Cage
Of Hong Kong
資料提供者:Sidddney Chen
2012年10月26日
Cage Of Hong Kong
Let us all count
our blessings looking at those unfortunate souls!
Hong Kong, one of the world's richest cities, is abuzz with a luxury
property boom that has seen homes exchanged for record sums.
But the wealth of the city has a darker side, with tens of thousands priced
out of housing altogether and forced to live in the most degrading conditions.
These pictures
by British photographer Brian Cassey capture the misery of people - some estimates
put the figure as high as 100,000 - who are forced to live in cages measuring
just 6ft by 2 1/2ft.
Yan Chi Leung is mentally ill and lives in the 6ft by 2.5ft wire cage at
the bottom of this stack of three
Kong Sui Kao, 64, sits in his home in a room with 19
other cages
The city is one of the planet's most densely packed metropolitan areas,
with nearly 16,500 people living in every square mile of the territory.
Unscrupulous landlords are charging around US$200 a month for each cage,
which are packed 20 to a room, and up to three levels high.
The lower cages are more expensive because you can almost stand inside
them, but the conditions are no less squalid.
All this in a city with more Louis Vuitton shops than Paris.
Tai Lun Po, 79, has lived in the cage he is sitting in for an extraordinary
30 years
Eight-year-old Lee Ka Ying lives in a 6ft square
'cubicle cage home' with her mother
Yan Chi Keung eats takeaway outside his wire cage
home - there are no cooking facilities
Tai Lun Po walks to the bathroom which he shares with the other residents
Occupants must share toilets and washing facilities, which are rudimentary.
Many of the apartments have no kitchens, forcing their impoverished residents
to spend there meagre incomes on takeaway food.
The cage homes have been a running scandal in Hong Kong's housing market
for decades, yet rather than disappear, they are on the rise.
As the world economic crisis has lashed the city a former British territory
whose economy is focused on financial services, more have been forced to turn
to them for a place to stay.
The alternative is life on the streets.
Mr Yan smokes a cigarette amid his neighbours in his cage flat
Tai
Lun Po walks the corridors of his Mongkok Hong Kong cage home
Tang Man Wai, 60, a retired restaurant worker, is forced to spend what
little money he has on take-away food
A building in Mongkok that houses cage people, sometimes squeezed twenty to
a room
One cage dweller, Cheung, who lives in Sham Shui Po, told the Asia Times
Online he endures appallingly cramped and fetid conditions.
'The temperature inside the cages can be two to three degrees higher than
what they are outside,' he said.
'It's really uncomfortable, and sometimes I cannot sleep until after 5 in
the morning.'
Cockroaches,
wall lizards, lice and rats are common. 'Sometimes I am worried if lizards or
cockroaches will crawl into my ears at night,' said Cheung.