Coffin apartments in Hong Kong

Wong Tat-ming, 63, sits in his “coffin home” that costs him HK$2,400 ($310) a month. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

While some of us are getting richer everyday, there are people who are going the opposite direction, they are getting poorer by the day. China is an example of such problem. Many people whine about having small homes or having no cars, the poorest community in Hong Kong lives in 15 square foot rooms made out of wooden planks or mesh wires.

These tiny cubicles are created inside a 400 sq ft flat where each “apartment” has at least enough space to fit a bed in it, vertically that is, exactly like a coffin. And, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the kitchen and toilets are somehow stuffed in the same cubicle.

Wong Tat-ming, 63, sits in his “coffin home” that costs him HK$2,400 ($310) a month. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

While some of us are getting richer everyday, there are people who are going the opposite direction, they are getting poorer by the day. China is an example of such problem. Many people whine about having small homes or having no cars, the poorest community in Hong Kong lives in 15 square foot rooms made out of wooden planks or mesh wires.

These tiny cubicles are created inside a 400 sq ft flat where each “apartment” has at least enough space to fit a bed in it, vertically that is, exactly like a coffin. And, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the kitchen and toilets are somehow stuffed in the same cubicle.

These inhumane cubicle are highly condemned by the united nation due to its coffin like suffocating structure which throws a normal person into a claustrophobic fit.

Those who live in such cubicles are waiters, guards, sweepers and many others with similar low-paid jobs who cannot even afford the luxury of a room where they can at least stand up.

The tenant of these cubicles are from both genders and different age groups. People describe these tiny cubicles as living in a coffin before dying, and surrounded by many other coffins with living people in them.

A photographer Benny Lam recently documented these cubicles in which 10,000 of tenants are living because of no jobs or lowly paid ones. Many organizations like SOCO, Society for Community Organization, are trying to end this inhuman living system in the city.

Photographer Kin Cheung also documented these coffin cubicle and called it the darker side of the booming and glittering city of Hong Kong.

The price of the cubicle varies from size to size, some are so small one cannot even stretch one’s legs in them. A cubicle measuring 3/6 feet costs HK$2,400 ($310) a month.