Chapter 99 Buying a New Car, Reservoir Earning Money Exposed [Twenty Points Changed]
Hong Kong people call wet markets "markets". In recent years, more and more old markets have faced demolition, and private cultural protection organizations have been running around, but with little success. Realistically speaking, the decline of wet markets is irreversible; just like the movie "
In "Every Time Things Change", the market "Fu Gui Hui" was eventually demolished, and fish guy Eason Chan and pork guy Huang Bo had to change their careers. "Every time things change, you know that time has passed."
At seven or eight o'clock in the morning, the fish stall at Kam Wah Street Market is already bustling with activity. This is Shau Kei Wan in the east of Hong Kong Island. It was originally a market where fishermen came ashore to sell their catch. Now the fishery is in decline, but the incense in the Chenghuang Temple next door is flourishing, and the smell of incense candles is there.
It lingered in the sky above the market. The fishmonger had a dragon tattooed on his arm, but he was kind-hearted and sweetly said to the old lady, "Auntie, you are so pretty (so beautiful), even shrimps will jump when they see you!" The old lady knew full well.
He was praising the shrimp, but he still smiled from ear to ear, and decided to buy a fish.
Evolution of markets: open-air markets - indoor markets - multi-functional municipal markets
Open-air markets like Jinhua Street are connected by vendors who set up tents or push carts. As long as they are within the scope designated by the government, they will not be driven away by the Hong Kong government's Hawker Management Team (equivalent to the urban management). The most interesting thing in Hong Kong
The outdoor market is probably the famous Chun Yeung Street in North Point. When the market is busy, the market almost submerges the tram tracks. The driver of the ding-ding car (commonly known as Hong Kong trams) angrily sounds "ding-ding, ding-ding" to prompt pedestrians to avoid.
But everyone has become accustomed to treating him as transparent. The sounds of selling, chopping meat, and bargaining are mixed with "ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding."
However, this kind of open-air market is already very rare in Hong Kong. For hygienic reasons, starting from the 1950s, the government gradually moved the markets from the roadside to indoors. In the 1990s, municipal markets became popular, which were built in major communities.
A multi-functional municipal building that integrates all community services, including the market. According to current regulations, meat is usually downstairs and vegetables are upstairs. Due to several consecutive waves of bird flu outbreaks, poultry is allocated a separate corner.
There are usually food stalls, community gyms, health rooms and even libraries and district offices upstairs in this kind of "municipal market". In other words, you can go to the noodle stall on the third floor in the morning to eat thick fish egg noodles for breakfast, and then go to
I read a newspaper and a novel in the library on the fifth floor, go to the gym on the sixth floor to sweat, take a shower, and then go downstairs to buy groceries and go home to make lunch.
Doesn’t the omnipotent municipal market look beautiful? However, what the Hong Kong Island government did not expect is that this kind of market planning is not pleasing to the eye, because many people just want to cut a piece of meat and buy a pound of vegetables. Who wants to go to the market to study?
Reading the newspaper? The Shau Kei Wan Market, 100 meters away from Kam Wah Street Market, is an example. It has been abandoned for many years and is jokingly called "the market you only enter to use the toilet."
Some people will also miss the open-air markets of the past. Most of the stalls spread along the street will extend for three to four blocks. Residents can enter and exit from any street entrance. There is no traffic, and transportation is convenient. It is a real "shopping" in the market. Therefore, some scholars
He believes that bringing the market indoors is a typical plan that ignores the needs of users.
Compared with the rational criticisms of scholars, the thoughts of ordinary residents are more emotional, "I used to stop and think when I saw street vendors (market vendors) on the roadside, what kind of food should I buy today? But now, I am
I only go to the municipal building to go shopping when I think of buying groceries.”
Sister Shi Feng’s family grew up close to Wan Chai Street. Starting from her grandmother, three generations of her family have been vegetable sellers. Her mother is over 90 years old. She combs her hair in a delicate style, draws her eyebrows, puts on lipstick, and sits on the street every day.
Peeling garlic from a corner of a vegetable stall. The old Wan Chai market where her grandmother sold vegetables was built in 1937 and was the first "Streamline Modernist" building in Hong Kong. In 1996, the government included it in the development plan.
After demolition, it was moved to a new location.
