completely ignored for the past 50 years, with absolutely no ventilation.

Most of these residents usually are elderly workers who are forced to engage in harsh physical labor, such as collecting cardboard and scrap metal and selling them for limited amounts of monetary gain. What was even more sobering, was that this poverty and lack of economic development has led to a higher dependency on illegal drugs. Often when I go to these areas to do my community service back in high school, I can see elderly residents lying down on the ground next to a run down building, with syringes and needles next to them. As I saw these problems first hand, I began to question whether Hong Kong truly lives up to the name "Asia's world city", especially if such inadequate living conditions still exist for the least financially stable of the population in Hong Kong.

However, in today's time these neighborhoods are becoming increasingly gentrified. Where old residential buildings used to stand, now are replaced with modern malls filled with citizens and residents buying new items. I initially thought that it was simply the utopian side of Hong Kong spreading through to even the poorest neighborhoods in the city, and that it was a good thing that these neighborhoods are getting more opportunities to grow economically, and providing jobs for people living in poverty. But, I can't help but wonder, whether this modernization and development effort will only make housing and living more expensive, especially if now the supply of land is being used to develop modern malls, instead of more adequate apartment buildings. Wouldn't that just make it even harder on the people living under the poverty line?

I am grateful that growing up, I never had to deal with these sobering realities that is often masked under the mainstream view of what Hong Kong is like. As I began to explore more of Hong Kong and what it is really like., I realized that while the utopian side of Hong Kong will forever be an important part of my experience growing up in this city, I will never forget that behind that, there are people who are stuck as victims of expensive housing costs, and have to resort to living in unsanitary conditions just to get by. Hopefully one day this reality will just become a thing of the past.