"I have been selling goods here since 1974 and this year is the worst," said Wong, whose stall on Tung Choi Street was two blocks from Nathan Road, the main Kowloon artery occupied. "Sometimes I only make HK$200 or HK$300 a day because there are fewer tourists. If this situation continues we really can't survive."

For Wong, basic needs such as clothing, food and shelter are the most important things in life and she believed the large-scale civil disobedience movement disrupted the livelihoods of many like her. Born in Shaoxing in Zhejiang province in 1946, Wong arrived in Hong Kong when she was one year old and spent her childhood travelling between the two cities due to her father's job."I think Hong Kong is a land of fortune - if you are willing to work then you can definitely make ends meet, and if you are not willing to work then you cannot," she said.

Behind his friendly face and easy-going demeanour, Wong Ka-lun, a 35-year-old taxi driver, exudes a whiff of sarcasm as he speaks. He has never trusted the Hong Kong government, but his sense of distrust and hopelessness became stronger after Occupy.

Wong, who has driven a rented taxi for the past seven years, did not participate in the movement as he thought "it could not reap any results". But he sympathised with the protesters. "I am not satisfied with the outcome," he said. "[Protesters] poured in sweat and blood but nobody listened to them - it just ended." The government's unwillingness to listen was what made Wong cynical. "The current chief executive does not listen to anyone," Wong added, lamenting the "folding chair and pen" Leung promised to take out into the community during his 2012 election campaign "never appeared again". To pay the rent on his taxi, which amounts to about HK$22,000 per month, Wong works six days a week, 15 to 16 hours a day. Despite the pressure to work, Wong did not mind how the 'umbrella movement' affected business, and said the impact was only felt in the early days. "[The protesters] should have done more," he said. "If you do it, do it thoroughly to the end."

Though Hong Kong born and raised, Wendy Chan, a soft-spoken 52-year-old owner of a Causeway Bay fashion boutique, said the city had become strangely unfamiliar since Occupy. "Society's atmosphere has changed - things were simpler in the past but now everything is politicised," said Chan, whose shop was opposite the occupied site along Hennessy Road. "I feel disappointed with Hongkongers - many have changed, many have become irrational. In the past, people were happy as long as they had a nice home and stable job - now people seem to have nothing to do so they go occupy streets. Why don't people try harder and find something better to do?"

Chan said she was disappointed with the government's inability to act as a bridge between Hongkongers and mainland authorities. "Still, protesters should go back to school or work once they have expressed their demands," she said. "The occupied sites should have been cleared much sooner." Chan said business at her shop dropped 20 per cent when the protests began and had not recovered since. Chan is increasingly pessimistic about Hong Kong's future. But she would still prefer her 15-year-old daughter study locally, saying going overseas is difficult at a young age, but: "It is up to her to decide."