Working Remotely from Hong Kong (3 Months After)
How one can turn a bad situation into something advantageous in the middle of the pandemic
On July 18th, 2020, I took a flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. It’s already been more than 3 months since I landed, and I cannot be happier about the decision that I made back then to come here and work remotely. This is not a story to talk about myself, but using my experience as an example to show you how others like me, are trying to turn a bad situation into something that can work towards our advantages during this unusual and unfortunate time.
Who Am I?
My name is Min-Tak Cheung. I am the Senior Design Architect of the transportation technology startup company Virgin Hyperloop based in Los Angeles, California. I was born in China, grew up in Hong Kong, and immigrated to the United States. I spent approximately one decade in each place, so I don’t really see myself as a Chinese or an American, but a global citizen. To me, border is just a random line drawn by politicians before I was born.
COVID Numbers: LA vs HK
Our office implemented the Work-From-Home (WFH) policy on March 15th. Back then there was less than 100 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles. As of today (October 23nd), based on the information from John Hopkins University & Medicine’s website, the Los Angeles County is approaching the bleak milestone of 300,000 confirmed cases and 7,000 COVID-related deaths, the highest among any counties in the United States on both counts. On the other hand, in Hong Kong as of today, based on the HKSAR government’s official website, there is 5,285 confirmed COVID cases and 105 COVID-related deaths.
The estimated 2020 population in Los Angeles County and Hong Kong is about 10.0 millions and 7.5 millions respectively. That means Los Angeles County has about 25% more population than Hong Kong. Based on the COVID numbers above, a simple mathematic calculation (factored in the population difference) shows that it is about 40 times more likely to get infected with COVID and 50 times more likely to die from it living in Los Angeles County versus living in Hong Kong.
Housing: LA vs HK
Both Los Angeles and Hong Kong are notoriously known for their high living expenses, especially on housing. In 2020, the median home price is about US$650k in Los Angeles and US$700k (HK$5.4M) in Hong Kong. Since the average home price in Hong Kong is even higher than that in Los Angeles, many people have a pre-conception that it makes no sense to move from LA to HK. However, if you look at the rental markets in both places, you will get a different perspective.
Due to the extraordinary high housing prices, owning a place in either of these two metropolitan cities is out of reach for most people. A lot of people living in these cities are renters, some by choice, many are not. I am one of those “many”.
While I was in Los Angeles, I leased a studio apartment in Downtown Los Angeles just 1.5 mile away from my office. The rent was about US$2,000 per month with an extra $100 for the parking spot for my Tesla Model 3 base model that I bought in 2019.
For the same studio apartment in similar size and comparable location in Hong Kong, it is about US$1,500. Most of them requires you to sign a lease of at least one year. Since I am yet to determine how long I want to stay in Hong Kong, signing a long-term lease is not my preferred option, so I have to look for other alternatives. I found that the best option for me is to just stay in hotels, and here’s why.
Tourism is one of the major pillars of Hong Kong’s economy. In 2018, it contributed to around 4.5% of Hong Kong’s GDP and was accounted for about 6.6% of total employment. Due to COVID, the Hong Kong government decided to close its border and bar any non-HK residents from entering. This literally drove tourism to the ground. In order to survive, hotels in Hong Kong is changing their business model to cater for the locals, instead of foreign tourists like the good old days.
WFH has a double meaning for me. It can either stand for Work-From-Home or Work-From-Hotel. Even though my parents are in Hong Kong and have space for me to move in, I’ve been living in hotels ever since I landed in Hong Kong. Also, being a single guy in his late 30s still searching for a mate, moving in to live with my parents is the very last thing that I would even consider.
I currently stay in a 5-star hotel in the middle of everything for only about US$50 per night, which is about 25% less in terms of cost compared to renting the studio apartment in Downtown Los Angeles. Last time I checked, US$50 per night can barely get you a Motel-6 in California.
You can easily get a 4-stars hotel for about US$30 per night these days in Hong Kong. If you are on the budget side and don’t care about stars at all, you can even get a place to crush in for only US$10 per night. If you don’t trust me, please go and check out from one of those hotel booking sites or apps.
