Why is Hong Kong housing So Expensive? The Cost of Living in Asia's Most Expensive City

If you're ready to escape the cost of living crisis and start a new more affordable and sustainable life abroad, we can help you get started with resources, courses and community: https://www.costoflivingabroad.com/signup

This week on The Cost of Living Abroad Podcast we talked with ⁨Elena from Russia⁩ about her cost of living in Hong Kong:

Why is Hong Kong housing So Expensive? Hong Kong Cost of Living Situation is Harsh! But she is Living on $100 Day in Asia's MOST EXPENSIVE City | Hong Kong CHINA. So how does she do survive?

Helen lives in an $11000 HKD 280square foot apartment by the monster building and spends about $25000 a month on her expenses in Hong Kong, Asia's Most Expensive City. She shared her Cost of Living in Hong Kong with me, Evan Eh! on this episode of The Cost of Living Abroad Podcast.

We compare the best affordable places to live and retire early in SE Asia, including a full monthly budget breakdown of the cost of living in Da Nang Vietnam and discussion of the pros and cons of life in Vietnam in 2025.

0:00 episode highlights
2:00 Cost for food in Hong Kong
9:30 Monthly Expenses in Hong Kong
17:00 Transportation, Rent and Living Costs in Hong Kong
23:00 Monthly total cost of living in Hong Kong for an Expat
37:30 Pros of Living in Hong Kong
39:20 Cons of Living in Hong Kong
40:00 Misconceptions of Hong Kong
45:30 Social Life and Dating in Hong Kong
43:00 Biggest misconceptions of Vietnam
47:00 Hong Kong Culture and Locals
51:00 Advice for anyone who wants to live abroad

If you're ready to escape the cost of living crisis and start a new more affordable and sustainable life abroad, we can help you get started with resources, courses and community: https://www.costoflivingabroad.com/signup

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on the Cost of Living Abroad Pod, we
talked to Elena from Russia. She told me how she's
able to live well in Asia's most expensive city, Hong Kong,
as a teacher living abroad. We also talked about how
she built and launched her podcast and YouTube channel as
a side hustle while living abroad, and what it's like
to live in one of Asia's most popular expat hubs.

(00:23):
And at the end, she revealed to me just how
crazy inflation and the cost of living crisis in Russia
has been come since twenty eighteen. I'm Evan A and
you're listening to the Cost of Living Abroad pod. For
full interviews find us on YouTube at cost of Living
a broad pod. But before we get started, I just
wanted to let you know that if you're struggling with

(00:43):
the cost of living crisis and looking for a sustainable
and affordable way to relocate your life abroad, check out
our resources, courses, and community at cost of Living Abroad
dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Hong Kong is notoriously very expensive. Cost of living here
is quite high. The biggest amount of money you spent
here is the rent. The rent here is extremely high.
I live next to Monster building. Actually, my apartment is
quite small. I would say two hundred and fifty or
two hundred and eighty. I forgot the square feet and

(01:17):
I'm paying eleven thousand Hong Kong dollars. Plan your budget,
that's for sure. Plan your budget and don't gets overwhelmed
by the need to fit in everybody's going out. I
should go out and spend money. Hong Kong is number
eighty eight in the world Index of Happiness, So people

(01:41):
here are quite depressed. That is because there's a lot
of pressure to succeed. This is such a highly competitive place,
right the Hong Kong government services here work in mysterious ways.
All this system is kind of ridiculous. I don't know
what's going on with the Texas So Texas is still
a big problem. I don't know how they calculate things.

(02:03):
I don't know how they figure out things.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Did you notice a big change in the cost of
living before COVID and after COVID here?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Okay, so I think prices are rising, not dramatically but slowly,
so it didn't hit us like, oh my god, now
everything all of a sudden is so expensive for me.
It was a five year change that I noticed the
prices are so expensive there now for expects, of course,
it's easier. We find a job and everything is like
la la land. We enjoyed this and that, but there

(02:32):
is a downside to that. A lot of local people
they are struggling.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Well.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
In Hong Kong. It's quite easy because English is very
well spoken everywhere. There's just so many things available to
you at your convenience. People here don't really stay for
a long time, and that's a problem.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Evan.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Hi, my name is Lena. I moved to Hong Kong
seven years ago and from Russia. Now I am finally
a PR so it means I'm a permanent resident. Yeah.
So now I don't need visa anymore, and it makes
life a little bit more easier and more chill because
before every year I needed to renew my visa. I

(03:18):
was on a working visa, and the working visa is
sponsored by the company that you work for, but every
year you need to do the paperwork. And now finally
I'm a permanent resident.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Wow, congratulation. I wonder if that maybe that means you're
not really living abroad anymore because this is home right.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, now it feels like more relaxed.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, yeah, I understand this.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Stress of like, oh, you need to have a job
and you need to have a sponsor and apply for
this and that. What if you lose a job, what's
going to happen to you? Because during the pandemic I
lost my job two times. Yeah, so it was very
stressful because I need visa and the sponsor and it
was very stressful. But now all this behind me, Now.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
That's really exciting. Yeah. So I had that same situation,
I mean in yeah, multiple times in my life, but
definitely the first three or four years, as in Vietnam,
where it's like my resident card is directly tied to
my job and like, yeah, it was a good job.
So they're never like threatening about it, but it's just
a known fact that it's like your sort of life,
your existence in that place is dependent on them, even

(04:29):
if they're doing nice stuff for you. Well, nice to
meet too. That's really exciting. Let's jump into your daily
cost of living your body to just start with like
what you eat in the day, where you go, how
you spend your money, and then maybe what the monthly
budget for food and drink is.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, Hong Kong is notoriously very expensive. Everybody knows about that.
The cost of living here is quite high. I think
the biggest amount of money you spent here is the rent.
The rent here is extremely high for what you pay.
For example, my apartment is quite small. I would say

(05:04):
two hundred and fifty or two hundred eighty I forgot
square feet and I'm paying eleven thousand Hong Kong dollars.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, it's notoriously expensive. Do you find those like when
you're eating and drinking, do you think that you can
is it affordable? Can you find affordable you know what
I mean?

