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My experiment living in a tent in Hong Kong's jungle
- hooverd 1y agoHmm, really makes you optimistic...
- 5mv2 1y agoI get that it's super hard to replicate this and have a good time outside of the HK jungle, but to be honest it made me a lot more optimistic . You see people's real colors when you ask them to host you in their home, and in my case the support was overwhelming.
- Profan 1y agoI uhh, is this homeless larping? What in tarnation
- 5mv2 1y agoyeah. wouldnt have been fun if it was out of necessity
- more_corn 1y agoHow about homelessness as a strategic cost-savings experiment?
- nativeit 1y agoI'd imagine most unhoused individuals are doing it as a strategic cost saving. Only, they're strategy involves eating and surviving rather than paying for unreachable/unsustainable rents. Maybe they didn't choose it, but it's still the strategy they're engaging in.
- bobthepanda 1y agoThere are plenty of folks who can’t find housing for other reasons like background checks, credit score checks, etc. that might not be directly related to their ability to pay rent at that point in time.
- ejoso 1y agoInspiring. Bold choices.
- msgodel 1y agoTents aren't a good long term plan IMO. They don't protect you from animals. Vehicles are much better.
- 5mv2 1y agoMakes sense. I guess it depends on the location, since in my case there were no animals as long as I didn't bring food in the tent. And another pro is you can pitch tents in places no one would ever go, while it's harder for vehicles. So less chances of getting busted.
- IncreasePosts 1y agoVehicles are tied to roads more or less and make contact with the most dangerous animal much more likely. Keeping food out of the tent is probably enough to discourage most animals from snooping.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- iainctduncan 1y agoThis is not homelessness. This is "bandit camping". Not a value judgment on the act - when I was young climbing bum I did me a fair bit of it. But calling it homelessness is pretty insulting to the actual homeless, who aren't doing it by choice to optimize their time for a relative luxury.
- dang 1y agoIf there's a more accurate and neutral title, we can change it above. Edit: I've taken a crack at it. If there's a better way, we can change it again.
- codersfocus 1y ago> But calling it homelessness is pretty insulting to the actual homeless I'm sure homeless people have more pressing thoughts than what words nerds on the internet use to describe outdoor living
- righthand 1y agoNot if the nerds on the internet are stirring the societal discourse around you. That affects the unhoused whether they care or not.
- HappMacDonald 1y agoSo you're protecting people from something that even you admit they don't care about?
- Hnrobert42 1y agoI really appreciate the level of detail in this post. Not too little. Not too much. It does seem that being in school made this experiment distinctly different from just living in a tent. In a sense, tuition was rent. It paid for showers, electricity, and a living room with air conditioning (the library). It also provided a supportive community. School and even society at large is more inclined to help a poor student than an adult trying to cut rent. I make this observation not to diminish the experiment's value. I am just putting it in context to arrange its utility in my mind. (edit: I can't imagine why this is flagged. It is def life- hacking if not tech hacking.)
- 5mv2 1y agoAppreciate the feedback! 100%. It's a lot easier when you live next to a Google campus. And it sorts all the menial matters that make a huge difference, like access to washing machines. About the flagging, you seem to have been here for a while, any hint? I get the word usage can comes across as disrespectful now that people mention it, but didn't think a link would get flagged for that.
- Hnrobert42 1y agoI have been here for years. Most things that get flagged are extremely objectionable or touch a political nerve. I could see conservatives disliking that it questions capitalism's viability post AI. I could see liberals thinking you are making light of folks experiencing homelessness. I think those are absurd, but with a low vote count, your post may only need a few absurd people to flag you. Naturally, there could be other reasons things get flagged, but I never see them because they disappear too fast. You could always ask @dang to weigh in. He might see something which violates the guidelines.
- 5mv2 1y agoMakes sense. Thanks for sharing! Looks like it might have to do with the title, or at least the title was changed before it got unflagged. Good learning!
- 1y ago
- throe83949449 1y agoWild camping is tolerated in Hong Kong, but this guy is going to ruin it for everyone. Leaving 2.5 meter high tent pitched over daytime near buildings, is lazy and really really bad. Stealth camping should be done in low profile tents (1.2 meters high). You should pitch tent at dark, and leave before sunrise.
- 5mv2 1y ago"I first try putting a friend 3 meters away from the tent and asking him to find it. Vegetation is so thick he can't. No need to spray camouflage!" You're safe! No one found me, and I took it away a decade ago.
