Although rumours suggest Hong Kong's beggars are among the best off in the world, with some said to earn as much as $50,000 a month, few would accept this as true. We witness their misfortune every day; see them sleeping rough under flyovers and in shop entrances, even in typhoons. And their ranks are increasing: recently released statistics from the Department of Social Welfare show the number of known homeless leaped from 858 in January last year to 1,259 in December. They beg on busy streets at the feet of well-heeled passers-by, taunted by huge neon signs advertising designer clothes, luxury watches and the latest must-have gadgets.
Above Lee Tin-ying's life fell apart in 1997 -'the year those b******* took over,' she says, pointing to the five-star flag outside the Chinese emporium in Jordan. That year, an operation on her cataracts by a mainland-qualified doctor, operating illegally in Kowloon City, went wrong. She lost her sight and her dishwashing job at a Mongkok restaurant, and has been begging ever since. 'The money was good at first,' she says. 'But, for two years now, I've been getting only $50 to $70 a day.' This pittance is barely enough for her to buy food and pay the rent on her 60-square-foot room in a decrepit Yau Ma Tei hovel. Every day, she asks a passer-by to take her to her favourite spot on Jordan Road, where she begs from 3pm until midnight. Her tin is usually empty until 10pm when the emporium closes and shoppers pass her on their way to the MTR.
Right Making his home in the subway connecting Statue Square and the Star Ferry terminal, one man, who refused to give his name, couldn't care less about the thousands of people who rush by him each day. He says he isn't a beggar, but he neither refuses - nor looks grateful - when a tourist drops a $100 note in front of him. Shortly afterwards, two Filipina missionaries approach him and ask him if they can help. Quick to anger, he shouts 'Leave me alone'
until they turn on their heels and flee. Apart from a daily walk in the
nearby gardens, he mostly stays in the same spot, resting on his neatly folded quilt, smoking mocha-flavoured mini cigars.
Bottom right Li Han, 72, is furious when a passer-by drops a 10-cent coin into her red plastic mug, complaining she is begging at the 'wrong end' of the Statue Square-Star Ferry underpass; she is nearer the ferry terminal. 'They make so much more money than