Work for living in Hong Kong

Do you know that some Hongkongers died from overworking, because they have to take two jobs at the same time? Sound pretty ridiculous, huh?

Not really.

Working on continuous shift; engaging in another job once you finish your first one; working for 15 or more hours each day; sick leave not being permitted…Such is the life of employees in Hong Kong. So you can’t really blame them for, um, dying, can you?

Even though these news are from a few years ago, it’s still true that most Hongkongers have to overwork in order to have a (slightly) better quality of living. When you consider that Hong Kong has some of the worst labour-related laws in the world, and how much a standard Hongkonger has to spend on bill, food and rent, it’s not surprising to find out that people are taking part time jobs even they do have a main job.

What? Hobbies? Savings for something big?

If you actually HAVE MONEY LEFT, yeah, why not?

“Those losers should just look for jobs with a better pay.”

Yeah, it may be their faults for taking those sucky jobs…

But it’s not like they are begging, and they are even willing to take two jobs, merely in the hope of pursuing something which should not have require so much effort…

Can these people truly be called losers? Or should we call them…victims?    

Some people say that having one job is only enough for you to “survive” in Hong Kong; in order to “live”, you need two. Now I have to wonder if two jobs are enough…

Water in Hong Kong

Do you know that Hong Kong’s water usage per capita is higher than most first world cities? Over 2000 million liters a day, to be exact (excluding 7 million salt water for flushing). So, yes, this is even higher than that in cities like Paris, London and Singapore.

Most water is used on domestic level, and most domestic water is used for tapping and bathing. Some argued that this is because Hong Kong’s water tariff is amongst the lowest in the whole word; while some defended that it is difficult to control water usage because people don’t have exact figures on how much they are using.

Whatever the reason is, Hong Kong government has been looking for method to ease the problem, like promoting the idea of saving water and building desalinization water plant.

Still, Hong Kong’s water supply mainly relies on the Dongjiang River in Guangdong.

But lots of people don’t really like this, not only because it is getting more and more expensive, and the water quality is really questionable, but also because the water supply from China could be unstable.

The growing populations, extensive amount of water for agricultural and industrial uses in Guangdong, and the occasional drought in China, all these factors suggest that the water supply from Guangdong may not be as sustainable as it seems.