Speaker 2 (05:21):
You can find affordable choices for sure. If you go
to very local spots, for example, like some local Hong
Kong canteen places or something like that. There you can
find food for like fifty Hong Kong dollars or maybe
even less. For example, breakfast is very cheap. You can
find a set of like instant noodles with some meat

(05:43):
and egg, and they give you a drink, so it's
like thirty forty Hong Kong dollars, which is kind of affordable.
But if you go to any Western places, any Western restaurants,
there is way more expensive. It's like three hundred Hong Kong.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Okay, So like time with the difference between like two
or three dollars, it's like literally I have multiple of ten. Wow,
So do you is that what you do? Or do
you cook at home? Like how do you do your breakfast?

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Oh? Oh, well breakfast I cook at home. I just
make two eggs and I'm good to go. Because as
a teacher, I wake up at six am. I'm very tired.
I can't function at six am. I'm not a morning person.
So I just quickly make the omelet, black coffee and
just good to go to work. But lunch I usually buy.

(06:37):
The school provides the lunch, but it's very local Chinese food,
and I don't really like it what they cook, so
I usually just buy something and bring it to work
or for dinner for example. Sometimes order delivery. Sometimes I
cook by myself because I feel like for one person,

(06:58):
it doesn't really make a big difference if you buy
the groceries or you buy deliver. A lot of groceries
here are being exported from other countries, so they are
quite expensive. Maybe vegetables are not so expensive, but the
rest it's dairy who cheese, milk, everything like that. It's yogurt.

(07:20):
It's so expensive here.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, I guess that makes sense. It is sort of
like an is it's peninsula. There's islands, right, and there's
certainly there's the density issue. It's all residential or commercial.
There's no farmland. So what do you think that totals
are for? Like how much you spend in a day
on average to feed yourself, and then how much in
a month?

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Oh, good questions. Breakfast is probably the cheapest. It's just
two eggs and coffee. Right. The pack of eggs is
fifty Hong Kong dollars. My lunch is anywhere from fifty
to one hundred Hong Kong dollars per day, and then
my dinner is one hundred maybe two hundred sometimes Hong
Kong dollars. It really depends because times I come home

(08:01):
from work and I don't really want to cook, so
I order something and it really depends.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
So yeah, I say, if you round it like three
hundred Hong Kong dollars a day, that's like I think
it's about twenty two or twenty three U s dollars.
Put that out into the month. And what about do
you sometimes like do you have an extra budget for
like going out drinking on the weekends, or like going
out to a nice dinner once in a week, or.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Like I don't go out that much, but of course
maybe two three, four times a month with friends going out.
We don't go to extremely like pricey places. We try
to keep it friendly, budget friendly. It's really random. I

(08:44):
don't have a budget for like going out. It's just
if it happens, it.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Happens, Okay, eight thousand Hong Kong. Does that sound right?
Or that too? Thow is more like nine thousand Hong Kong.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
My lunch alone is one thousand, five hundred per months,
and my lunch is like fifty two hundreds groceries five
hundred a week, two thousand per months.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
I'll just do it on the calculator, right, why not?
So like fifteen hundred for lunches and two thousand groceries,
and then what about your dinners going out?

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well, let's just say a thousand months.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Do you cook at home for dinner sometimes too?

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Okay, so say forty five hundred food budget. It's fair.
Everything is well regulated and operated here, but it's like
a real process to like set up a same card here,
like even in the store. The guy couldn't just do it.
He's like, okay, we've sent everything to the government. It'll
be one hour and then you'll get it back. And
I was like, okay. Like a lot of places in
Southeast Asia, you just like you get one e SIM
it's gonna work everywhere like it's and you might not

(09:43):
even or probably don't need any ID.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
I think recently they changed it here because my SIM card.
Right when I moved to Hong Kong, I was unaware
about anything. I didn't know where to get a SIM card,
how does it work the internet anything? Whatever. We with
my friend we went to get a SIM card, which
is a pre paid SIM card. You don't need your

(10:06):
idea or anything. It's like a Filipino SIM card. And
I'm still using it until this day. They changed some regulations.
I had to register my name, so now my name
is tied to that prepaid SIM card, but it's still
a prepaid SIM card. I pay every month eighty eight
Hong Kong dollars, but I get unlimited data.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
That's really good. That's like eighty eight dollars is like,
that's like ten dollars or last us.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
I think a lot of people here. They go to
the I don't know, the SIM card shops and they
signed the contract with the provider. But I didn't do
such a thing. It was just like a card that
scratched it and.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Says, do you have a Hong Kong number? Is it
a Filipino number?

Speaker 2 (10:50):
It's a Hong Kong number, but it's a Filipino paid
SIM card.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, I know there's a huge Filipino exactly. Ye huh.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Interesting, So whenever I get the notifications from my SIM card,
it's always in tagalogue.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, that's kind of glog up. That's so interesting. I mean,
that's an interesting thing about living abroad, right. There's such
a big Filipino community here that they have their own
services and service providers, probably at much better rates too
than this.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah, exactly. So I'm paying eighty eight Hong Kong dollars
and basically my data is like unlimited. I never run
out of my data.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
That's fantastic. Okay, So let's talk about other monthly subscriptions,
whether it's like gym membership or like the like your
Oyster card to take the metro ferry services, or like
anything like Netflix, or if you like subscribe, subscribe or
do Patreon for other content creators, Spotify, anything that's like,

(11:50):
you know, once a month you get the bill in it.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
So let's start gym. So I go to Pure Yoga.
So it's one of the biggest companies here. Only yoga classes.
So they have Pure Gym or whatever for those.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Who likes to oh the room and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
So I don't go there. It's on my type of support.
I don't like that. So I go to yoga classes
and I pay one thousand hong kong dollars per month,
but you get unlimited amount of classes. So the more
you go, the cheaper it is.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah, better value, better value.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Because other yoga studios, for example, the class costs around
one fifty or two hundred hong kong valuable to pay
one thousand only and then you have unlimited access.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
Pretty affordable, especially if you're getting like actual classes, like
with an instraptor every time. It's not just like mats
on the floor. Yeah, what about Netflix, anything else, streaming,
YouTube premium whatever, whatever, you know.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah, I live alone and I'm paying for the internets.
I think ninety eight Hong Kong dollars, so let's say
roughly one hundred per month. I don't have TV. I
don't need it. I just watch everything on my computer.
So I'm paying for Netflix, which is I forgot how
much is Netflix right now? They keep raising their prices

