Death of a ‘McRefugee’
As she neared her final breath, people around her were contemplating ham n’ cheese burgers and hotcakes.
At 8:39 a.m. on a recent Friday, the 24hour McDonald’s restaurant in Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong, was as busy as always.
No one paid attention to the middleaged 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 1:20 a.m., the woman abruptly slumped over. Other patrons remained unconcerned.
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 — and 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 McDonald’s locations because the 24-hour establishments offer a public refuge found in few other parts of the city.
“The whole thing is shocking,” Lingnan University sociology professor Paul O’Connor said. “It’s really caught people’s attention locally — it’s one of those tragic yet mundane things that occur.” McDonald’s Hong Kong said in an