- IncreasePosts 1y agoWhy does it matter if literally no one discovered it?
- lvturner 1y agoHe did it in 2016, he hasn't ruined anything. More people were openly & brazenly wild camping in HK during covid than this.
- xandrius 1y ago10 years later: did it ruin it for everyone?
- neilv 1y ago> and saved me close to $2k over the 4.5 months. The author wisely talks about safety considerations, but there's an it's-expensive-to-be-poor risk I'd like to emphasize: One injury or illness caused by the frugality could wipe out that $2K savings, many times over, in immediate costs, and might never fully heal. I think back to all the penny-pinching I did (less impressive than the author's), and much of it was necessary under the circumstances, but a very poor value tradeoff otherwise.
- 5mv2 1y agoAgree. I tried to describe the step by step approach to show how you can try this gradually and mitigate the risks, but if you don't have access to a community and cheap student healthcare it's definitely quite dangerous. I'll add word about this at the bottom. Edit: added! thanks for the feedback again
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- testing22321 1y agoCripplingly Expensive healthcare is only an issue in one country in the world. I’ve been to the ER in Ecuador, Mali, Angola, Australia, Canada. Even as a tourist it was so cheap I didn’t bother using any travel insurance ( less than $50, including prescriptions)
- titanomachy 1y agoI went to the ER in Canada (BC) a couple years ago, and they charged $950 to my credit card just to walk in the door. Everything else was extra, and charged at rates not wildly different from what I’ve seen in the US. And I’m a Canadian citizen! (I had temporarily lost my free healthcare eligibility because I lived outside the country for a few years.) Can’t comment on all the other countries you listed, although I can add that urgent care in Germany was pretty reasonably priced.
- alehlopeh 1y ago
- verall 1y agoIs that UST? If it is - it's really incredibly stunningly beautiful, that view. I envy the bravery giving you that sight to see every morning.
- 5mv2 1y agoYes exactly! It’s UST. Beautiful view :)
- coggs 1y agoI lived and worked on the HKUST campus in the 90's.. Very picturesque. Surrounding coastline very rugged. He picked a good spot. No egress there at the bottom of the hill. Fun fact: He camped just below the historic location of Shaw Studios, who popularized the Kung Fu movie genre
- m3kw9 1y agoVery nice write up, cool experiment and very intriguing
- ambicapter 1y agoThe "Community Support" section is really touching.
- more_corn 1y agoI concur. The experiences couch surfing were the most interesting part (aside from the psychological calm of sleeping and waking outside)
- 5mv2 1y agoGlad you liked this! It was so great I've been meaning to do this again for years but never made the leap by fear of being a nuisance. I honestly think everyone would be much happier and less lonely if sleep-overs didn't stop being a thing as we reach adult age.
- paxys 1y agoThe ROI calculation is way too short sighted to be meaningful. To start you are already paying college tuition, and the expectation is to get an education that will help you pay off the loans (and then some). Going a few hundred deeper in the hole every month to have a roof over your head (you know, the most basic requirment for humans after water and food) is a no brainer and will massively increase your education ROI. A couple months of "homeless man" cosplay is probably fun and games but start to face the heat, cold, humidity, animals, police, theft, physical danger and more and those As aren't going to remain As for long.
- 5mv2 1y agoYou're right that I was arguably irrationally attached to not ending uni with too much debt. For the rest, I'm with you it might be hard to replicate beyond this n = 1 sample, but I'm convinced this experiment's ROI is actually much more positive than suggested in the post. Not only did I get better grades that semester from being forced to spend more time in the library, but I learned a lot living at people's places afterwards, and, most importantly, the feeling of freedom from materials matters allowed me to make bolder bets that paid back multiple times over. You can even go further: even if my grades had gone down, I still would have been more employable for many types of companies, starting with early stage startups.
- bboygravity 1y agoDoesn't living in a tent also make you less vulnerable to smartphone and laptop addictions? I noticed in myself that when I stay in minimal places (camping/jungle hut/tent), I tend to be more connected to the real world and less addicted. More productivity, clearer thought.
- Tijdreiziger 1y agoI read a comment on Reddit along the lines of ‘if you doomscroll every day to wake up, you wreck your dopamine levels for the day before even getting out of bed’. I don’t have enough medical knowledge to assess this claim, but I made a simple rule: don’t touch the phone before getting out of bed! (except to turn off the alarm) So far, it really seems to work!
