HONG KONG -- Michael Wu treasures his pocket-size picture book of friends who come to visit every month -- but none of the photos is of his wife, his 10 children or his 11 grandchildren.
"I haven't seen them in six months," Wu says with a forlorn look under his fogged-up glasses.Like many of his generation, Wu has been sidelined in this financial dynamo of a city whose fast and furious success he helped build.
But as Hong Kong grew from a haven for enterprising mainland Chinese migrants and venturesome British colonials to the progressive city that it is, part of the fabric of its traditional Chinese society -- a strong respect and sense of duty to the elderly -- shows signs of unraveling.
"Children used to feel guilty about sending their parents to elderly homes. They said they had failed in their filial duties, but not anymore," says Nelson Chow, chairman of the social work department at Hong Kong University.
About 900,000 out of Hong Kong's 6.8 million people are over age of 60, Chow says. And by 2015, the number will be above 1.5 million.
Many of the elderly fled the mainland Chinese communists in the 1950s and expected their children to abide by traditional Chinese values. Responsibility to the elderly meant children should keep their parents with them at home, even after they had families of their own.
But the number of people over 60 has grown from 7 percent of the city's population 20 years ago to nearly 15 percent, a rise that would take at least half a century in many other countries, Chow says.
The family unit has suffered under the strains of such a huge demographic shift and just "is not so strong anymore," Chow says.
Both government officials and academics are hard-pressed to find ways of meeting the needs of people like Wu and the 240 others at his old-age home.
At present, less than 4 percent -- or 36,000 people -- of Hong Kong's elderly have access to such homes. Academics say the desperation many seniors feel has spawned a worrisome phenomenon: elderly suicide.
Paul Yip, a statistician at Hong Kong University, says a "mismatch of expectations" and a lack of opportunities are leading more people over 60 to swallow poison, leap to their deaths or hang themselves.
According to the latest government statistics, of the 640 suicide victims reported in 1996, nearly a third were over 60 -- the highest proportion in the world after rural China and Singapore.
"In the West, parents expect to see their children for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas," Yip says. "But here you're supposed to show up every Sunday for dim sum," a traditional Chinese meal of steamed dumplings and other bite-sized delicacies.
Wu, now 76, says his fondest memories are those of working in World War II as a translator for the British High Command in China.
He's been diagnosed with diabetes, hypertension and Parkinson's disease and lives with seven others in a dormitory room redolent with the smell of urine and medicine.
"Never live with your children. There will always be different viewpoints," Wu tells a visitor as he pages through his picture book.
"But when are you coming back to visit?"