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Jennifer Ngo

It was almost midnight. Sitting at a McDonald's booth under full-blast air conditioning, Ah Lun fished out the thin plastic sheet of a Chinese chess board and the round plastic pieces and placed then on the table.
"I play with whoever's willing to play with me … Here and there, sometimes outside," said Ah Lun, 48, a thin man with a tired and vacant look in his eyes. He glances over briefly but never maintains eye contact, and is reluctant to speak much.
"McDonald's is sometimes too cold to sleep in because of the air conditioning … but more people come here in the winter because it'll be warmer."
Ah Lun said he was a drifter - he doesn't always spend the whole night at McDonald's.
He carries his life's belongings wherever he goes in a set of big white plastic bags wound tightly around an umbrella, which he clutches tightly at all times.
Ah Lun said he usually arrived at McDonald's in Jordan at around 10pm after wandering around parks and the streets most of the day. He would normally stay until 3am to 5am.
But he would sometimes spend the night outside, Ah Lun said.
He said he had lived a nomadic lifestyle for seven to eight years. He has started obtaining government unemployment welfare assistance. Instead of renting a place, he spends the HK$2,000 dollars a month he receives on food and basic items.
"No, I didn't want to spend money on rent," he said, adding that he was helping the government save money by not renting a place and then asking the government to pay for it in the form of rent allowance.
"There are some people here who've slept out for two decades - like this old man. He doesn't speak much but he writes prolifically in his journals … I heard him speak to the police one time and he spoke very well - it's not bad being able to be so eloquent despite the circumstances."

Ah Lun said most of the sleepers kept to themselves.
"There really isn't much to talk about," he said. "For me, I play chess as much as I can," he said.
Lee Yin-ming, 62, is new to the McDonald's scene. A single man who has lived by himself for two decades, he came to McDonald's with a friend a week ago and discovered that with air conditioning and the relative cleanliness, the restaurant was a better choice than his bed-bug-infested bedspace, for which he pays over HK$2,000 a month, he said.
He has been spending nights in McDonald's for the past week. Lee said previously he would sleep in parks to avoid going home.
"At least here I don't stay up at night, scratching at the bugs, and I don't get my stuff stolen like in the park," he said.
A full-time cleaner, Lee finishes work in Tsim Sha Tsui at 5pm, where he grabs a bite somewhere and perhaps returns to his bedspace in Mong Kok for a change of clothes.
He then strolls around before settling down in the McDonald's on Waterloo Road at around 10pm, where he reads discarded newspapers and listens to the radio. Then he sleeps.
He leaves McDonald's at around 5am to get ready for work, which starts at 7am.
"I won't completely stop renting a place - yes the place is nasty and so expensive, but it's still a hole that's mine. I'll just spend the nights out," he said. "I don't know if I'd make [McDonald's] a regular thing, but I like it for now, and it sure beats sleeping in the park."
Lee said 10 hours of work earned him around HK$300 a day or a little over HK$7,000 a month if he worked six days a week.
The job is a "perpetually casual" job - Lee has been doing the same thing for the past year and a half, but he is paid day-by-day, which is also why he doesn't see the need to save up and rent a better place.
"You save up but it doesn't mean you can afford a better place. I could lose the money, and then won't be able to afford it anyway. I might as well use it now - who knows what happens tomorrow," he said.
He admits that he doesn't plan and uses money "like there's a lot". He recently spent HK$1,700 on a pair of Ray Ban glasses, which he lost together with a Samsung phone for which he said he paid HK$7,000 when someone stole them while he was asleep in a park. "I know I shouldn't spend so much. But why save and just leave the money in the bank for nothing?"
Lee said he didn't see much hope for improvement as he approached the age of 65.
"Housing is the biggest issue for me now, but I can't see how I can get out of this hole," said Lee, adding that his "complicated family situation" kept him from qualifying for public housing, which he tried applying for two decades ago. "Why do you ask me about family? Isn't it obvious given that I am sitting here alone in a McDonald's at 2am?"
 


Sleeping in McDonald's better than in a bug-infested bed at home, says Hong Kong McSleeper

McSleeper: Lee Yin-ming, who is a newcomer. Photo: Dickson Lee, 

McSleeper: Ah Lun, who has been sleeping out for seven to eight years. Photo: SCMP Pictures

The lonely life of the McSleepers, the poor who call McDonald's home

Overnight branches of McDonald's have become homes for some poor people, who prefer the premises to their own dingy homes. Photo: Dickson Lee

Workers remove the body of the homeless woman from the Ping Shek Estate McDonald's in Kowloon Bay. Photo: SCMP Pictures

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