Hong Kong: As she neared her final breath, people around her were contemplating cheese burgers and hot cakes.
At 8.39am last Friday, the 24-hour McDonald’s restaurant in Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong, was as busy as always. No one paid any attention to the middle-aged woman with short black hair and black-framed glasses, dressed in a grey jacket and slippers, who sat down at a table near the bathroom.
Early Saturday, at 1.20am, the woman abruptly slumped over. Other patrons remained unconcerned, scooping Oreo McFlurry chunks into their mouths as they indulged in a late night snack.
At last, later on Saturday morning and a full day after the woman’s arrival was caught on CCTV cameras, a customer approached her.
She was cold, unconscious. The police were called, but the outcome was foregone: the woman was already dead.
This eerie montage, reported first in the South China Morning Post, has brought attention to the city’s growing population of “McRefugees,” homeless people who frequent — and often occupy — McDonald’s locations because the 24-hour establishments offer a public refuge found in few other parts of the city.
In a statement provided to The Washington Post via email, McDonald’s Hong Kong expressed grief over “the unfortunate incident” and said police have yet to confirm the woman’s identity.
“The whole thing is shocking,” Lingnan University visiting sociology professor Paul O’Connor said in an interview. “It’s really caught people’s attention locally — it’s one of those tragic yet mundane things that occur.”
But some McDonald’s customers are unperturbed, as evidenced by a South China Morning Post photo taken at the crowded restaurant the morning after the woman was found. While the area where she had been sitting was blocked off by a large piece of black plastic, on the other side short-order cooks were seen preparing french fries and young men were sipping soft drinks.
“Immediately after the incident, we conducted a thorough disinfection of the Ping Shek Estate restaurant, which remains open as usual,” McDonald’s Hong Kong said in its emailed statement.
The fast food giant pointed out that they do not “disturb” their customers unless a customer expresses a desire for assistance. In this case, the email notes, staff “swiftly delivered” water to the woman when she requested it.
The police department confirmed in an email to The Post that initial investigations found no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.
If fellow patrons last weekend failed to notice the dying human being in their midst, it may be because they have grown accustomed to the homeless people who have made a routine of settling into McDonald’s after sunset.
“A big problem in Hong Kong is the lack of public ownership of space,” O’Connor said, recalling a night where his friend was locked out of his apartment and advised by a taxi driver to spend the night at either a massage parlour or McDonald’s.
“McDonald’s is the option that people have got if they don’t have a lot of money,” he said. “You’ll see old people and teenagers there during the day, and in the night-time you see the more vulnerable groups, like homeless people.”
The patterns of these McRefugees have been recognised for years, and poignantly documented by photographer Suraj Katra in the Hong Kong Free Press.
Katra wrote in one Instagram caption: “After entering a McDonald’s late one night to grab a quick bite, I witnessed the staff clattering around the restaurant in an attempt to wake up the 15 odd people that were lodged sleeping there.”
These sleeping figures are jarring additions to an otherwise bustling landscape. Most of them rest their heads on their arms, leaning into the restaurant’s hard tables as they would a pillow; others are splayed across booths, their faces turned to the wall.
At these restaurants, located in the city’s poorer pockets the McDonald’s where the woman died is in a public housing estate — people are frequently found drinking alcohol, smoking and using the bathroom to wash up.
When Katra asked some of his subjects why they had chosen to sleep in a fast food joint, many responded that “they simply couldn’t afford to live in a permanent accommodation and most had to do with temporary arrangements.”
