Housing Crisis at Hong Kong Receive the last hour alerts of duty

Armie stops at an intersection of the Mong Kok district, one of the oldest in Hong Kong, to draw attention to one of the many pet stores.Others sell puppies, rabbits, birds or turtles, it only sells living fish.

Feng shui followers draw yellow or red carp from large aquariums used to "harmonize energies" at the office or at home.

Smaller cyprins live on a wall in bags filled with water.Plastic is marked with figure 8, whose pronunciation (Bwat) looks like that of the word wanting to say "rich" in Cantonese.

The goldfish can hope to survive two days in his bag.But as soon as he begins to give signs of agony, the pet store him in the gutter.Goodbye lucky one, nothing goes.

"Life is cruel with all beings in Hong Kong," says Armie, guide of the day.Many humans have no more luck in our operating system where the cages replace plastic bags.»»

It is not a metaphor.A census carried out in 2016 found that around 200,000 people live in tiny spaces called coffins or cages, in fact a wire bed or a long metal box.

Photo:Stéphane Baillargeon Le Devoir Notre guide, Armie, devant une agence immobilière

The lucky damnés praise a tiny room in a former reconfigured apartment.Up to 70 people can pile up like this, where a few more decades ago was a little cramped.Statistics establish that a subdivided unit (SDU, according to the official acronym) shelters on average two people, is 62 square feet and costs more than $ 700 per month.

We repeat: in Hong Kong, as populated as Quebec, 200,000 residents, including families, pay $ 700 in rent for a space the size of a small bathroom in Rivière-du-Loup or Limoilou.Millions of others are content with tiny apartments cost fortunes.

The hidden side of the pearl

Welcome to the Hong Kong stadium of hypercapitalism.

Here, a dozen nababs have 50 % of the wealth of the city.

Here, expatriates working in high finance and international services receive very generous wages, pay the tax up to 15 % of their income, like their nannies from the Philippines.And their firms provide rent to $ 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 per month.

Ici, les vieux retraités, les lumpenprolétaires et les familles les plus pauvres vivent dans des « cocrons»» insalubres.Dilapidated buildings, fairly low in this city-forbid, betray their vocation of concentrates of hyperisère by unstoppable signs, including the multiplicity of air conditioners on the facade.

The visit organized by Armie introduces this reality.It’s social tourism.Or the voyeurism of misery.As we want.

En tout cas, le parcours dans le plus vieux quartier de l’ancienne colonie britannique, y compris pour y voir une cage house louée et aménagée pour la peine, fait prendre conscience de l’envers du décor glamour que veut projeter cette « Perle de l’Asie»».In its autopromational legend, the supposed wonder of the globalized world highlights its French luxury shops, its German racing cars and its unhealthy Chinese or Japanese restaurants.

Photo:Stéphane Baillargeon Le Devoir Une «cage» à louer

Hong Kong real estate broke all records.Hanging there costs more than in Vancouver, San Francisco, London or New York. Toutes les personnes interviewées depuis quelques jours parlent au fond d’une sorte de « moissonneuse-baveuse»» de la spéculation immobilière qui fauche tout sur son passage, sauf quelques happy few.

Chris, a Bath hairdresser in the United Kingdom, arrived here five days before the first major demonstration of June 9 against an extradition law.It is very lucky to have found a room at $ 1,500 per month.

Verna has chosen finance studies to work in a bank and perhaps benefit from a more advantageous mortgage loan.Anyway, the apartment of his dreams would cost him 1000 times his monthly salary.

Stéphane, French expatriate of international insurance, lives in less than 800 square feet with his wife and their newborn.Their rent at more than $ 7,000 per month is assumed by the employer.

The ads posted in the windows of real estate agencies, also installed in pocket offices, give the dizzy.Here, an 880 square feet apartment sells for $ 14 million local dollars, or $ 2.3 million Canadian dollars.There, a room of 316 square feet is to be taken for 5.4 million, or about the $ 900,000 Canadian which allow you to buy a duplex ten times larger in one of the most expensive corners of Montreal.

Exorbitant costs also affect shops.The small pet store (about 150 square feet) can be rented up to $ 15,000 per month.Russel Street, in Causeway Bay, is said to be the most expensive commercial artery in the world.A luxury shop can pay a monthly rent of more than $ 1 million.

The Prize of Justice

All this frankly disgust Armie.He tried immigration to Germany for two years, in vain, then returned to Hong Kong.He himself comes from a poor family.His father fled communist China and worked as a trader before being moved by a real estate project.

Sa famille s’est installée dans les « nouveaux territoires»», à la frontière avec la République.Armie still lives there, but among the parents of her fiancée.He lost three hours by public transport to reach his customers at the center.

The Megacrise of Housing is even very cynically instrumentalized by the power to make it the cause of protests that have been shaking up Hong Kong for almost six months.The main tunnel, blocked for weeks between the central island and the rest of the city, has been reopened since Wednesday.The Polytechnic School was emptied of its irreducible protesters this week.

Photo:Stéphane Baillargeon Le Devoir Exorbitant costs also affect shops, comme cette petite animalerie qui vend des poissons.

Many observers believe that the housing problem has certainly helped stimulate dispute.As the growing competition between migrant workers from the continent and the Hong Kongs of strain creates more and more tensions, including for the occupation of the rare social housing, already very few.

Only, the even deeper crisis is indeed political.The demonstrators claim a democratic regime.They want to be able to elect their leaders to all the authorities (not only at the local level as this week) to obtain a government by the people, but also for the people.

"The protest demands freedom first and above all," sums up Armie, a young thirties.The other necessary reforms may follow.»» Il précise qu’un gouvernement élu pourrait par exemple lever des taxes pour permettre beaucoup plus de constructions sociales sur les terrains appartenant à la Ville.Wealth abounds in Hong Kong, but as everywhere else in the world, it is its distribution that poses a problem.

Armie participated in some events.The fish is agitated.Anger rumbles.It remains to be seen if it all will end in the channel of history ...

This report was funded thanks to the support of the International Transat-Le Devoir Journalism Fund.

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