When you first start the game when you come of the boat in a short while you are going to be robbed and you will not get your money back so what you want to do is buy lost of stuff with all your money then when you get your bag back you can sell all this stuff in pawn shops

when you get stuck in the game you can visit fortunetellers. in hong kong the best is godhead fortunetellers when i got stuck it helped me a lot.

In kowloon the best is just outside rens hideout or go to the dancing dragon bldg and find the the fortunteller that does something similar to the godhead fortunetellers