Batgung

We Batgung are asked the same question by many commenters and emailers: ‘How much does it cost to live in Hong Kong?’

The easy answer is ‘quite a lot, but maybe not so much as you might think, so long as you know where to look for things’.

What’s much harder is demonstrating by anecdote or isolated example how much difference it makes in Hong Kong if you buy your goods and services from expat-centric providers, as opposed to local ones.

So this article is a beginning attempt to nail down some comparative prices for people living different lifestyles here in the same city. It focuses on a common range of products we all consume: fresh food. It will be followed by additional comparisons and information on other types of products and services, so stay tuned.

To pick up on a theme I mentioned elsewhere on the site, you will see that I’ve divided our fresh food survey into three ‘lifestyle price ranges’:

1. Low A low-budget special, based on shopping in wet markets in completely ‘local’ areas of Hong Kong, especially those dominated by public housing.
2. Mid-range A middle-class Hong Kong approach, typified by shopping at big local chains such as Park N Shop and Wellcome, etc. Most of the fresh food sold at Hong Kong’s big supermarkets is still locally grown, but I’ve thrown in a few imported products an expat might be inclined to buy.
3. High A full-on, everything-we-had-back-home expat approach, shopping mostly in expat-friendly supermarkets such as Great and CitySuper. Note that when I checked out prices in this category, I expressly did not choose the highest-priced options. I picked what I thought was a ‘typical’ or mid-range-price product from what I saw available. You can certainly spend more on just about every item in this category if you are so led. I did express a preference for ‘ecologiclly correct’ option, however. This may have raised the overall bill just a bit, but these stores stock very few fresh products that are not ‘organic’ or ‘free-range’ or whatever.

You’ll see that the actual items in each ‘basket’ don’t exactly equal each other. That’s unavoidable, unfortunately, as cuts of meat, types of fish, etc. that are typical of Chinese and western cuisines don’t match up very well. Nevertheless, the total cost of each ‘basket’ of food should be roughly comparable, as each item has an appropriate representative in each budget category.

All prices are stated in Hong Kong dollars first, then in US dollars for easier reference for those outside Hong Kong. Most measures are per kilogram, with exceptions noted. For Americans, remember that 1kg=2.2 pounds, so we’re talking about quite a large quantity of each item measured in this way. I’ve included additional explanatory notes, particularly as to the origin of the food, wherever I think they’ll be helpful. If there’s no indication of where an item originated, this means it’s either local/from nearby in mainland China, or I couldn’t find out.

Food item	Low budget (HKD/USD)	Mid-budget (HKD/USD)	High-budget (HKD/USD)
White bread	5.00/0.64 7 slices	7.90/1.01 6 slices ‘Old English’	14.50/1.86 7 slices toast
Potatoes 1 kg	6.70/0.86	5.50/0.71	66.00/8.46 Organic red (USA)
Onions 1 kg	6.70/0.86	7.00/0.90	65.00/8.33 Organic red (UK)
Tomatoes 1 kg	6.70/0.86	13.20/1.69	100.00/12.82 Australian plum
Carrots 1 kg	6.70/0.86	6.60/0.85	66.00/8.46 Organic (Australia)
Oranges (large navel, 6)	19.80/2.53 USA	17.4/2.23 USA	120.00/15.38 Organic (USA)
Apples (large Fuji, 6)	19.80/2.53	13.20/1.69	178.80/22.92 Japanese
Lettuce 1 head	6.00/0.77 Iceberg	6.50/0.83 Iceberg	29.50/3.78 Hydroponic Cobb
Fresh spinach 1kg	8.30/1.06	13.20/1.69	180.00/23.08 Australian
Broccoli 2 heads	14.00/1.79	5.20/0.67	42.00/5.38 Organic (Australia)
Eggs (large, 12)	12.00/1.56	23.80/3.05 USA white	76.00/9.74 Free-range (NZ)
Beef: minced 1 kg	30.00/3.85	83.40/10.69 Australian	250.00/32.05 US or Australian
Pork (lean, boneless) 1 kg	43.30/5.55	37.40/4.79	200.00/25.64 US boneless loin
Chicken: fresh	55.00/7.05 Live	41.90/5.37 Chilled, whole (PRC)	340.00/43.59 Organic (France, 1.7kg)
Fresh fish (4 servings)**	32.00/4.10 Large ‘gold thread’	19.90/2.55 Chilled catfish filets	160.00/20.51 Chilean sea bass (400g)
Totals	HKD272.00/USD34.87	HKD302.01/USD38.73	HKD1887.80/USD242.02

**Note: I found fish to be the hardest item to compare, given the cultural/cuisine differences I mentioned above. I therefore chose what I thought might make for 'four servings' in each category. The 'gold thread' is a locally-caught fish with a nice firm flesh that's delicious fried up whole. The 'chilled catfish filets' I found at the local supermarket (and very cheap, I might add -- a full pound for just 19.90), were from the species Pangasius Hypothalmus (no, really, it was the only identifying information on the label). I discovered that this noble fish hails from the catfish family -- and geographically from Vietnam -- by googling the species name, then finding it lavishly referenced at the clearly indispensible Planet Catfish site. The sea bass servings I've assumed are actually quite small, i.e. just 100 grams, so the price for this number could go waaay up easily.

So, my first reaction to the total prices: Wow. When I decided to research and write up this topic, I expected a big gap between the ‘local’ and ‘expat’ buying approaches, but nothing on quite this scale. But then on several occasions I’ve observed someone ahead of me in the check-out line at Great or CitySuper presenting a modest-looking basket of groceries, and being rung up to the tune of 2,000-3,000 Hong Kong dollars.

I’m also a bit surprised by how close the totals for the ‘low’ and ‘mid’ budget approaches are. I knew that the wet markets are actually more expensive than the supermarket chains for certain items, especially since the latter have added their own ‘fresh market’ sections, but I still expected more of an overall difference. In fact, if you bought locally-raised beef and eggs in the supermarket instead of the Australian (I went for the imported on the grounds that these are products some expats might be more suspicious of buying locally), you’d come out cheaper than in the wet market overall.

One last point to note: if you consider that you’re getting a full kilogram of most of the vegetables on the list, it’s clear that fresh food in Hong Kong is pretty cheap – assuming you avoid the ‘expat’ approach, that is!

As I mentioned above, I’ll be adding to this article in the future with more categories of food, drinks (I know some of you can’t wait to see the booze section), entertainment expenses, housing costs, and so on.

Reader reports of price-gouging, shopping strategies and bargain sightings are very welcome.

[Note: the next installment, and the next, of this series are also now up.]