Hong Kong: Life in a Cage Home (360° Virtual Reality Guided Tour)

We are in the corridor outside the cage home. As you can see, the window opposite the door of the cage home is blocked to prevent the cage home from being filmed or photographed. The air circulation is therefore very bad especially on a hot summer day like this. It is very difficult for the tenants to get fresh air. Both the cage home and the corridor are stuffy. The kitchen is a very narrow space. It is impossible to cook so the tenants usually buy take-aways which cost around 2 USD. The tenants have lunch separately but they usually have dinner together in the cage home. This is the only companionship they can have in a cage home. The tenants have tried to make the best use of space by using simple stools and folded tables. Simple life here is not a chic choice but an unpleasant reality. The bicycle is not for leisure or sports. Some tenants use the bike as a tool to deliver take-aways. Some ride on the bike to work in order to save money on transportation. The only air conditioner is out of order and nobody has bothered to fix it. This electric fan is for the 15 tenants who live here day and night. On some of the hot summer nights, some tenants may instead sleep on the benches in outdoor parks, basketball courts, or even at 24-hour fast food outlets which have air conditioning. These tenants sometimes call themselves seasonal homeless or Mc-Refugees. The television is the center of the cage home. Sitting around the television to make comments on the news is the only entertainment for most tenants. Sometimes they argue fiercely about a local issue. It is an outlet of negative emotions. Here is the photograph of a tenant's deceased father. He carries it with him every time he moves home. Filial piety is a traditional Confucian virtue in Chinese culture. No matter how poor one is, Chinese people never forget to pay careful attention to the rites of the ancestors and continue in reverence. For most tenants, time doesn’t have much meaning. Every day repeats itself. Some tenants said, “We are simply waiting to die here.” In a cage home, a closet is a dream. Tenants can only use hangers. Everything is exposed and transparent. Privacy is a luxury. Here is a good example of making the best use of space. The cage can also act as a cupboard with the help of the plastic bags so the tenants can store their personal belongings inside. Most tenants of a cage home are old, weak, helpless, and without family. They are the abandoned citizens who have been living in the dark. Social workers sometimes visit them. They receive basic social welfare services. It can take up to 3 to 10 years to succeed in the application for public housing but many of the tenants refused to move. They are used to living here and do not want to move too far away from work places and the community they are familiar with.

Channel: Virtual Hong Kong: New World, Old Traditions

Views: 37,182

Rating: 4.4648829 out of 5

Keywords: Hong Kong, cage home, living condition, partitioned flats, partitioned flat, life, travel, culture, cultures, living in hong kong, 360, vr, 360 vr, 360 video

Id: iQBF3vX3dOQ

Length: 4min 7sec (247 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 26 2017