Then & now: let's hear it for the Chans
Why are hard-core heritage fans denying hard-working Hongkongers the chance to sell up and retire in peace, asks Jason Wordie
Every other month, it seems, wellintentioned “heritage activists” bewail another long-established shop’s closure; further evidence, they claim, that Hong Kong’s “collective identity” is under threat. While the passing of a popular landmark always prompts wistfulness, inevitably there are two sides (at least) to every story.
Here’s a composite example: Mr and Mrs Chan came from the mainland in 1952. Voting with their feet late one night during an early political campaign, they crossed the border at Lo Wu (after a tip to the police) with one child holding her father’s hand, another sitting on his mother’s back, and some bundles slung on a carrying pole. And that was it; like thousands of others, the couple began new lives in a strange, frequently hostile place with little to rely on but themselves.
The first few nights were spent under a Kowloon shop awning; fortunately it wasn’t raining or too cold. A room in a squatter hut precariously perched on a bare hillside above Wong Tai Sin was eventually found, and the Chans started hawking noodles.
When more children arrived, the Chans just worked a bit harder. And so did their offspring, when they were old enough to help out. In due course, through constant thrift, the couple managed to buy a small shop. In the 1950s and 60s, several far-sighted local developers, most notably the late Henry Fok Ying-tung, offered reasonable mortgage terms to those who conventional banks might not normally serve.
Eventually, the shop was paid off, and the noodle business turned a healthy profit. Mr and Mrs Chan kept on working long hours – that was simply what they did. And so the years passed.
Fast forward to today. That affordable Kennedy Town corner spot bought in 1961 is now seriously up-and-coming; a jewellery chain, a bar and a restaurant all want to rent it. A family talk decides the matter.
The little girl who crossed the border fearfully clutching her father’s hand is now a successful doctor – long hours of hard work and a few merit-earned scholarships saw to that. Her brother, who first saw Hong Kong as a sleepy-headed infant, is now – through similar personal efforts – a top civil engineer. Between them, the children decide it’s about time Mummy and Daddy spent their mornings drinking tea and reading the papers instead of boiling wontons. And third and fourth brothers, who moved to Vancouver in the 80s, want their own families to know their grandparents a bit better.
Mr and Mrs Chan take a similar view. It would be nice to sleep in, for a change, after all these decades, and enjoy some travel, too. And anyway – that rent would be very handy. So, in due course, the noodle shop closes, and that saga ends.
Or does it?
Is this composite tale, commonplace to that generation, really a neighbourhood tragedy to be loudly hijacked by a coterie of unconnected strangers, each with their own political, sociological or academic agendas to peddle?
Or does that humble noodle shop’s demise actually represent the final triumphant chapter of an average Hong Kong family’s private success story, achieved against the odds?
Let’s hear it for Mr and Mrs Chan and their family noodle shop, as we wave it goodbye, and everyone else whose personal stories they echo, who have all made Hong Kong the marvellous place that it remains today.
