What It’s Like To Live In Hong Kong’s ‘Coffin Cubicles’

in #photo7 years ago

With a population of nearly 7.5 million and very little developable land remaining, Hong Kong has become the least affordable housing market, making so-called 'coffin cubicles' common. United Nations have condemned these nightmarish cage-apartments as "an insult to human dignity" but according to the Society for Community Organisation, for some 200,000 people it's still the only alternative.

"That day, I came home and cried," Benny Lam told National Geographic, describing his experience of photographing said living conditions. With his series "Trapped," Lam seeks to illuminate the suffocating local dwellings that stand outside the reach of Hong Kong's glamorous neon lights.

"You may wonder why we should care, as these people are not a part of our lives," Lam wrote on his Facebook page. "They are exactly the people who come into your life every single day: they are serving you as the waiters in the restaurants where you eat, they are the security guards in the shopping malls you wander around, or the cleaners and the delivery men on the streets you pass through. The only difference between us and them is [their homes]. This is a question of human dignity."

"From cooking to sleeping, all activities take place in these tiny spaces," said Lam. To create the 'coffin cubicles,' flats are usually illegally divided into 15 - 120-square-foot (roughly, 1,5-12 m²) 'apartments'. To illustrate, Wong Tat-ming, 63, who is on benefits after sclerosis in his leg left him unable to drive a taxi, lives in a 18-square-feet dwelling for about $307 (HK$2,400) a month.

But they say a picture is worth a thousand words so here you go:

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg

4.jpg

5.jpg

6.jpg

7.jpg

8.jpg

9.jpg

10.jpg

11.jpg

12.jpg

13.jpg

14.jpg

More on Boredpanda.com

Sort:  

i guess they want the suicide rate to go way up :'(

:)) well if you are claustrophobic you are screwed

Congratulations @actylla! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You published your First Post
You got a First Vote

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

By upvoting this notification, you can help all Steemit users. Learn how here!

These are really an insult to humans !

These people deserve so much better than this!