- constantcrying 1y agoInteresting article about alternative living, I understand why you would do this for fun, but obviously the risk vs. reward calculation makes no sense. The convenience of a place with electricity, running water, a table and chair, you are legally allowed to sleep there, etc. Seems easily worth 450 Dollars a month. In the end he says he saved 2k, but that is not a relevant amount of money to save over months if you become a software developer in America.
- rixed 1y agoConvenience is not the only possible reward, and the post touches on this. I've stayed in many inconvenient places and the immediate benefit is often that it forces you to go out of your way to find good places to work from, to get food, entertainment, etc.
- caydenpiercehax 1y agoI lived in the woods during my undergrad too: https://medium.com/@caydenpierce4/the-homeless-hippie-cyborg-grokking-cyborgism-4ed40f3a6a8c https://medium.com/@caydenpierce4/the-homeless-hippie-cyborg... This was in between two stints living and working in a mobile RV hacker lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT1gPmQQkxI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT1gPmQQkxI I'm in SF now and we'd probably be best friends.
- aapeli 1y ago> This turns into a surprisingly intense experience. I get to meet people in their most intimate space and bond over late-night conversations in ways that never would have happened otherwise. This is much like the couch surfing experience: staying with people for a few days and sharing their space, which often ends in these deep, late-night conversations. It's an incredible experience. There are a few platforms for that, I recommend Couchers.org. It's free & open source (and I'm one of the core maintainers).
- rixed 1y agoI'd recommend be welcome.org which is truly community run and owned.
- lazyeye 1y agoOdd given all his efforts so far, that when attempting to live cheaply in San Fran, getting a drivers license to live in a van was too big an obstacle to overcome.
- 5mv2 1y agoIt's a while back, but I think it's because you have to be a resident for at least 6 months to be eligible to getting a driver's license in a given country. And getting the driving experience is not cheap if you don't know people who have a car you can borrow!
- ksec 1y ago>and saved me close to $2k over the 4.5 months. Ok I was expecting a lot more. So it is one $450 USD per month? That doesn't very low. I guess HK Uni have decent discounts. But >Living in Hong Kong without a dorm room would push rent up to at least $700 a month Unless you only rent a bed with share washrooms and kitchen I can assure you it is not $700 but much closer to $1K if not higher depending on your living standard requirements. If only this experience could reach media outlet. Hong Kong's rental or property pricing is just crazy expensive relative to what they offer.
- eptcyka 1y agoThe camping took place in 2016, almost 10 years ago. Could it be that you are referencing contemporary prices?
- 5mv2 1y agoYou're both right. It was 10 years ago and my living requirements definitely were low Another reason is that Hong Kong has a lot more affordable housing in the outskirts, like in the village of Tai Po Tsai that borders this university.
- danielvf 1y agoFor camping in humid summers, it's amazing how much difference a power bank and little fan can make. A little electricity goes a long way.
- yusina 1y agoTell that to a real homeless who typically as to be very creative to even just charge their phone. If they have one.
- daedrdev 1y agoThere are a number of homeless students at UC berkley
- 999900000999 1y agoCool story, but this seems like a really good way to get your visa revoked if caught. I kinda understand doing this if at home, and you have no other options. But this comes off as reckless and somewhat naive. To save 2K over a few months you risked serious injury, violated the terms of your visa and ultimately felt a need to humble brag about it. Not everything needs to be shared.
- bhaskara2 1y agoIt was a fun read nevertheless
- Onavo 1y agoWhy doesn't Hong Kong fix their real estate problem?
- throwaway290 1y ago[flagged]
- tomcam 1y agoI have to admit I never had to consider falling boulders in my brief bout with homelessness
- mgaunard 1y agoI'm more shocked of how you can have a meal for 1 or 3 dollars.
- 5mv2 1y agoHong Kong food is rice-based and rice is cheap! Here's some famous advice from Hong Kong's richest man: -- A daily breakfast of vermicelli, an egg and a cup of milk. For lunch just have a simple set lunch, a snack and a fruit. For dinner go to your kitchen and cook your own meals that consist of two vegetables dishes and a glass of milk before bedtime. For one month the food cost is probably $500-$600. When you are young, the body will not have too many problems for a few years with this way of living. -- Note he's talking HKD, and HKD 550 translates into about USD 70.
