On Tuesday, the New York Times ran a story on their website about our city’s famous microflats under the headline: “In Hong Kong, apartments only a pigeon could love”. But perhaps in fear of offending Hongkongers – or pigeons? – they quickly changed the title to: “In Hong Kong, One-Bedroom Apartments That Could Fit in a Bedroom”, under which the article ran in print.
Apparently the newspaper is an expert on ideal pigeon habitats as well as an authority on standard bedroom sizes. Our flats may be small but, godammit, don’t compare us to the rats of the sky just because we can’t afford bigger properties in our home city and your bedrooms are bigger than ours.
The story features apartments in the La Riviera complex in Shau Kei Wan, where a 275-square-foot “luxury” flat sold for USD722,000 (HKD5.6 million) – unsurprising in a city where average home prices have tripled (tripled!) since the SARS-induced low in 2003, and where property developers are engaged in some weird, sadistic competition to create the city’s smallest apartments.
Another reason why the New York Times may have rapidly altered their headline: it seems slightly tone-deaf to compare housing to pigeon coops in a city where at least 200,000 poor people live in literal cage homes, according to local NGO SoCo.
“It’d be disastrous if the price falls from such a high point,” said To Pui-lui, a real estate agent who warned her daughter against buying property right now.
Indeed, but at least that gives us some hope that one day we may be able to live in a space bigger than something “only a pigeon could love”.
Photo: James Emery via Flickr
