They say home is where the heart is. Unfortunately, it seems that there are a number of people that don’t feel at home in Hong Kong. Lots of people have expressed their views on why that is. Here I want to focus on choices we can make to feel more at home in our houses / apartments in Hong Kong. I think the first step is to stop complaining and to take initiative. A home should be a place where you can recharge your batteries and feel refreshed. Tracy and I have lived in a variety of apartments all over Hong Kong. We don’t have any experience living on Hong Kong island side, but we have friends who do. There are numerous barriers to finding a home where you can really feel at home.
Cost of Housing
One of the barriers is cost. The cost of living in Hong Kong is among the highest in the world. Lots of young adults continue to live with their parents even after getting married as they can’t afford to live on their own. You might guess that millionaires don’t have any problem in this area, after all they have all the money they need to buy a nice home and live a good life. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Money only amplifies the values that are already in our hearts. Therefore the person who has a lot of money makes bigger more costly mistakes than the person who doesn’t.
Most of us aren’t millionaires and we don’t have to be concerned about such matters. Instead we need to be concerned with making the best possible use of the money that we do have. It’s okay not to have an expensive apartment. It’s been said that money can buy a house but not a home. Sure the walls and rooms of the house are important but what goes on inside the rooms is more important. There are people living in expensive luxurious houses who don’t feel at home. Take a look at – Alone and Sometimes Lonely. There are also people living in relatively inexpensive apartments who do feel more at home. So yes money can help but it by itself is not the answer. Make sure you are spending your money and time in ways that reflect your values.
Conflict
If it is possible in as much as it depends on you, live at peace with those around you. Ideally what should be going on at home is good family time. I know it’s not always possible, but believe it or not this is a bigger barrier than money. Proverbs 21:9 says, “Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.” Conflict saps our strength. Couples and families often live on the edge in their relationships with each other. There’s too much anxiety and not enough peace. They don’t truly trust the other person has their best interest at heart. Therefore they live in this perpetual state of needing to defend themselves. If you have to choose between a corner of a roof top and a quarrelsome partner, you would be better off with the corner on the roof top. Mending broken relationships takes time, but it is worth it. Here are two highly recommended books on this subject – Marital Intelligence and the other is Rescuing Your Love Life. As long as conflict goes unresolved in a relationship you won’t feel at home. It doesn’t matter how nice or expensive the apartment is.
Types of Housing
Do you want to live in the city in a high rise or would you prefer a village house? Of course there are other types of housing but broadly speaking there are housing estates with high rises and village houses. My wife Tracy didn’t want to live in a village house. To be honest, I didn’t even think of it as a possibility until I started looking for apartments that would allow me to raise a big dog. Pretty much there were none. Finally, a real estate agent asked me why don’t you consider a village house. She said it would be easier for me to find a landlord that would allow me to raise a dog in a village house. I said okay. At that time, Tracy and I were living separately. We didn’t know whether or not we would resolve our issues. I decided to look at village houses.
Transportation
Many couples choose to live close to one spouses workplace. Earlier on in our marriage, we lived close to Tracy’s workplace and I had an hour and half commute. It was exhausting. I used to spend a lot of time on the MTR. Now we have flip things around. We live close to my workplace. Thankfully, Tracy does not have an hour and a half commute. Usually I take her half way to work in the car and pick her up half way from work. Twice a week, I drive her all the way to her work place. It’s definitely not perfect as she gets there quite early, but so far it seems to be the best fit for us.
It’s a Matter of Priorities
What do you prioritize? Is being close to an MTR station near the center of town important to you? If it is then write that at the top of your list. What about having a lot of space? 600 or more square feet in Hong Kong especially if it is located near an MTR station can end up costing you over 20,000 HKD dollars. That’s a lot of money. They say that the number one item that couples fight about is money. Of course, it’s not wrong to have a big comfortable place. But just know that there will likely be a cost for that extra space. Thankfully, I was able to find a 700 square foot flat with a roof top for 12,500 a month. Prior to that I was living in a 200 square foot flat, so I actually more than tripled my square footage and only paid 1000 HKD more per month for it.
TinLiu Apartment
Our apartment is basic. It didn’t come with any furniture. I did some renovation in the kitchen and we bought a lot of our furniture on Facebook, House28 and HK Carousel, but we made it homey. For us a decision to prioritize nature, space and price meant living further away from an MTR station. When I first moved into the village house, my friends told me that if they were going to live in a village house like the one I picked, they would need a car. I thought that a car wasn’t necessary. After awhile though, I did buy a motorcycle and that made my life easier, but at times I also got soaked in the rain.
