When the mercury rises, most Hongkongers simply turn on an air conditioner. For many elderly people living in windowless cubicles, however, it's a luxury merely to have an electric fan to relieve summer's heat.
Sam Chow, 67, endures the heat without air conditioning in his 50 sq ft subdivided flat in Hoi Tan Street, Sham Shui Po.
His tiny cubicle barely has room for a single bed, a side table and a chair. There is no escaping the bad smell in the nearby corridor, since the only air circulation comes from a rusty electric fan hanging on the wall.
'You can hardly feel any air flow,' said Chow, holding his hand up to the feeble wall fan. Chow, divorced and rarely in contact with his adult children, was given a new fan of his own this year by St James' Settlement, one of the city's leading charities.
The fan sits on the tiny table near his bed, and the comfort it provides makes a huge difference to Chow's days and nights: 'It's much more comfortable to sleep now,' he said.
St James' Settlement has been giving electrical appliances to elderly people under a programme it began in 2000. It targets people who are at least 60 and live by themselves without financial support from their families.