The same would be true of Peter Chung Shiu-kee, 63.

If there is a "level playing field for all," as the city likes to boast, it is news to them because these cage-dwellers are barely hanging on.

They represent the shame of Hong Kong - a 21st century altar to real estate and progress in which thousands of elderly citizens with inadequate incomes are forced to live in "cage" or "cubicle" homes.

Official government statistics show that there are 150,000 Hong Kong people living in cages, cubicles, rooftop huts, hallways benches, parks and streets. In bureaucratic lingo this is called "inadequate housing."

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Government data for licensed cage homes (or "bedspaces") put the number at 29 apartments providing 1,292 cages for 878 people.

Official statistics were not available for cubicle homes, but community organizer Sze Lai-shan of the Society for Community Organization - someone who is not afraid to mix with those who must live in these squalid conditions - says the actual numbers for cage homes including unlicensed ones is "nearly 200" in which about 4,000 people sleep in cages that measure 1.8 meters by 0.91 meters, usually stacked three high.

As for the cubicle homes, where thin plywood walls provide a modicum of privacy and the space is slightly larger, Sze said there are "thousands" for about 70,000 mostly elderly.

The stuffy, sweaty and cramped cubicle home - owned by Tung Wah Hospitals Group - four flights up from Mong Kok's Fuk Tsun Street is not exactly the place where Wong and his wife Lee envisioned spending their retirement years when they arrived in Hong Kong in 1981 from Guangdong.

They left two grown sons in Guangdong and accompanied a younger one to Hong Kong, where Wong said he first began work making change at a game center. Then he got a better paying job at a gas station, including one near the cubicle home in which he and his wife live with 23 others in 11 small rooms. They share a large communal kitchen and a single toilet and have lived there since 1990.

"Do you know that Esso station nearby? That's where I worked for 12 years. It was very close to home and convenient for shopping in markets," Wong said.

By working hard and saving he and his wife were able to accrue about HK$125,000, of which nearly HK$35,000 was in Mandatory Provident Fund savings when he retired at age 72.

But the savings were quickly consumed by medical costs after Lee broke her hip in two places in January 2003.

Due to the nature of her injury which made it too painful to travel by bus and too costly to take a taxi to a public hospital, Lee and her husband consulted a a private doctor.

They receive about HK$4,000 in social security and old age allowances from the government. They pay HK$600 rent.

They have not seen their sons in Guangdong for "a long time" and while they are proud of their son who is in Hong Kong and his children, who are high school and university students, the couple have not seen them since Lunar New Year.

"Not even a phone call from them," Wong laments.

His children do not offer financial support but he does not blame them.

"My sons can't even sustain themselves. With their kids studying and a family to support, it's very hard on them," he said.

Wong said his biggest wish is to stay healthy. "If I'm sick too, who is going to take care of her?" he said of his wife. I'm just going to live on whatever the government has given us, you can't ask for anything more."

Today, Lee finds it too painful to walk even short distances and while they once hoped to live in public housing they gave up due to long waiting lists. Another reason was that they became enmeshed in their small neighborhood social network and resigned themselves to living what was left of their lives four flights of stairs up on Fuk Tsun Street.

Sze of SoCO said: "Many of these old people are too scared to move away from an environment that they are already familiar with. They can't build a new social network at this age in a new environment."

An eight-minute walk away also on Fuk Tsun Street, Peter Chung Shiu-kee prefers to sleep in the corridor on a tattered blanket rather than the cage space he rents for HK$1,000 a month, and in which he has lived 12 years.

Eleven others share the small room where 12 cages are stacked three high against two walls.

The rent is higher for less room in a cage home, but unlike the cubicle dwellers, Chung shares two toilets with his cage-mates. No kitchen, though. Just a small hot plate. A grimy, faded black and white checked linoleum floor is the one feature both the cage and cubicle dwellers share.

Chung pays HK$1,045 a month for his cage, communal TV, overhead fan, toilets and a wall phone. A former cook at a 620-seat restaurant on Nathan Road, Chung lost his right leg in a fire in 1996. He receives about HK$2,700 a month, he said, in government and disability assistance.

"You are unhappy when you worry about money and I always worry about money," he said, while rocking constantly back and forth on his ill-fitting artificial leg.

A bowl of cat food and a container of water lay next to his "bed" in the narrow corridor.

"I have two cats, but before I had five," he said. "The smaller ones ran away. I pay about HK$20 a day to feed them. And about the same or a little more for me."

Chung, a small wiry man with a fair English-speaking ability, said he eats mostly noodles or rice with chicken or beef every day. His girlfriend died six years ago and he has no family.

"I go to the park if I can," he said on how he spends his days.

Another resident keeps a caged four- year old cockatoo inside the owner's larger cage. A visitor asked: Does he pay extra rent for the bird to stay in two cages?

He and the mahjong players laugh. "No," said one. "Not yet."

As the visitors bid good-bye one cage resident could be heard telling others: "Anything they write won't help. Nothing will change."