Pushed out by the sky-high prices of rent in glittering Hong Kong, these people get by in illegally subdivided apartments.
BySarah Stacke
Published July 26, 2017
• 3 min read
“That day, I came home and cried,” said Benny Lam when describing an experience photographing grim living conditions in Hong Kong.
After four years of visiting over 100 sub-divided flats in the city’s old district, Lam was accustomed to the wood-planked 15-square foot homes known as coffin cubicles. While photographing a cubicle that was slightly larger than usual, Lam blurted to the tenant, “You have a big coffin home!”
“I felt so bad,” Lam remembers, “Living like that should never be normal. I had become numb.”
Hong Kong is brimming with neon-lit shopping strips that sell luxury brands, jewels, and technology to eager consumers; the skyscraper-filled skyline contains businesses that make the city one of the world’s major financial hubs. Yet behind
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