Non-governmental cultural protection groups opposed the demolition of the old Wan Chai Market and hoped to preserve the historical buildings. But for Sister Feng, this place was just a memory of hard work in her youth, no air conditioning, and no money to make. When the government announced that it would sell the Wan Chai Market to real estate developers,
When the new Wan Chai Market was built next door, their family moved there without hesitation. "Why not move? There is air conditioning, there are people to clean up, and the environment is better. Of course, customers are more willing to visit here."
The earliest Wan Chai market was built by the British colonial government.
It was Sister Feng's attitude that accounted for 99% of the street vendors and surrounding citizens. It made Li Haoran, a professor of the Department of Architecture of the University of Hong Kong who worked for the protection of Wan Chai Market more than ten years ago, self-defeating and finally gave up.
Li Haoran said that Wan Chai in the 1930s was full of tenement buildings, and the design of Wan Chai Market was very fashionable around the world at that time. "The completion of Wan Chai Market was like a spaceship landing here, with vents and electricity installed.
The fan is very cool. There is also a children's playground on the top floor. The Westerner who designed this place thought that Chinese people would put their children in the playground and go buy groceries by themselves. He didn't know that Chinese people always carry their children on their backs.
"To this day, some indoor markets in Hong Kong still retain the design of having a children's playground on the top floor, but they are still empty.
With the rapid increase in population, the old Wan Chai market has become synonymous with crowding and stuffiness, the "spaceship" has become obsolete, and it has now been converted into luxury homes.
The Central Market was once the most representative Bauhaus building on Hong Kong Island. Unfortunately, it has been abandoned for many years since 2003 and has become an "unfinished" cultural protection project. Regarding the fate of the Central Market, some people say that it should be replaced.
Catering solves the lunch problem for white-collar workers in Central. Some people say it will be turned into a sky garden...
But no one said that a street market should be restored.
"There are no residential buildings in the Central District anymore, only the CBD, so it doesn't matter if the market disappears." Professor Li Haoran lamented.
Those favors that have disappeared
Ye Chang, 78 years old this year, has been selling vegetables in North Point for more than 50 years. "I used to work as a small worker, and then I married a wife. My father-in-law sold vegetables, so I also sold vegetables." Ye Chang, who "brought in" to the vegetable stall, suddenly
I’ve been doing it all my life. I used to set up a stall on the roadside, and later I rented an indoor market stall. “I go to the food stall in Sai Wan at 3 o’clock every morning, and after buying it, I give 100 Hong Kong dollars to the ‘caijiao’ (porter), and the ‘caijiao’ helps.
I'll move to the stall."
Ye Chang has a cat, curled up in a basket, placed among taro and potatoes. "I feed it cat food." Ye Chang said that the cat has no name, "I just call it 'Cat Cat'. I raise it."
He has been living for 13 years, so in terms of human years, he is almost as old as me." Ye Chang leaves the cat at the stall every night. The mice will not dare to come near if they smell the cat's scent. "I look at the stall during the day, and he looks at the stall at night.
He is my 'Rat King'."
"Uncle Chang, are there any Dutch potatoes (a kind of local red-skinned potato)?" A nurse approached and touched "Maomao" on the head and asked - she looked like a regular customer. "Maomao" was woken up by her.
, reluctantly, stretched and retracted the dustpan.
Working from dawn to dusk, the net income for a month of hard work is only five to six thousand Hong Kong dollars. The livelihood of vegetable vendors has become increasingly difficult in recent years.
"My parents' generation used to resist going to supermarkets because they thought it was expensive. In fact, their generation needed public space more." Li Haoran said, "Now Hong Kong people no longer need a public space like the market, but pay more attention to private life."
Space." Mr. Liu, who works in IT, said that he likes to go to supermarkets because he can avoid communication the whole time. "Wear headphones to listen to music, choose good goods and pay for them. Going to the market? I really have no interest in chatting with the market uncle."
And the generous market uncle Ye Chang must not understand these young people with "social phobia". He said that if the day of retirement comes, the ones who can't let go are the "neighbors" in North Point who have been selling here for more than 50 years.
Cai said, "To be honest, I have spent most of my life with them. Even if I don't want to let them go, I probably feel a little bit."
The market disappeared, and people just said "goodbye", with the debris of childhood floating in their minds, and continued to live their lives. The uncles from the market disappeared. They might be washing dishes in the back kitchen of the restaurant, or they might be in the parking lot.
I worked as a security guard. Those old Hong Kong people who used jingdong cars to slowly go to the market to buy vegetables have also disappeared. Time moves forward coldly and firmly, just like the jingdong cars driving from Shau Kei Wan finally arrived at the terminal of Kennedy Town.