(13:08):
all the time, So I'm like, is it eighty Hong
Kong dollars something like that, seventy eight Hong Kong dollars.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
It fluctuates every country music.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
I'm not even looking at what I'm paying. I'm just like, whatever,
it is, what it is. And then I also pay
for Amazon. I think it's like fifty Hong Kong dollars.
I also don't know.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
I just signed up and I'm like, whatever, I'm adding
it all up here. Yes, so now it're certainly a
real total. So like a thousand for the gym, phone
is eighty eight, yes, Internet is eighty.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Eight, one hundred, one hundred, Okay, I don't know, let's
say ninety.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Sure, rough it up. Netflix ninety, Amazon Premium fifty or
sixty or sixty. That's good. Wow, kind of like an
unintentional ad for Amazon.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, it's better than Netflix.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, what else?

Speaker 2 (13:55):
What else? Spotify? I'm paying for Spotify Premium? Why do
you how much I pay?

Speaker 1 (14:00):
No idea Okay, well I'll look at it.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
I signed up long time ago. It charges my AMEX,
so I don't even know.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
I mean, that is definitely how these subscription bills add up.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Ye, I'm guilty. Well, since I'm editing videos, I also
pay for Kenva.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
You do, I do? I do like Camba, cap Cut,
I use which but all of those put together are
cheaper than Adobe. I used to do Adobe, and it
was like, oh random crazy even I was doing like
preferral links for them, so and you know where they
like kick back money into your account. Even still, it
was like a ridiculous bill. Okay, so what about all
those the creative ones.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, so Kenva is eighty eight. I receive an email.
That's why I remember the price. Yeah, I think that's all.
That's all I paid for, like the creative stuff. The
rest is I bought Final Cut program long time ago,
so it's like for free. Now.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Oh that's interesting straight. Yeah, the cap I want I
use for a long time. I just used the free.
Now that I'm doing the like these long form interviews
like the cost of Living a broad pod, I need
to use the AI transcription. Yeah, and that's like a
pro service. So where I am, you know, plus six
dollars a month, which is like it's about I think
it's around that eighty. It's not bad at all, and

(15:13):
it saves me, like it literally does the work of
like a whole extra human. That's pretty wild. Right now,
we have you at fourteen ninety six fifteen hundred Hong
Kong dollars and subscriptions.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
I think that's all for the subscriptions, and.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
It's mostly the gym too. It's like a thousand for
the gym and kind of five.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Hundred for everything else exactly, and then the traveling.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
Do you pay for electricity water? He didn't. Yes, oh yeah,
what do you pay for those?

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Oh that's an interesting question. This morning, I was kind
of like going through my bills to see the electricity
bill really fluctuates a lot during the year, because, for example,
right now it's still not too hot, so I don't
use AC at all. Just open the windows and AC
in Hong Kong, it's your budget, like.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Crazy budget breaker.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yes, it's expensive, especially if your apartment is bigger, like
I'm quite lucky. My apartment is quite small. I only
have one AC unit, but if you have more, it's
like goodbye.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
What's the summer bill, what's like, what's the electricity bill
in July?

Speaker 2 (16:19):
I think they must have raised their prices recently once
again everything is going up when it was still very hot.
Because in twenty twenty four we had the hottest November
and October. It was so freaking hot. So I was
still running my acy and bill was like seven hundred
Hong Kong. It was the most expensive I've ever paid

(16:39):
for the monthly bill. It's an electricity.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
That's pretty universal, I think, like even in Vietnam, like
if not so much in the beach town like Danang,
but if you live in Hochimen City, which I lived
there for five years, it's so hot. It's hot all
the time. They say there's like hot and dry or
hot and wet. Those are the two tropical seasons. Like
most foreigners, especially run their ac seven a week. And
it's it's a huge cost for sure. And same as

(17:03):
you said, right, like the bigger the department or house cats,
the bigger the spend is what about water heating?

Speaker 2 (17:10):
Not really, I guess heating not really. I use electric
heater to warm up the water when I take a shower, yeah,
but I switch it off once I don't need it.
The interesting thing about the electricity once again, in winter,
there are four or five months when I don't pay
for electricity because when you get the bill, it says,

(17:32):
right now your bill is less than two hundred, so
we will not charge you this month. They pile up
it until two hundred. Two hundred is the minimum payment
that they want, okay, and if it's less, they're just like, okay,
wait for the next month. In winter, that's how little
of electricity I use. For five months, it's like zero
zero zero. So then comes the summer and you spend

(17:55):
like this, okay, so.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
We'll say, yeah, maybe if the seven hundred, but it's
seven hundred is more real estate for like five or
six points a year, then it's like a five thousand, Yeah, okay,
that's kind of nice.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
And then the water bill is something that I'm still
trying to figure out. Before I was renting an apartment
with roommates, so she was the one receiving the bills,
and I would just pay her. She would calculate and
I would pay her. But now that I live on
my own, it's very weird. The Hong Kong government services

(18:29):
here work in mysterious ways. I don't know how they
calculate things. I don't know how they figure out things.
I moved to this apartment three years ago, and I
set up everything. I set up my account for electricity,
I set up my account for water. I paid the deposit,
because you need to pay a deposit for using water
and electricity, which to me was quite surprising because in

(18:50):
Russia we don't do that. Like why do I need
to pay deposit for using electricity? Like what am I
going to do?

Speaker 1 (18:57):
They just shut it off if you don't pay a
bill off, right.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
I have the letter that confirms the water department. They
know that I exist. I paid the deposit of four
hundred Hong Kong dollars. Ever since then, since twenty twenty two,
they never charged me. I never received a letter. Usually
the water bill comes every four or six months, so
it's not every month. Three years and I haven't received anything.

