Coffin Homes & Cage Homes

[GeneChing]

I never really understood this aphorism until I went to China. I was raised on corn-fed American beef which sweetens the taste of the meat considerably. You really don't know the difference until you taste it. In that spirit, I'm launching this thread for news items related to eating bitter in China.

Hong Kong housing crisis puts poor in cages
Associated Press
Updated 10:41 pm, Thursday, February 7, 2013


Cheng Man Wai calls a 16-square-foot cage home. Hong Kong's skyrocketing housing prices have forced about 100,000 people in the former British colony to live in squalid conditions. Photo: Vincent Yu, Associated Press

Hong Kong --

For many of the richest people in Hong Kong, one of Asia's wealthiest cities, home is a mansion with an expansive view from the heights of Victoria Peak. For some of the poorest, like Leung Cho-yin, home is a metal cage.

The 67-year-old former butcher pays $167 a month for one of about a dozen wire mesh cages resembling rabbit hutches crammed into a dilapidated apartment in a gritty, working-class West Kowloon neighborhood.

The cages, stacked on top of each other, measure 16 square feet. To keep bedbugs away, Leung and his roommates put thin pads, bamboo mats, even old linoleum on their cages' wooden planks instead of mattresses.

"I've been bitten so much I'm used to it," said Leung, rolling up the sleeve of his oversize blue fleece jacket to reveal a red mark on his hand. "There's nothing you can do about it. I've got to live here. I've got to survive," he said as he let out a phlegmy cough.

An estimated 100,000 people in the former British colony live in what's known as inadequate housing, according to the Society for Community Organization, a social welfare group. The category also includes apartments subdivided into tiny cubicles or filled with coffin-size wood and metal sleeping compartments, as well as rooftop shacks. They're a grim counterpoint to the southern Chinese city's renowned material affluence.

Forced by skyrocketing housing prices to live in cramped, dirty and unsafe conditions, their plight also highlights one of the biggest headaches facing Hong Kong's unpopular Beijing-backed leader: growing public rage over the city's housing crisis.

Leung Chun-ying took office as Hong Kong's chief executive in July, pledging to provide more affordable housing in a bid to cool the anger. Home prices rose 23 percent in the first 10 months of 2012 and have doubled since bottoming out in 2008 during the global financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund said in a report last month. Rents have followed a similar trajectory.

The soaring costs are putting decent homes out of reach of a large portion of the population while stoking resentment of the government, which controls all land for development, and a coterie of wealthy property developers. Housing costs have been fueled by easy credit, thanks to ultra-low interest rates that policymakers can't raise because the currency is pegged to the dollar. Money flooding in from mainland Chinese and foreign investors looking for higher returns has exacerbated the rise.

Leung, the cage dweller, has little faith that the government could do anything to change the situation of people like him.

"It's not whether I believe him or not, but they always talk this way. What hope is there?" said Leung, who has been living in cage homes since he stopped working at a market stall after losing part of a finger 20 years ago. With just a seventh-grade education, he is only able to find intermittent casual work.

Many poor residents have applied for public housing but face years of waiting.

[Cheng oi]

[Cheng oi]

hong kong Apartments

[Cheng oi]

I actually do my martial arts in a place like this - I don't even go outside

[Kellen Bassette]

I actually do my martial arts in a place like this - I don't even go outside.

Go outside! Don't be a throw away child! The sun is good for your chi!

[Sima Rong]

Looks like a perfect place to train Wing Chun.

[Cheng oi]

Go outside! Don't be a throw away child! The sun is good for your chi!

I don't want any problems - that's why I don't go outside - maybe trash should chillout with all the surveillance & Harassment

maybe they should send money instead
I didn't want them kidnapping my kids
I didn't want to have to stick to the electricity every time they turn it on
I didn't want the neighbors stealing my broadsword as soon as the postman drpped it off
I don't want to play stupid games with evil idiots
I'm highly allergic to B.S. ---- no I am not apologizing

yes I know the sun is good - too bad they don't share it
I wanted to live in Arizona
I didn't want to be the landlords slave
I don't want to be here --> X
I didn't want to get Nickle & dimed to death
I don't like getting chump changed
I didn't want my face messed up
I don't like poverty
etc.
etc.
etc.
the subject of todays RANT is --------------------- probably off topic


P.S ---- send money - a lot of money
I'm going to cook rice now - I DON'T WANT knockout drops in the soy sauce

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foaUrqvOTpw

as the little circle gets smaller

[GeneChing]

I have another article on coffin houses that I've been meaning to post, but it's like 20 pix. Maybe coffin houses needs it's own thread. This one is old, but it'll do until I post that other one.

Crowded Overhead View of Tiny Hong Kong Apartments
By Katie Hosmer on February 20, 2013



Many people who live in New York City might believe that they have a ‘small' apartment. But, after seeing this photo series of cramped apartments, you might reconsider. And that's exactly what the human rights organization Society for Community Organization (SoCo) was going for when they commissioned the project.

