How Leaving China for a Better Life in Hong Kong Backfired
- Hong Kong's "cardboard grannies" symbolize growing wealth gap
- Elderly Chinese migrants struggle to survive on $2.60 a day
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They start sometimes at dawn and work frequently into the night, an army of old workers maneuvering carts around the streets of Hong Kong. Their spines bent with back trouble or simply the burdens of life-long toil, they’re collecting cardboard boxes to sell to recyclers for the equivalent of $2.60 a day.
In Hong Kong, they’re known as "cardboard grannies." They’re estimated by non-government organizations to number 5,000 — a figure almost 40 percent higher than the total of registered Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Rolls Royces seen frequently on the streets of the bustling Asian financial center.