(19:23):
I'm a little bit worried now because I know from
my friends who actually receive the bill that it's not
so high. So the water here is not that expensive,
not like electricity. But I still want to get my bill.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, you're worried that. It's like, I'm so scared.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
So this morning this interview kind of inspired me to
like finally fix the problem. I found that letter and
it says like scan the QR code and sign up
for the electronic bill. So I was like, maybe I
will sign up for electronic bill, they will finally find
me and charge me. So I did that. I will
update stuff everybody.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Four hundred Hong Kong three years or whatever. That's incredible. Oh,
the transportations which we mentioned but didn't actually get into.
So what is the cost to get around town and
how do you get around?

Speaker 2 (20:09):
So in Hong Kong we have the Octopus card. It's
not the Oyster card. It's in an octopus card. I say, oyster, yes,
So you use octopus for everything. We can pay. We
can go to seven eleven pay, you can go to
local restaurants, pay with octopus. It's like octopus here is
for everything. Now Hong Kong people can go to Japan

(20:29):
and pay with octopus. Which is interesting.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Is Japan where the Oyster card comes from. They have
a similar system. But I don't know.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
But because Hong Kong people love Japan so much and
they travel there all the time. Now octopus extended.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
To wow, Japan the cost of living right now in
Japan is incredible, the best in the twentieth century. Probably,
So if you're planning a trip to Hong Kong now,
is that or from Hong Kong to Japan now would
be the time? For sure?

Speaker 2 (20:57):
The time? Yeah, it really depends. We have very good
transport system here in Hong Kong. I feel like you
have buses, you have EMPTR, you have trams, ferries. These
ferries im right next to the ferry. The price would
depend on where you go. Okay, So for example EMPTR
can cost you anywhere from five Hong Kong dollars per

(21:18):
trip to sixteen or eighteen. It really depends how far
you go.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
It's like fiftys to a dollars fifty And what about
your work commute today twice a day.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yes, so to get to my work, I need to
go to EMPTR first and then I take the bus.
So I took two types of transport. The bus. Once again,
I never remember how much is my bus. I just
tap and go, but I think around eight or ten
Hong Kong dollars. Is the bus fair? So this way

(21:50):
that way twenty per day? And then EMPTYR must be
also around eight or ten Hong kong.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Dollars, so expending like thirty.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Day or forty Hong kong dollars a day.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Okay, so that twelve yeah, twelve hundred Hong kong dollars
a month. But you can buy sacks with it at
the seven event. That's a bonus. That's a real chunk too.
What is Remind me what you said you rent was
ten percent of the costs to rent. That's a lot.
That's good. It's like a good it's a good amount
of your budget. We talked a little bit right off

(22:22):
the top of your vs X. You don't need one
anymore because you're a permanent resident. Let's talk about the
costs when you were having to do it annually and
if your work covered it, that's great too. But what
were they paying for? What was that process like? Because
people are curious about that, and then maybe about the
extended process of actually getting your PR and tell me
about that too.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
So I don't think if I said it in the beginning,
sorry if I forgot. I work as a kindergarten teacher
here in Hong Kong.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
I was a teacher for seventeen years. Oh wow, yeah,
and I love teaching. Actually, I know a couple of
people who work at the Canadian School in Hong Kong.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
When I moved here, I was working through an agency
which they were my sponsor for the visa. You pay
for visa yourself, your employer. They help you fill out
the paperwork and then you go to the immigration. Immigration
center was here before, so one of those towers, but

(23:20):
now they moved to another place. Everything is pretty straightforward.
You fill out all the paperwork, you prove that you're
working with them, and they write a letter saying that yes,
this person is working for us. Before visa was one
hundred ninety Hong Kong dollars. Then the price changed two
hundred and thirty two hundred.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Thirty and that for once a year. Yeah, so it's
a little under two hundred US dollars annually. That's a
good amount of money.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
But then once again, I don't know what happened to
my visa before. They might have made a mistake. My
contract is always one year, one year or one year,
but somehow Immigration Department they gave me visa for years.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Paid didn't have to do the paperwork.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, but I had to do the paperwork because I
lost my job and the visa is attached to a sponsor,
so I had to do the paperwork to let government
know that now my visa is sponsored by somebody else.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Okay, like a ship. Yeah, when you lost your job,
you had to get a new job for the visa
to stay valid. It didn't like it never expired or
became invalid or something like that.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, it doesn't expire. If I would go travel, maybe
they would have some questions.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Like if you've gone in out of the country.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Once again, it happened during the pandemic, and I didn't
travel during the pandemic because it was very difficult here.
If you wanted to go out of the country and
come back, you would need to quarantine out of your
own pocket and it was very expensive interesting because you
needed to quarantine in a hotel and pay for it yourself.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, Vietnam had something similar, but for the most part,
it was just you couldn't leave. You made the choice
to say or you know, there's some extreme circumstances of
I think, like certain professionals or like for some of
the big factories, like Korean workers were allowed to engineers
were allowed to come and go and quarantining on hotels,
but they were chartering planes and stuff like. It was

(25:15):
not common for a teacher, sort of your average person.
Did you notice a big change in the cost of
living before COVID and after COVID here?

Speaker 2 (25:24):
So I think prices a rising, not dramatically, but slowly,
so it didn't hit us like, oh my god, now
everything all of a sudden is so expensive, but like
slowly it's going up.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
I wonder to do, Like Hong Kong is universally thought
of as like Asia's most expensive city or maybe the
most expensive city in the world. So I wonder if
you notice it less here. I know that sounds ridiculous,
but like, you know, an incremental increase when something's already
so expensive might in some sense you might not notice
the inflation as much, whereas if you're living somewhere really affordable,

(25:57):
all of a sudden, it's like it becomes really noticeable
when something goes from one dollar to a dollar fifty
or whatever exactly.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
I recently went back to Russia a year ago, and
that's where I noticed the change the most, because we
know what's going on over there right now, and I
haven't been there for the longest time because of the
pandemic and everything. So maybe for me it was a
five year change that I noticed the prices are so

(26:25):
expensive there now because I remember back in the day
seven years ago, when I was still living in Russia,
my salary was like thirteen thousand rubles, which is like
so little. And now I went back and a pair
of pants is ten thousand rubles. Okay, so it's like whoa.
If my salary was the same, I would just only

(26:46):
afford like what a pair of pants per a month,
because I don't think the salery catches up with prices
that's fast. Oh, everything is like triple the price, maybe
five times bigger. Now I look at the prices in
Russia now with the prices that I had in my
brain when I left seven years ago, it's like like
this big of a change.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
So very Where are you from Moscow? Or are you from.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
It's that town that produces ak forty.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Seven globally famous products?