In the middle of 2012, Hong Kong was ranked as one of the world's most livable cities. But, the issue with these types of glamorous rankings is that, often times, a city's major problems are pushed aside. In an effort to raise awareness about the inadequate housing concerns in Hong Kong, and about the percentage of people who survive in extremely tiny living quarters, SoCo developed this photo campaign that features an aerial view of incredibly crowded apartments.

Often no bigger than a large cubicle, the apartments average about 40 square feet and are the result of dividing already small spaces into smaller, partitioned rentals. Each wide-angle photograph, shot from overhead, highlights individuals and families, along with their belongings, surviving in these very crammed and extreme conditions.

[GeneChing]

[QUOTE]Subterranean home for 400 found in Beijing basement
20 June 2017


AFP/GETTY IMAGES
It is common to see basements in Beijing converted into housing units, such as this one photographed in 2014

The recent discovery of around 400 people living underneath an upscale Beijing apartment complex has shone fresh light on the Chinese capital's housing crunch.
On Saturday, a state radio report highlighted the existence of an underground warren of windowless rooms - with only one emergency exit - at Julong Gardens, located in the north-east of the city and popular with wealthy expatriates.
The tenants are among an estimated one million people known as shuzu - or rat tribe - who live in subdivided bomb shelters and bunkers built under Beijing in the 1970s and 1980s.

Stark contrast

The China National Radio report (in Chinese) said that homeowners at Julong Gardens became suspicious when they began noticing more unfamiliar faces in their complex.
They eventually discovered the warren of hidden rooms behind a door in the basement of one of the complex's towers.
An underground space had been subdivided into worker dormitories - complete with kitchens and even a "smoking room" - and cramped single rooms.
The tenants were migrant workers, their living conditions a stark contrast to that of the aboveground residents of Julong Gardens, a spacious compound with several apartment blocks.
It is unclear whether the underground homes were legal - authorities are reportedly investigating. China National Radio said the basement space was owned by the local government but was likely to have been subleased.
Authorities used to encourage the use of such spaces for housing and other purposes, but in recent years have cracked down and stopped granting permits as units proliferated and sparked safety concerns.
In 2015 officials embarked on a massive eviction exercise with more than 120,000 shuzu kicked out for security reasons.

Relentless climb in rents

Many migrant workers and students turn to underground housing because of its cost, which according to some estimates can be as low as $20 (£16) a month for a space in a dormitory room.
The trend comes amid a relentless climb in rental prices in Beijing, which was found to have the least affordable rental housing in the world last year.
One recent survey (in Chinese) found the average monthly rent in Beijing last year had climbed to about 4,550 RMB ($666; £523), about 60% more than the 2010 figure.


AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Many of these units are tiny and windowless

But it is also because of China's household registration system called hukou, which ties a person's government benefits, including access to affordable housing, to their hometown.
Many migrant workers find it difficult and costly to transfer their hukou to another city.
On microblogging network Sina Weibo, the Julong Gardens case sparked a mixture of resignation and exasperation.
"So why come to Beijing to squeeze in like this? I really don't understand," said one user.
"Beijing welcomes you (but get out if you don't have money)," joked another.[/QUOTE]

Is this better or worse than coffin houses?

[GeneChing]

Coffin homes deserve an indie thread now, separate from Eating bitter in China.

Hong Kong cage homes for hipster tourists: ‘poverty tourism’, or a way to show visitors unique side of city?
After social media outburst over cage-home beds at Sham Shui Po hostel and withdrawal of Airbnb listing, owner defends it as giving guests a different picture of Hong Kong and says cages celebrate the ingenuity of city’s poor
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 30 August, 2017, 4:47pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 30 August, 2017, 4:52pm
Lauren James
lauren.james@scmp.com
http://twitter.com/Lauren_YP



“Even starving artists need a place to rest their heads,” reads the blurb on Wontonmeen’s website. “We like to think of Wontonmeen as the hub where Hong Kong’s creative scene starts its day; a unique, diverse living space in the heart of Sham Shui Po.”



The hostel’s owner, local designer Patricia Choi, expressed anger over a report this week on “coffin homes” by The Guardian newspaper, which called Wontonmeen “insensitive” and said it “speaks to the complacency that has developed” towards the city’s problems.
Amid the ensuing furore on social media, one of the hostel’s Airbnb listings has been withdrawn, although a second Airbnb listing and another on Booking.com are still active.
Speaking on Wednesday, Choi said the hostel offers non-locals an insight into a uniquely Hong Kong living situation that they wouldn’t gain from staying in a hotel in a more popular tourist area.
“Foreigners come to Hong Kong and go to Lan Kwai Fong to party. They experience the international and glitzy parts. But is that really the whole picture of Hong Kong?” she asks. “We’re locally run and owned ... we work with many NGOs and social enterprises in the neighbourhood to fight poverty.”
The complex is on Lai Chi Kok Road in an area with the highest poverty rate of the city’s 18 districts, and where many live in dire conditions, including subdivided flats and cage homes.

