I live in HK, and have for 4 years. I lived in Shenzhen for 4 years prior to that, and Hong Kong is much better. It is nearly impossible to immigrate here without employer sponsorship, however you can look at their new startup immigration scheme, which allows startup founders a special visa provided you have a business plan, and plans to hire local people. Programming jobs abound, look up some headhunting/placement companies, and they will bend over backwards to place you. I work for myself, but my wife is HKese so that's how I manage. I love HK, it's a modern vibrant city, however it's offing expensive. Income tax is very low, but rent is hilariously overpriced, so this makes everything more expensive here. That said, if you want to live more locally, you can get by relatively inexpensively for things like food. Public transport is cheap and phenomenal so there's no need for a car. That said, unless you're in fintech or have a very good reason or big desire to be here, there are probably better places to go.
Yeah, I don't get it at all either. I couldn't stand living in Bangkok. Traffic is abysmal, it's hot, dirty and muggy. I understand the appeal of living in a big city, but BKK would never be my choice.
The only thing keeping me from it is a couple of app's that I use regularly, and am not willing to give it up. With the decline in Apple's quality both in their OS/Flagship products as well as their hardware (my MBPr has had more problems than any Apple laptop before it).
I'm pretty sure this will be my last purchase from Apple, and i'll be moving to a new laptop running some flavour of linux as soon as a suitable replacement laptop comes on the market.