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yes? Maybe now it's not something to be proud right now?

Speaker 1 (27:21):
What would that in rubles? What would the average say,
rent have been or home have costs in your hometown.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Oh, that's a good question. I'm not really familiar with
the rent prices. I know that quite expensive. A lot
of people they just buy, Okay, yeah, that's the thing
about Russia that people still buy the property.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
A lot of my friends they got married, they have
families now, and they all buy. They get their mortgage
and everything, but they preferred to buy than to rent.
My mom works in a swimming pool. She is a
swimming coach. She in order to have like a more
better income, she works full time during the day and

(28:05):
also comes back at night for extra classes to.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Like earn extra I mean that part definitely seems comparable. Before. Yeah,
before I left Toronto kind of in twenty eighteen, I
was working as a teacher, like I'm also a teacher
and like a you know, a classroom teacher teaching high school.
But then, yeah, I was working in a bar night
to make extra cash. Sometimes I was doing food delivery
like gig just to make an extra fifty bucks, one

(28:29):
hundred bucks and like that. It is interesting. And that's
even before the sort of post pandemic inflation.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Here living alone in Hong Kong with my kindergarten teacher salary,
I feel okay, I feel comfortable. I don't feel like
I'm struggling that much. Maybe before my spendings were not
very good. I was just like, oh, let me buy this,
let me buy that. I was not really like, very
smart about my choices. And that's my problem. It's not

(28:58):
the problem of my salary. That's like my own mistake
of being like, oh, I went in so and then
I'm just gonna buy it. Now that I'm more like mature,
I feel comfortable.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Okay, Well that's good to know. So you feel comfortable.
I mean, I will talk a little bit more about
how you make your money after we wrap up the
total budget spend, but I mean that's a big part
of it, right, It's a huge part of what you
spend is how much you can earn or what you're capable.
And let's add it all up. The eleven thousand rant,
the food costs, the subscriptions, the bills, the travel. What's

(29:30):
your total budget per month?

Speaker 2 (29:32):
So my total budget per month is around seventeen eighteen
thousand Hong.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Kong dollers seventeen or eighteen thousand Hong Kong dollars.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
That's including all the necessities. And I'm not even talking
about like going to the movies, going to the bars,
or buying clothes or anything like that it's like bear.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Okay, that's like the necessity. So what about with the
like shopping and entertainment costs on top of it more
like two thousand or what.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, it can go anywhere to like twenty thousand per month.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
I don't know Hong Kong that well, but for my
couple of times here, I think that that feels about right.
Like also for someone like you, right, who's who's younger
and who's working professional, going out a bit but not
too much. Like obviously the high end.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Here can get Yeah, the limit doesn't exist.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
No, there's no there's no limit out and you can
spend yeah, within like ten minutes of being here. One
of the weirdest and most like visual changes I noticed
in one Chai is that tons of people are driving teslas.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Oh, Teslas are very popular here.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Very popular here. And the car thing in Hong Kong
has always been a thing.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Right, And let me tell you a fun fact. In
Hong Kong. There is lots of license places with like
funny words and they cost money. Oh, the government here
is very smart. They charge people. It's like an you
can submit the name that you won't for a license
plate somebody else can buy it. It doesn't guarantee that

(31:07):
you will get it, so you go to the auction
and you bid and pay. And recently most expensive license
plate is just one letter. I think it's letter S
or something. Can you guess how much they paid for it?

Speaker 1 (31:22):
I don't know. I'm mean I have to guess something observed.
Let's say twelve thousand Hong Kong.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Dollars fourteen million dollars. Can you imagine having this amount
of money to just like spend it on a license plate?
Fourteen million Hong Kong dollars?

Speaker 1 (31:39):
What does that mean? That's all is not over a
million dollars US since I've been here. I saw a
red Ferrari with a DM nine two million US almost
two million US dollars for a license plate for a
license plate. Yeah, I saw a Red Ferrari with a
DM nine mo mone I guess like a joke if
he's speeding direct time?

Speaker 2 (32:00):
See the number that is not a typical license plate.
Think about how much they paid. It can go anywhere
from like three thousand Hong Kong dollars to like fourteen million.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
But I walk by a McLaren store and Rolls Royce
and the Taesla shop and I think if it used,
it's sure a similar way it used to be. It
used to be that the auto tax here was about
one hundred percent too, So if a Ferrari costs three
hundred and fifty thousand dollars at home, it was seven
hundred thousand dollars here, literally just double the luxury life

(32:30):
in Asia's most expensive city. But still, it's very cool
to hear that your cost of living abroad two thousand
dollars a month US, you know, is not like super
cheap the way like some of the beach towns in
Asia or whatever are, but it is. That's a real
affordable cost of living for a lot of people. And
I think on normal salaries in you know, in a gorgeous,

(32:51):
incredible place. I know that's widely considered to be Asia's
most expensive city. Yeah, thank you for sharing your budget.
Now how do you make money? Next path?

Speaker 2 (33:00):
I go to work every single day besides Saturdays and Sundays,
so I have a full time job. I work as
a kindergarten teacher. One thing I can say for sure
is that seven years ago when I started, I was
fresh graduate. You can say one year of work experience.
I was very young, so my salary was very low.

(33:23):
And after being here for seven years, I can say
that my salary group. The longer you work, the better
things become.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
So it's good, okay, and so and how many schools
have you worked since you got here? How many times
you switch jobs? Yeah, if you're comfortable sharing with your
salary is what number you start at? And where have
you gotten to in seven years?