[Cage-home beds designer] Raymond [Chan] discovered an agility and wisdom from people living in these spaces – we didn’t do it purely for aesthetics PATRICIA CHOI

The current dormitory design was completed in late 2015, and has attracted attention online for its layout. Some commentators on social media have said that marketing sleeping in a cage as a quirky option for backpackers romanticises the city’s acute housing crisis, and is insensitive to those who have no choice but to endure cramped living conditions.
Choi started Wontonmeen in 2006, converting an apartment building into a compound that includes studios, a shop, a gallery, an event space and a hostel, which currently sleeps 12 (10 in the dormitory, and two in an adjacent private room).
Decked out with vintage furniture, hammocks, and neon signs in its common areas, Wontonmeen is aimed squarely at the budget-conscious millennial traveller on the hunt for an unusual experience and photogenic lodgings.
Its cage beds costs HK$203 a night, or just over HK$6,000 a month. Most of those who stay at Wontonmeen are Chinese or Asian, while about 10 to 20 per cent of the hostel’s guests are Westerners, Choi says.



The hostel touts its proximity to several of Kowloon’s tourist hotspots, and suggests that prospective guests “experience the night market, street food, accessories shopping and flower/bird market like a real local”.
Choi says Wontonmeen partners with local charities, such as the Christian Concern for the Homeless Association, to run crafting and English language workshops for local children, as well as Chinese-language tours of the local area.
Sham Shui Po has the city’s highest number of homeless people – two-thirds of whom are aged above 50, a 2014 City University study found. An average salary of HK$5,688 a month puts even subdivided housing out of reach of many of the 323 homeless people surveyed, leaving cage housing, which squeezes tenants into 1.4 square metre spaces that cost an average of HK$1,500 a month, the only alternative to sleeping rough.
The cages at Wontonmeen were the idea of Polytechnic University student Raymond Chan, founder of Crevice Design, and formed part of a research project focused on improving the standard living units for Hong Kong’s poor. “We redesigned the well-known cage house unit, aiming to provide better living quality with a limited budget,” Chan says. “We proposed a community living concept ... with enough privacy and clever use of space.”
Choi adds: “Raymond discovered an agility and wisdom from people living in these spaces – we didn’t do it purely for aesthetics.”
However, the cages startle some foreigners, she admits. “The design makes many people scared and they walk away. One girl came in and said she was scared of the cages. It was a big risk for us to use the design, but we believed in it.”
The hostel has been accused of promoting “poverty tourism” – by providing tours of poor areas and glamorising cage sleeping. But Choi disagrees, maintaining that her hostel serves the community and opens tourists’ eyes to the problems the city faces.
To critics, Choi says: “Come and experience it for yourself before you judge.”

[GeneChing]

Hostel opens eyes to scourge of poverty
As visitors are given a chance to experience the misery of caged homes, government efforts may achieve only so much and it’s up to society to decide when enough is enough
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 05 September, 2017, 1:37am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 05 September, 2017, 1:37am
SCMP Editorial



Hong Kong’s glamorous side is what visitors best know. But a hostel for tourists in Sham Shui Po, our poorest district, goes out of its way to reveal how the not so well-off in society live. Its wire mesh bunk beds and tours of *run-down areas would seem to be capitalising on the misfortune of others and giving our city a bad name. There is another way of looking at it, though; the location and manner in which it does business opens eyes to a problem that would have otherwise gone unseen.
High rents and long waiting lists for public housing mean that Hong Kong’s poorest people live in appalling conditions. The worst are surely the so-called caged homes, cubicles of about 16 sq ft stacked on top of each other in dilapidated flats. Renting for about HK$1,500 a month, they, and other low-cost accommodation such as tiny rooms in subdivided flats, are all that some elderly, jobless and those unable to find full-time work can afford. The Census and Statistics Department estimates that about 200,000 of Hong Kong’s 7.3 million people live in such places.
Caged homes are a mystery to most of us; we have seen images of them in exhibitions and during media coverage, but are unlikely to experience their cramped and impersonal spaces for ourselves. Those who have no choice other than to live in them tell of the suffocating air, bedbugs and habits of their always close fellow occupants. Given the challenges of providing affordable housing and the large number of people involved, such lamentable living conditions are not going to disappear any time soon. That they are located in downtrodden districts and hidden inside buildings we would never venture into, means that for most of us, they are out of sight and therefore, out of mind.
A hostel for budget-minded travellers that promotes itself on providing an insight into caged homes is not going to change much. At best, it will increase awareness and may stir the charitable. There should be fewer coffin-like homes when government policies take hold, but they will exist in one form or another until society determines that such living conditions are no longer acceptable.

I still can't quite wrap my head around why anyone would want to stay in these if they had a choice. A cage home hostel is just bizarre.