Then & now: rich man, poor man
A look at the lives of Hong Kong's affluent shows that being wealthy has its cons as well as its pros, writes Jason Wordie
The ostentatious display of wealth via ownership of luxury cars was a Hong Kong cliché for decades.
Matching pink and gold Rolls- Royces, and various forms of motorised phallic extensions, were a fixture in magazine spreads about the city’s rich and shameless.
But in recent years, the trend has noticeably declined. The city’s wealthy still indulge in flashy cars but they don’t actually travel in them very much anymore.
Hong Kong’s serious money now utilises unremarkable, mostly black, people carriers with rarely any distinguishing marks. These vehicles are cheap enough for a middle-ranking tycoon’s family to have a whole stable on call, anonymity being the priority.
Are more kidnapping attempts being made than the general public realise? One can only assume so, judging by the abundance of low-profile vehicles ferrying the wealthy around.
Closer integration with the mainland – of which the massive increase in dual-plate registration and ease of cross-boundary transportion are signs – has played a key role in this emergent trend.
These days, kidnap victims are unlikely to be secreted in an abandoned pig farm in the New Territories. Within hours, they could be tucked away in a quiet corner of Guangdong province, prey to a system where “there ain’t no Ten Commandments”. And this the rich know perfectly well.