Speaker 2 (33:45):
When I started, I started with the agent, and once again,
agents don't work with agents. If you are working for
schools as a teacher, please don't do that. They just
suck your money out. You don't even know how much
they take from your salary. That's the thing. It's never
in the contract the pause that.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
I did that in Australia. And in Australia it wasn't bad.
It was at least like transparent about they're going to
take this much. But then you sort of get there
and you're like, oh, someone's taking ten to twenty percent
of my salary every month, every month, that's ridiculous, that's insane.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
That's insane.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
And then in China I had that experience where I
totally lack of transparency. I had no idea this.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
Is not good yeah. When I started, my salary was
twenty thousand Hong Kong. So now you can do the math.
I'm spending monthly around twenty five thousand, and my salary
was twenty thousand before.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
So I was very like, ooh, and that was that
the after tax number though, like the number that was
hitting your bank account.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
The tax is here, my goodness, may let me tell
you it's a totally different topic to talk about. So
much anger towards the taxes. Once again, when I was
working with the agents, she was being very shady lady.
I was asking her like, oh, when should I pay
my taxes? Like, how does it work here? Oh, they
will find you if they need you. So for three

(35:04):
years I was not paying taxes. I don't know what
was going on. And then I left her. I started
working directly with the schools, and I went to the department,
the labor department, and I told them like, hello, I exist,
I want to pay. I'm so sorry for whatever happened.
They were like, eh, okay, so they don't really care
that much. I don't know. Ever since then, my tax

(35:27):
comes big, small, bigger, and I always argue with them.
I always send them a letter arguing the price that
they charged me, because they charge unrealistic amount of money, like.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
My salary, and so some people in Canada it's graduated there.
You can add a tax rate in Canada at like
fifty five or sixty percent.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
No, the tax rate here is not that high. But
I don't know how they calculate, because I do submit papers,
but they make their own calculations and it's wrong. And
they charged me way too much. There was one time
they tried to charge me forty six thousand you pay
in a year. It's ridiculous, and I was like, hello,

(36:11):
I know I can't pay that. They reduced it to
nineteen thousand. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculu. That's a big change.
So where did they make a mistakest half? And that's suspicious. Okay,
what's going on over there? So this year they also
tried to charge me a ridiculous amount. I once again

(36:31):
wrote down a letter saying like hello, I don't agree
with that, and they canceled five thousand. So once again,
a big change, A big change. I don't know what's
going on. And now my friend she also messaged me
they charged her a big amount and she is studying
at the university, like she shouldn't be paying that much.

(36:52):
And then her husband is he's working for the government,
and they also charged him a crazy amount because they
forgot to charge charge hum in twenty twenty two. Like
what do you mean they forgot to charge you in
twenty twenty two? That's all. This system is kind of ridiculous.
I don't know what's going on with the Texas. So
Texas is still a big problem in Canada.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
We had so it's so political too. The government during
COVID was like like everywhere is like giving out a
bunch of money and spending right so they I don't
think you applied for it. I think it was just
based on your tax or whatever. But the government gave
me a bunch of money and get to tons of
people think here.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, they also were doing.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
After whatever it was last year. I got a letter
that was just like, you owe us six thousand dollars
back and I was like, what, like, obviously I spent
that money during the pandemic, and it was very stuff
like that is is real. It's a real part of bureaucracy. Okay,
let's focus on the number. Though. So when you first

(37:49):
got here, you're making do on twenty thousand a months,
which is less than you live off of now, so
you would have certainly affected your quality of life. What
about now, how you your earning thirty plus thirty plus okay,
so that's good. So you're you're saving able to save
about a sixth one sixth of your salary. That's really comfortable.

(38:10):
That's awesome. I mean if obviously you know you're trying
to make the leap to like buy a house, or
you have kids or whatever. All that kind of stuff
drastically changes finances. But it's pretty good, right, I mean,
living in Asia's most expensive city and having money left
over at the end of the month, that's cool. That's
really good to hear. So tell us about first the

(38:32):
pros what you love about living in Hong Kong. Obviously
you're become a permanent residence, so it must have, you know,
grabbed your heart a little bit.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah. So for me, the choice to move here was
very random. It was on a whim. I never planned
to be exactly here, but it happened, just like life
works in a miraculous ways. You never know what's going
to happen. I like it and I hate it here.
So it's kind of like fifty f I keep like switching.

(39:02):
There's lots of things to like. There's lots of.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Things to leah. Let's say three of the things you
love about Hong Kong and then we'll go.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Hey, okay. I like how vibrant it is. There's constantly
something going on, Like you can see right now behind
the scenes, there's something there, setting up for something. There's
probably gonna be some event or something. There's always something
going on. New restaurants popping up every month. I don't know,
you can always find something to do. I feel like

(39:31):
the life here is very.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Fun entertainment for sure. I mean it's a cultural hub.
Do you like the food culture here?

Speaker 2 (39:39):
The food here is amazing here. I was able to
try so many different cuisines without even having to travel
to that place, you know what I mean. You can
find Indian food here and it's quite authentic. You can
find like any type of Asian food here, thaie Belanese,
you can find Vietnamese any I think you want. It's

(40:01):
right here, good to Italian food. Everything is quite good
quality and authentic. So and once again, you can find
cheap ones, you can find expensive ones. The restaurants here,
they are so competitive with each other, so the service
is always very good. It's very very exciting to be here.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
I found it like, if there's anywhere comparable in Asia
to New York City, it's here for sure, for like
the and not for that same reason. Right, the entertainment,
the culture, the restaurant scene, combined with the you know
the fact that it's a big finance hub. What about
your experience. What about the public transit experience and that
sort of system. You talked about not liking the taxes

(40:39):
or bureaucracy or that being a pain in the butt.
What about the how the city flows and operates.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
I think overall in Hong Kong, everything is very smooth
and convenient. Like you can find seven eleven every five meters.
There is a seven eleven. There is McDonald's every five meters.
There is like all the coffee shops. There's just so
many things available to you at your convenience. You don't

(41:06):
need to travel far. You want to go hiking, I
can go hiking outside of my apartment. There is a mountain,
and I live in the city, you know what I mean.
I don't need to travel an hour outside of the
city to go hiking, you want to go to the
beach thirty minutes by a bus. It's very very convenient.
Everything is very close. That's part of pro and also

