The family way
The walk down Shanghai Street, which stretches from Mong Kok to Jordan, can be a hike in the heat, but for Simon Go Man-ching it's a stroll down memory lane. There's a sense of time warp as many shops are old-style businesses that retain their original layouts and practices. Sauntering through a rundown stretch in Yau Ma Tei, Go greets proprietors as if they're old friends.
For the past four years, Go, photo editor at a Chinese-language newspaper, has spent his free time combing old city districts to photograph shops that look and operate much as they did decades ago. His black-and-white images were recently published in a book, Hong Kong Old Shops, and will feature in an exhibition starting on Saturday.
Go, 41, embarked on his project to celebrate a less glamorous but more human side of Hong Kong, which is why his book features mainly family businesses.
'I like how they keep it together as a family unit and treat people with a heart of gold,' he says. 'There's a strong sense of community and a human touch you won't see when you go to supermarkets and shopping malls. I wanted to capture the long lost values epitomised by old shops.'
Published with a subsidy from the Arts Development Council, his book features about 90 shops, each accompanied by a short article. Businesses range from old-style grocery stores and Chinese herbalists to kettle and umbrella repair services.
It took a lot of legwork to find shops that had somehow survived frantic redevelopment, rent increases and design trends.
'I don't look for just any old shop,' says Go, who grew up in San Po Kong. 'They have to be at least 30 years old, and they have to look pretty much the same as they did when they first opened, with a flavour of the old Hong Kong.'
The photographer was racing against time - a quarter of the shops featured have now closed - but he eventually identified about 200 shops.
However, persuading the owners to allow pictures to be taken was even harder.
'It took at least three visits to build trust, which was the hardest part,' he says. 'I have to show that
I respect them. Listening to their interesting stories and anecdotes also helps me bring out the humanity in the photos.' Elderly people were often suspicious of his motives. 'I don't blame them because they are just cautious,' Go says. 'I can't assume they will be immediately helpful because they are usually unaware of the historical significance of what they do.
'So I'd explain to them what I'd like to achieve with this book patiently,' he says. 'I've had to be humble, understanding and thick-skinned.'
But he quickly sensed which ones would never consent. 'I just have a hunch,' he says. 'But those who did accept me have become my friends. That makes me very happy.'
Among the families that Go got to know through his project are the Chan brothers who run Kang Ming Glass Shop in Yau Ma Tei. Four generations still help out from time to time, but that may not be for much longer if the better-educated children lose interest in the business.
'We'll stick it out for as long as we can,' says the eldest brother, 60-year-old Chan Hon-hing.
'We won't force it on our children because times are different now.'
Many old shops face obsolescence because consumers no longer need or want their traditional services. Yet one of Go's favourite subjects on Shanghai Street, the 62-year-old Apex Chinese Medicine Company, has thrived despite sticking with old ways - its decor and methods of selecting herbs and tools used. The young staff seem at ease among the shop's old-style glass jars and have perfected the knack of finding the right medicinal herb from a wall lined with unlabelled drawers.
'All it takes is practice,' says owner Anthony Lau Mun-tau. Patients' records are still written by hand, even though their traditional Chinese physician keeps up with the latest Cantonese slang in order to communicate with young customers.
Apex narrowly escaped closure when Lau inherited the business about 12 years ago from a relative who wanted to preserve traditional operations. 'His siblings had no interest in taking over but he had faith in me. I happen to be quite a nostalgia buff myself too,' says Lau, a fashionable-looking man in his 40s. He used to work in the hotel industry and had to start from scratch. 'There was so much to learn,' he says.
Hong Kong Old Shops may seem like another coffee-table exercise in nostalgia, but art critic and independent curator Oscar Ho Hing-kay says it is more than a record of a vanishing cityscape.
'[Go] brings out another dimension that collective memory is not just about architecture and landscape, but also about the distinctive cultural values that define who we are,' he says. 'It shows us that cultural memory of ordinary people is as important as what exists in the museums.'
Go's book, along with other community projects that pay tribute to ordinary people, highlights the public's passionate plea to the government to 'recognise and respect what we have', Ho says.
Go, meanwhile, is plotting a possible second book on old shops. But he had better be quick.
Orchestration II: Images of Hong Kong Old Shops, photos by Simon Go and illustrations by Stella So Man-yee; Shanghai Street Art Space, Yau Ma Tei. Sat until July 20
