Life in Hong Kong is harder than ever, unless you're a tycoon

Manufacturing jobs have vanished, replaced by highly paid bankers and by low-wage waiters

Lau can’t help but glance nervously at the calendar. Her next paycheck isn’t for a week, and she doesn’t have enough money to feed her family of four crammed into her small, government-subsidised Hong Kong apartment. Her husband can’t work, and the kids don’t understand why their mother keeps buying stale food.

“We’ll eat rice soup for all three meals,” said the 42-year-old, a cashier at the Wellcome supermarket chain controlled by the Jardine Matheson group. Lau, who asked that only her surname be used, has been the sole provider for her family. She makes $5.40 an hour, nowhere near