For exhibition, photographer turns lens on Hong Kong's elderly poor
Exhibition features portraits of seniors on the margins of city's economy
Yeung Kuen wedges a shoe between his knees, and proceeds to stitch a reinforcement binding the sole to the leather upper.
For more than 50 years, Yeung - now 81 - has mended shoes in Sham Shui Po. But when he retires, he will have neither Mandatory Provident Fund money nor enough savings to live on. Being self-employed, Yeung is not in the MPF scheme, and the city has no other pension plan.
"I'll be quitting once this licence expires in May," Yeung said. "I'm too old for this."
Yeung is just one of the many people photographed for an exhibition that documents the lives of seniors on the economic margins in Hong Kong. Titled We Live, it features photographs by Lam Chun-tung depicting elderly people who are doing it tough in the city.
Despite working every day, Yeung's job brings in just enough money to pay the HK$1,700 monthly rent on his subdivided flat in Sham Shui Po, and to cover his daily living expenses.
Originally based in a stall facing the market street, now Yeung's "wall stall" has moved into an alley off Kweilin Street. It is a small tin-roofed place with tools hanging from a wall, an old sewing machine and bits of wood and leather everywhere. The required hawker's licence from the government costs Yeung more than HK$7,000 a year.