Meals: LA vs HK
One thing that I really love about these two places is that you can get all kind of cuisines from either of them. I am a single guy and I don’t know how to cook, so my chance of survival is highly contingent on the number of available restaurants nearby. I don’t really go to expensive restaurants unless having a hot date. While I was in Los Angeles, I spent about US$45-$50 per day on meals, including sales tax and tips (sales tax is about 10% and tips is about 15%-20% in LA). In Hong Kong, meals are no more expensive than Los Angeles. You can easily get a very decent breakfast for US$5, a lunch for US$10, and a dinner for US$15, not to mention that there is no sales tax nor tips system in Hong Kong. On average, I spend less than US$35 per day on meals. So that means I save about 20%-30% on meal expenses in Hong Kong compared to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is pretty spread out. In order to get a meal, you either have to drive (which takes time), or order delivery (which adds cost). In Hong Kong, everything is in walking distance. Just in the shopping mall underneath my hotel, there are more than 40 restaurants to choose from. Poor people are stingy on money; rich people are stingy on time. I am neither poor nor rich, but I am very stingy on both. Getting a meal in Hong Kong saves me both money and time, and make me a very happy stingy man!
Transportation: LA vs HK
Lastly, let me also cover a little bit on the transportation cost. Ever since our office implemented the WFH policy, I barely went out in Los Angeles except on weekends. Although I didn’t have any monthly payment for my Tesla Model 3, I still had to pay for the parking spot and car insurance every month, as well as the vehicle registration fee every year. It still cost me at least US$200 per month to own the Tesla even though I drove less than 200 miles per month!
In Hong Kong, public transportation is one of the most well-established ones in the world. Most people in Hong Kong don’t have a car and simply rely on public transit for their daily commute. For those who own a car in Hong Kong, it is more for showing a symbol of social status rather than for convenience. After battling in traffic for more than a decade in Los Angeles, living without driving in Hong Kong is a blessing! And since I live in the middle of everything, nothing that I need is more than a 15-minutes-walk. I usually venture out from my area (Mongkok) on weekends to visit my parents or meet with my friends. For those trips, I always take subways or buses. It cost me less than US$10 per week, or US$40 per month on public transit on average in the last 3 months. That is an 80% savings compared to owning the barely driven fully paid-off Tesla Model 3 in Los Angeles!
Works: LA vs HK
Everything sounds too good to be true, but there is one caveat working remotely in a place for a company located on the other side of the world — time difference!
Hong Kong is 15 hours ahead of Los Angeles. When my colleagues start their day in Los Angeles, it is mid-night in Hong Kong. That means if I want to stick with the LA time, I have to work during the night and sleep during the day. My work hour was 12am-8am HK time. Because of jet lag, it worked out extremely well when I first arrived in Hong Kong as I didn’t even have to adjust my biological clock at all. What a win-win situation!
However, as time passed by, it was getting harder and harder to fall asleep at 3pm. As a result, I had to break my sleep pattern into two halves — 4 hours before work and 4 hours after work. Based on multiple scientific studies, this is extremely harmful at multiple fronts physically and mentally.
Two months after living like a night owl, right at the time when my body and mind were taking a heavy toll due to sleep deprivation, good news came! Our Dubai office got a new project and requires my supports in the next couple months. Dubai is 11 hours ahead of Los Angeles and 4 hours behind Hong Kong.
In order to support both offices more effectively, I proposed to my supervisor to change my daily work hours to 6am-3pm HK time. This new work schedule allows me to have a few hours overlap with my colleagues in Los Angeles, a few hours overlap with the Dubai team, a few hours alone time to concentrate on my works, as well as one-hour lunch break in-between. Not only does this new work schedule allow me to have a full 8 hours sleep every night, but also increases my work productivities after waking up refreshed everyday. Well, when your direct supervisor is happy with your works, you don’t have to worry about your job security anymore even working in a completely different time zone.
Break the Cage
Many of us are confined by the invisible cage that we are building for ourselves, without even noticing that we are holding the key to our own cage. We are allowed to open the cage anytime, but we feel so acclimated inside the cage and intimidated by the unknowns outside the cage that we dare not walking out.
COVID has changed our world dramatically, from the way we work to the way we live. We are still in the middle of this pandemic without knowing when it will end. One thing can be sure is that even after this is over, the post-pandemic world is not going to be the same as the one we used to know. This is the time for us to think about how we can adopt to it. This is the time for us to challenge the social norms. This is the time for us to break the cage.
If you read from top to bottom on this article and make it this far, chances are that you are interested in the idea of working remotely somewhere else as well. If that is the case, I would like to challenge you to ask yourself the following questions:
1. Which city do I want to live in if I can work from home permanently?
2. How much money can I save by moving to another city and working remotely?
3. If I use the monies that I save to improve my living quality, how will it look like?
4. If I put the monies that I save into my retirement account, how soon can I retire?
5. And finally, what’s stopping me?