(41:31):
because Hong Kong is so.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Small and Okay, so tell me that, how does that
that's interesting? I don't think there really is. There's no
off the top of my head, in North America, there
isn't a super high density, big urban area that has
the kind of access to nature that you have here
coming from Vietnam, and the air quality right now feels fantastic.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
We're sitting by the we have good days, we have
bad days by the harbor.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Side here and it's like beautiful blue sky, you know,
like everything that's sunny and gorgeous. There's a big luxury
yacht cruising by over there. So let's hear the cons
What are the downsides? The density, the dirtiness. Obviously, like
on YouTube, it's you always and I'll go, I'll check
it out. But you see the Monster Building, you see
like the you know, the sort of old cafeterias and

(42:20):
the grimy under valley.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
But you have a choice not to go there. And
I live next to Monster Building. Actually, I feel very
safe in Hong Kong. There's not like scary places that
I feel like, oh my safety is in danger. No,
people that live in Monster building are that type of
cheap places. They unfortunately, you know, the ones that are

(42:44):
not that are not earning that much. So there is
a big part of that. Like you can see a
lot of older people still working on the street pushing
like carts with like rubbish and doing all this very
difficult labor work at their age. It's very sad to
see so a lot of people here they do struggle

(43:07):
because for expects, of course, it's easier. We find the
job and everything is like la la land we enjoyed
this and that, But there is a downside to that.
A lot of local people they are struggling and they
are not earning a lot.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
What do you think the biggest sort of misconceptions are
stereotypes about the local people, the local culture. Are things
that maybe you'd heard before you got here, and then
you got here and thought, oh, that's not that's not true.
That's whatever.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
I always hear people say that Hong Kong is so
fast paced and everything. If you go to MTR you
will notice how slow people are. Actually. I feel like
a lot of people here they are zombie fid by
their phones, and a lot of people when they walk
they just stare at their phones and they just don't move.

(43:57):
It's very slow. They're very like in their phones. So yeah,
other than that, I don't know. Hong Kong people may
not be the nicest. Sometimes they can be quite you know,
rough around the ages here in there. Yeah, it's quite typical.
If you go to a local restaurant, the waitress will

(44:20):
be shouting at you. But it's just the way they
do things here. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Okay, So what about that? What about the language bearer aspect?
Do you speak any Cantonese or Mandarin? Have you tried
to learn since you got here? Do you? Obviously you're
at least bi linguals speaking Russian and English. Yeah, how
has the language barrier affected you living abroad in Hong Kong.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Well, in Hong Kong, it's quite easy because English is
very well spoken everywhere. Even local people who speak barely
any English, you can still kind of communicate with them
and understand each other. I never, unfortunately, learned Cantonese. I
feel very bad about it because as an expect I
think it's a good thing to speak a little bit,

(45:04):
but I understand phrases here and there. What's stopping me
from learning Cantonese is that they have eight different tones,
and to me it's just so scary, like would you
mean eight tones? Like how does it even work? Mandarin
I understand a little bit better. It's like four tones
going up, going down, neutral, up and down. But eight

(45:26):
where do you go with eight? It's too scary. I'm
too scared to make a mistake, and that's why I
just never try. But I do understand here and there
a little bit because I work in the local kindergarten
and I always hear local teachers communicate and the kids,
and I picked up a few phrases.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah, it's the language very in Vietnam is totally unapproachable
for ninety nine percent of the people living abroad there
because of the tonal thing. And yeah, I spend time
in mainland China, and I think it's noticeably easier to understand,
especially literally to hear the tones, yeah, in Mandarin than
it is in Vietnamese. And I think Cantonese is probably

(46:05):
like that too. How do you mean your friends? How
do you socialize? What's dating? Been like here as Russian
women living abroad in Asia tell us the stories of
I mean, you've got to have some sort of social
life if you've been here seven years.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
So yeah, I feel like my social life before was
happening a little bit more. I don't know. Recently, I
was just like I don't care anymore. I'm just good
at home. But yeah, Hong Kong, I mean, the expet
community is so big and it's very easy to make friends.
You can go on Facebook and find some events happening

(46:40):
right here and there everywhere. A lot of people go
out to LKF, which is like a party place. You
just go to bars and communicate with people, find friends. Yeah,
as I said, you can go to Facebook and find
communities like Russians in Hong Kong, South Africans in Hong Kong,
French in Hong Kong. Whatever, you just go and find

(47:01):
and then sometimes they do some meetups. There's lots of
like running marathon or just like hiking communities that oh,
let's go get together, and everybody is just like yeah, seriously.
They find each other on social media meet and that's
how you make friends. Like it's very chill.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Famous for having a huge expatriot community or like the
people from all over the world living abroad. It's interesting
to hear that too, and also to visually see not
just like all that light of people running by, but
it's noticeable how multicultural and multi ethnic it is here,
coming from Vietnam, where it's almost entirely beat right high.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, we have a Russian community in Danang, very tiny
Australian American communities, but it's limited. You know, the number
of Canadians in the city where I live is like
probably count them. I could get in touch with all
of them if I try. You know, do you date here?
Have you been on dating apps? Do you just go
out in person and have a normal social life.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
Oh, that's very difficult topic for discussion, because yes, when
I moved here, i went on the dating app.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
It's tough, man, It's tough out there because once again,
people here don't really stay for a long time, and
that's a problem, so they're not looking for anything long term.
A lot of experts come here, spend a few years
and then go back to their country or go somewhere else.

