I can't believe how ignorant and blinkered so many people are. You can live extremely comfortably in Hong Kong, it seems everyone is looking at property prices for the mid levels and central. You can find a decent place on Lantau island for relatively cheap. The cost of living in Hong Kong has no upper limit, but everyone seems to think that they deserve to live like a king as soon as they step onto the line.
Do you want to fly or not? If you turn down Cathay you're doomed to either unemployment or working alot harder and paying a lot more for your training and type rating. The cadets only work about 15 days a year. I'd like to see you show me a quicker route to sitting on the flight deck of a wide body jet AND to actually landing one.
Someone pointed out that a lawyer or accountant makes more money; of course... if you're thinking about a get rich quick scheme being a pilot isn't the answer and this hardly needs pointing out. The people who want the cadet positions do it for the passion and not for a quick buck. Flying a paraglider hardly compares...
I'm writing this because it's just irritating how misinformed and vengeful these cadet scheme haters are. I think I know more about Hong Kong and CX than most of the people here, who seem to have PPRUNE as their sole source of information. It's really not a bad racket and I've just applied myself, I suspect some of these carefully orchestrated posts are by applicants wanting to weed out the competition...