I don’t know where you live, but Hong Kong and Singapore are counted in the top 10 most expensive countries (cities actually) to live in, and not at the bottom of the list (from a recent publication).
Here are stats from late 2007 on CNN Money which show them both in the top 20 (Hong Kong no. 5, Singapore no. 14):
And I don’t know what salaries you talk about but I see a lot of expat people in Asia make loads of money, much more than they ever would be able to make back in their home country.