(48:39):
Dating local people sometimes it's difficult because their culture is different,
or some of them they don't feel comfortable with their language. Yeah,
I went on dates with local people before and they
would be like, oh, I'm so sorry, but my language
is not that good, so I feel very uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
I think that, yeah, those can be really universal. I
lived in Mexico for a number of years. This is
a while agoent now, but I didn't feel that as
much in Latin America. Like I felt both Latin American
men and women are very forward and outgoing and just
easy to make friends with or to date, both genders

(49:17):
and any gender you know. And in Mexico City there's like,
even though it's a very Catholic country, there's also like
huge trans communities in LGBT coumunities. But in Asia, I
do think that there's a real like universal divide about
how to meet people dating, the sort of like the
embarrassment of language and all that. Yeah, I found first

(49:40):
I had like I had terrible experiences on Tinder and
having grown up sort of in a non digital dating world,
and then later becoming single and being like okay, this,
I'll try this, and I was like, whoa, this is bad.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
It's bad.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
But the transient thing I know from friends in Vietnam
is rough, like in Saigon and Hochimen City. Even before
the pandemic, at least three quarters or more of the
expats and people living abroad are there for two years
talks like talks right like at the most, and so
you have a lot of that process. Switching over, Okay,

(50:16):
let's move into what do you think. What's something you've
learned from the local culture since you've been here, Something
that maybe about how whatever, how they exist, how to live,
that has affected how you live or changed how you
think about the world.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
That's a good question. I feel like I'm trying to
be nice about it.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
So I can say it. Yes, however, you feel I
have things I love and I actually hate about living abroad.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
So recently I saw a post on Instagram like a
few days ago that Hong Kong is number eighty eight
in the world Index of Happiness. So people here are
quite depressed. That is because there's a pressure to succeed,
because it's such a highly competitive place. Right for me, like,

(51:05):
I'm a kindergarten teachhert I'm not competitive, Like I'm chill.
There is no crazy competition for me, I feel like,
But if you work in finance or something like that
it is highly competitive and it's all about flaunting your wealth.
People here really care about like brands and this and that.

(51:26):
I feel like at some point I did get into
that culture, and I also cared about like, oh I
need to wear this brand and this that, and I
need to go to this restaurant I need to be
like but then it really drains you. It doesn't bring
you any happiness. So now I'm just happy to be
slow living embracing that interesting.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, Hong Kong is famous for that,
for being like glitzy and showy. When we were talking,
literally over your shoulder, a guy walked by the T
shirt that said need money for a Porsche, which is
obviously like, you know, joking, joking, but also real where
you're in a city where you see people drive by
and Porsches, and a Porsche isn't even like a nice
car here a nice car. Here's a Rolls Royce or

(52:10):
a Ferrari or whatever. What's the flip side of that.
If there's one thing you could bring from your culture
at home, from Russian culture to teach either locals or
other people living abroad here, what is that thing?

Speaker 2 (52:22):
I feel like Russian people, maybe when you first meet them,
they are also quite harsh and they look unapproachable, but
we are very soft on the inside and we would
always help and everything. But here it's I don't know,
I find it quite hard to get to local people,

(52:43):
like even when you work with them, it's just stays
on a very like superficial level.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Do you feel that like one of the things I know,
I feel the big West sort of West versus East divides,
if that's a real thing. I mean, obviously there's like
the Buddhist Christian thing. But another thing I really feel
is the difference between like family versus like friends. And
I don't know if that's the same for Russian culture,
but I really feel like I come from a culture

(53:10):
where a lot of people they're sort of social group,
their network, the people they think of as like their
people is like their friend groups, right, like who they
went to college with or who they went to high
school and or something, Whereas in Vietnam it is undeniably
and undebatable, like your closest connections and your people are
your family always forever, right, And even in the youngest

(53:32):
generation of be At teenagers, it's the same thing, right,
You can have friends all you want, but a friend
is never the same as someone whose family.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
They are very tight with their families and maybe the
friends that they made long time ago, like during high
school years or university years, and it's very hard to
find friends with local people.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Do most of them speak English? I have no idea.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
A lot of them, but as I said, a lot
of them don't feel very confident with their English.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
So what's one piece of advice you have for someone
else who's considering coming and living abroad? In Hong Kong
is just most expensive city.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
Plan your budget, that's for sure. Plan your budget and
don't get overwhelmed by the need to fit in and
be like, oh, everybody's going out. I should go out
and spend money, because I've seen some people coming recently
and maybe not having that much money for now. Because

(54:35):
every time you move to a new place, it's very difficult.
You start from the beginning and you struggle financially a
little bit. Don't give in into temptations.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Don't give in to the temptation to be superficial and
keep up with the Joneses. That's a good one, yea.
Even in Ho Chi Minh City, I think that it's
easy to do that, it's easy to go, especially if
it's your first time living abroad. It's easy to go
out every night, to go over budget. One more question,
What's one question that I didn't ask you that I
should ask the next guest on the cost of living

(55:06):
a broad pod.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
Do you regret your decision to leave your country?

Speaker 1 (55:12):
I mean literally, the word that popped into my head
was never, not once, not in a million years, Not
in Mexico, not in Vietnam, not in China. I think
that I hadn't left, you know, a home. I have
a house and a home and a family in Vietnam,
and I hadn't left in a while. I actually couldn't
remember the last time I left the country. Last night
flying into Hong Kong and then coming out of One Chai,

(55:34):
which is something that I've been before, but it's been
almost a decade since I was here. I was walking
around and I had this weird feeling and I was like,
what is that? And then I was like, well, I'm scared.
Like I was like it was I was by myself
out at night, and it was like it's a big,
huge city, right and the streets were just empty. It
wasn't like there was anyone to be scared of. But
I realized that like what I was, I was just

(55:55):
walking to a bar that I went to to have
a beer by myself and get a snack.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
You know.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
I was like, I got in late, I got into
like eleven or midnight, and I was like, oh, it's intimidated, right,
Like I I'm feeling intimidated, not by a person, just
by like this arounding. It made me think a little
bit about that, right about that when you take this
big first step to live abroad and you have to
you have to be a little bit whatever crazy is, right, like, yeah,

(56:20):
even if you have a job, you have the money.
Sometimes not about money.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
I think it was the best decision that I made
in my life so far to just take that leap
of faith and just go for it. And everybody sitting
at home and thinking about changing their life, do it.
Just do it. You can always go back, you can
always go back. But this experience is just yeah, I

(56:48):
don't know, Yeah, I can't describe it. I'm a completely
different person now.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
I'm eving a and thanks for listening to the Cost
of Living a broad pod for full INNERVI find us
on YouTube at the Cost of Living Abroadpod. But before
we wrap up, I just wanted to let you know
that if you're struggling with the cost of living crisis
back at home and looking for a sustainable and affordable
way to relocate your life abroad, check out our resources, courses,

(57:16):
and community at cost of Living abroad dot com. Thanks
so much. New episodes air Sunday night in Bangkok.