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The Town of Sadness

There was this news story a couple of days ago about a mentally ill woman who had sat besde the dead body of her twin sister for three days without food and water as she was not capable of summoning help. The dead sister was also a mental patient. Records show that after the twin sisters had been discharged from a mental hospital in 2005, they were allocated to a flat at a public housing estate. It was in that the death of the woman was discovered after neighbours complained of the stench.

The public estate is in no other district than Tin Shui Wai, commonly known as "The Town of Sadness" for all the wrong reasons, some of which are illustrated in a PowerPoint presentation I made about the district. Here are some contents extracted from the slides:


Tin Shui Wai - What has it got to offer?



A population of 270,000...


The largest number of family abuse cases per head of population...



The largest number of low income groups...



And the hardest hit by unemployment.


Tin Shui Wai says a lot about the gap between the rich and the poor in Hong Kong.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am really interested in finding out more about your Tin Shui Wai presentation. I am writing about Hong Kong at the moment for an MA in Architectural history and theory, and I see 'forgotten' places like this as much more fruitful and interesting than the status quo of Hong Kong Island. It would be great to speak in more detail to you about this if possible.