- dewey 1y agoUnlike rent, everything else in HK can be pretty affordable and it's pretty easy to have decent food for < 5 dollars / meal in HK if you go to non-western places. There's "This-This Rice" places (Rice + 2 other ingredients like meat / vegetables) that usually have big portions and feel somewhat healthy.
- patcon 1y agoI did this in Toronto and SF for a few summers in my 30s, well into my "real life" and beyond college. It was transformative, like creating my own UBI. Found all the same benefits: mundane daily moments become magical. Unexpected hospitality of strangers when I [on rare occasion] needed it. Admiration of friends and strangers. Etc etc The main thing I did different was using a hammock tent (10min setup, 10min teardown each day). So I stayed in very public places (right off major foot traffic routes) and just went to bed early and got up at sunrise. Also, I told everyone. No authority cared that i was doing it. In fact, i was organizing weekly events for government employees (some quite high level), and they all thought it was hilarious and were supportive. Here's my learnings: https://github.com/patcon/urban-camping https://github.com/patcon/urban-camping EDIT: Ah, and these were my notes from living in rented shipping containers with a friend: https://github.com/patcon/container-city/wiki/Notes https://github.com/patcon/container-city/wiki/Notes
- burnt-resistor 1y agoSounds similar to backpacking through {India | Camino de Santiago}. I think it's important for every young adult who becomes a well-rounded adult to have experienced a short term of deprivation so they have a frame-of-reference what others in less fortunate situations experience. <my-two-centidollars>The problem today is that there are too many mean, spoiled individuals with way too much power lacking theory of mind, a sense of community, and basic human compassion.</my-two-centidollars>
- 5mv2 1y agoLove the actionable advice like "I rent a PO Box for about $200 per year."
- directevolve 1y agoI did this for a summer in a beautiful spot in rural Oregon as I was contemplating a career change, living out of my Prius compact. It was a special time, though not something I would do long term.
- yusina 1y agoThat was surely a great experiment. But it's very different from actual homelessness. I would have appreciated if the author had acknowledged that more. It's closer to a backpacker-in-a-tent-in-the-mountains experience than homelessness. In the latter, the living-in-a-tent is just a comparatively minor aspect of the experience. This was a choice (essentially to save money) and the author had multiple fallback plans. Real homelessness is born out of desperation and lack of alternatives. Tragedies of mental health issues, abuse, severe financial distress, no savings, debt, warrants. No nice shower at the gym, no locker to keep a laptop and two suits. The constant fear of not just the police but also of getting robbed by another homeless, likely after something to sell for drugs. That's very different from anytime being able to crash on somebody's sofa to save on rent so you can earlier "afford to build companies". We can even see it in one of the later paragraphs where potential spots in the bay area are evaluated. The local homeless should not be close. Oh, they shouldn't? That gives you an idea of the conditions actual homeless folks need to live under.
- syllogism 1y agoHomelessness is a somewhat broad category though. There's lots of people couch-surfing between friends and their car. They're also in a very different position from people who are sleeping rough.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoI only experienced traditional rough sleeping homelessness once when my "house" (my van) was towed and I had to sleep in an hostile architecture bus stop bench that had ridges between each "seat" area. Otherwise, I was technically "homeless"/vanliving in SV from about 2010-2019.
- larodi 1y agoVan is still a home, isn’t it?
- erikerikson 1y ago
- tomtau_ 1y agoGreat write-up! 1. Did you consider camping in one of Hong Kong’s official free campsites instead? I don’t remember seeing any rules that would prevent long-term camping. So, besides the less convenient location and perhaps raised eyebrows of their staff (if they regularly saw you at the campsite registration desk), it seems like a safer option? 2. I assume you were a taught student, not a research student, right? (If you were a research student, you could have slept in your assigned office, I guess.)
- 5mv2 1y agoThank you! 1. That would have been a great option had there been one close to the university! Proximity was a top criteria because commute is expensive money-wise and time-wise. Also, weirdly enough I think I was much safer in this illegal spot than in a regular camping where traffic makes robberies more likely. 2. I like how you think because I happen to have befriended a research student who did just that! I didn't envy him one bit thought because he had no windows while my tent view was magnificent. And then summer came and I would have given anything to have his AC!
- preya2k 1y agoI’ve been at HKUST in 2016, too. I must’ve been pretty close to that tent a couple of times. Very interesting read. I couldn’t have done it due to the crazy big spiders
- burnt-resistor 1y agoThis is camping, it's nothing like homelessness. At best, it's homelessness tourism.