Making Adjustments
Then sometime later, Tracy and I renewed our vows to each other. She moved in, but she worried a lot about transportation. With her mouth she told me that the public transportation was enough, but over time it became clear that it wasn’t enough. She had already made the sacrifice to come live with me in the countryside. I needed to do what I could do to make her more comfortable with our village house. We bought a used Toyota Corolla and it has been a big blessing. It feels like it has brought the outside world closer to us. We can go home to the sound of nature, birds singing, and sometimes cows grazing. Here’s an article – A Home for the Cows, and we can still go back out to busyness of work and modern life.
Our Kitchen
I think the kitchen is probably the most important room for Tracy. She loves to cook and I love to eat. I made in a cabinet for our stove and raised the countertop work surface area for an induction cooker. We both like our kitchen.
Sunshine City
Years ago we lived in Sunshine City phase 4. That’s the newest phase of Sunshine City apartments in MaOnShan. The apartment buildings tower 43 floors on top of a two story shopping mall that has a car parking lot underneath it. It was super convenient. We could get to the MTR to go anywhere in the city in about 5 minutes. Or we could just go down to the shopping mall to eat something. We both miss the convenience of that apartment. At that time we prioritized convenience. The apartment was only about 380 square feet in size, but believe me, they used every square inch of that 380 square feet well. The apartment offered built in wardrobes, a fold out bed, a bed with storage space under it. That bed was actually built into the window balcony to save space. We paid about 16000 HKD a month for rent. It’s probably gone up in price. We had a good landlord, who always did his best to help us when we were in need.
Crowded
As nice as that apartment was, there were a number of things that I didn’t like about it. It was crowded. Personally I grew up in the countryside. My family had 2 1/2 acres of space. Every week I pushed a lawn mower to cut the grass. It usually took me about 5 and 1/2 hours. Sunshine City was a huge change for me. Looking back on it, I think it wasn’t just the fact that I was constantly in the presence of people I didn’t know. It was that I didn’t understand them. They were all talking Cantonese. I felt like an alien. I wrote an article on this – Help the Locals Don’t Understand Me. On some occasions people would speak to me in English. For the most part, I interpreted that as unwanted attention. Inside I felt like get out of my way I want to go home. Of course, I wouldn’t say that. I was kind and polite, but I never really got used to always being in other people’s space and not even knowing who they were. On top of that there were lift lobbies and security guards posted. We had to swipe our residence cards to enter. Occasionally, the guards were helpful but most of the time, it all felt very cold and impersonal.
Lack of Space
My bicycle could barely fit in the elevator and there was almost no space for it in the apartment. The master bedroom barely had any floor space and as soon as you entered the room you needed to walk up some steps to the floor in front of the bed. The other bedroom had a little more floor space as long as the single bed was folded up. When it was down you could barely stand let alone walk in the room. Thankfully the living room felt a little more spacious. At that time, we lived on the 38th floor, so we always had to take the elevator up and down. Sometimes the elevator was full and it took us awhile to go down.
ShaTin Mansion
Hahaha, I know when you hear the word mansion you think huge. Well, yes there were over 20 flats in this mansion and for 9 months I lived in one of them, but my flat was anything but huge. It was only 200 square foot. I loved the high ceiling and the bedroom loaf was nice. It was completely furnished. It even had a shower / steam room with plenty of hot water. The apartment was very unique for Hong Kong. The rent was 11,500. It was conveniently located in Shatin about a 12 minute walk from the MTR station. I liked the fact that I could go home without passing any security guard. Residents did have to enter a code to get to the premises and there were security cameras, but that was about it. It was my first and only time to have a ground floor apartment in Hong Kong. Another advantage was the fact that the apartment could be rented on a 6 month bases and the utilities were included in the rent price. Most places in Hong Kong require a two year contract. Obviously, the 200 square feet limitation was a challenge. At times, I also struggled with noisy neighbors, but for the most part this was a nice apartment. I would recommend it to singles or couples who haven’t collected a lot of things. It would not have worked for Tracy and I.
Moving Out of the ShaTin Mansion
My care group friends helped me move out. We made lots of trips back and forth from the apartment to the WaiWah center in ShaTin and I hired a GoGo van to move the things. My new landlord gave me the okay to raise a golden retriever in the SaiKung village house, but I never got the golden retriever. I did however get my wife back. It took us a lot of time, prayer, counseling and hard work to repair our relationship but we made things work. Now instead of a golden retriever we have a car. We call it goldy because it is gold in color.
Commuting
Both the village house and the mansion apartment came with interesting commutes to get into town. Here are two videos showing me getting out and about from the two locations.
A New Page
Yes, at times, I do miss some of the modern niceties that I used to have at the ShaTin apartment or the convenience of the Sunshine City one, but neither of them were big enough. Making a house a home takes a lot of consideration. Sure there are things that you can do in terms of the pictures and decoration. You may even be able to do a renovation. For other areas I didn’t mention to consider here is an article. All those things are important, but getting along with the people or person you live with is even more important. Tracy and I still have conflict but we have definitely turned a page in our relationship. I am really thankful to God.