- Arn_Thor 1y agoHong Kong is such an amazing place. I lived there overlapping with your stay. I miss the food and the weather, but most of all the people.
- Laaas 1y agoHow come you didn’t just get a cheap car and sleep in that?
- 5mv2 1y agoSeverals reasons: I don't think you could live 2 weeks in a car before getting controlled by the Police, at least in Hong Kong, tents are cheaper than cars, and I didn't have a driver's license!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- edg5000 1y agoGreat writeup. I appreciate the bravery. To solve the housing issues, all we have to do is build basic soviet-era apartment buildings everywhere and all will be good. The fact that we don't do this in many countries with crippling real estate situations must be a symptom of much larger underlying systemic issues. The future will hold a great many things but also some unavoidable and painful refactoring of leadership.
- snarf21 1y agoToo many in our country are against this because it isn't "fair". Everyone must pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Homeless is an easy problem to solve and generally not that expensive. It is a political issue no one is willing to risk.
- edg5000 1y agoProbably I'm being naive, but what do you mean? I'm saying one way or another, apartments need to get built, either by government or private. As long as at the end of the day, as many small studios as needed to house absolutely everybody become available for, say, 500 USD/month (or less?). It then becomes a matter of what to do with those who do not manage to get a job. Anybody with drug issues needs to go into state rehab until they are willing and able to function and get a job. I think the challenge is these sub 500 studios. It requires a functioning economy and state. E.g. land, utilities, zoning, infra, public services, law enforcement, medical, schools; all these things are needed to support housing. So maybe what is missing is a society, with housing just being the symptom, the manifestation, the telltale sign that there is not enough civilisation to support the people currently residing in some of these problematic states. In 2023, CA population reduced by 268052 people, that is only 0.6% the the 40 mil population though. If 1% leaves every year, I believe that will compound into an 8% drop in a 10 year period. In 20 years, that will be 17%. Maybe that will help aleviate the burden a bit.
- v9v 1y agoThe user manual linked in the homepage (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aZuBR-jVCda-VkG-8MzX4tjkN2JWArych_au2CxBLgY/present https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aZuBR-jVCda-VkG-8MzX...) seems like an interesting idea.
- Simon_O_Rourke 1y agoWhether or not this guy is actually homeless is up for debate. What's not debatable is the pervading level of stingy "I spend hours and hours to save a few bucks" mentality that runs through this piece.
- snarf21 1y agoI agree. In the end, we trade our time for money and our money for (different) time. There also gets a point where some of these things become "penny wise and pound foolish". I'm reminded of the people who spend 20 minutes driving across town to save $0.20 a gallon on gas. Which even in an empty 15 gallon tank, is a savings of only $3.00. Net cost benefit analysis says they would be better off working an a fast food restaurant or something for a higher trade-off of money per hours.
- Simon_O_Rourke 1y agoYes exactly this... Queues of cheapos outside the lowest price gas station in town to save a pittance in dollar terms but not realize the lost opportunity cost striving to save a buck.
- Havoc 1y ago>One close friend was looking for someone to rent his cave for about $100 per night. Someone has an actual cave to rent out?
- wileydragonfly 1y agoVery cool, really enjoyed this one. I think the boredom would get to me quickly, though.
- curtisszmania 1y ago[dead]
- retinaros 1y agois it a satire for tiktok? also a bit misleading that you representing someone that is not you in the single person picture of your blog. and mentioning that food is not cheap at “3$ a meal” while coming from one of the richest countries on earth…
- listenfaster 1y agoA great read, and an objective breakdown of the real world cost of living. Thank you. I'm surprised and kind of grossed-out how criticisms here of the word homelessness have skewed the spirit of the peace. I read empathy with those in crisis. In Seattle, WA, USA there are many encampments applying what you're learned by doing, and your risk mitigation thoughts unpack this. You have the clear advantage of fallback support, which of course makes this an experiment as opposed to anything more, as you say in the title. Re: being disappointed in many of the comments here: If you're looking for a culture-war point to make, you can find it. Please don't always go there - consider that the author may not be aimed in the direction you perceive. I recommend listening to David Foster Wallace's "This is Water" speech on YouTube or elsewhere - way better than Infinite Jest.
- account42 1y agoWhat makes people do something they clearly know is illegal, while being a guest in the country?