The somewhat controversial Savannah College of Art and Design officially opens this month. The prestigious arts school, located in a heritage building that once served as the Kowloon Magistracy in Sham Shui Po, is one of the most talked-about openings in years. As the term begins, all eyes are fixed firmly on one of the city’s oldest—not to mention poorest—districts.

There’s certainly plenty in the area to inspire creative minds. Sham Shui Po is perhaps best known for its street markets where visitors can spend hours hunting for treasures. For vintage antiques, Ap Liu Street is a tech geek’s dream, or if you’re a budding jewelry designer, Beads Street is where you’ll find handicraft tools, buttons, beads and other decorations. Anyone looking for a glimpse into old Hong Kong could spend a couple of hours wandering the area, where there are plenty of old tong laus, or tenement houses, to admire. While most are in a rather sorry state, there are some excellent examples of colonial-influenced architecture, where many people still live and work to this day.

Intrigued by what’s happening in the district, we ventured down to Sham Shui Po—or as we like to call it, Po’ Town—to meet the people living there. Historically a settling place for low-income workers and recent immigrants from the mainland, we found families living in 80 square foot partitioned flats and recent immigrants unable to find work or adequate housing. At the same time we found NGOs working tirelessly to lobby for better living conditions, providing support and assistance to those who need it. Then there are those with interesting tales to tell. Read about 80-year-old Mr. Lee and his wife, who’ve been running their wooden cart business in the area for more than 50 years, or Paul the record man and his collection of 300,000 vinyl discs. Yep, there’s a lot going down in Po’ Town, but then again, there always has been.

For The Record

Pay a visit to Paul and his formidable record collection on Sham Shui Po’s Ap Liu Street.

Any vinyl fan worth their salt will have already heard of Paul. No, oldsters—not Paul McCartney, or Paul from folk-singing trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Hong Kong’s Paul has been selling vinyl records on Ap Liu Street for more than 20 years. So exhaustive is his record collection, he is also known as the foster father of the entire vinyl records trade in town.

Paul’s shop is housed in an ordinary tong lau in Sham Shui Po. Although the shop is only 600 square feet, every possible nook and cranny of Paul’s shop is crammed with records, with more than 30,000 discs in total. “In the 1990s, everyone in Hong Kong was throwing their records away, but I was striving to keep them and prolong their lifespan, saving them from the edge of death. If I didn’t save them, they would end up in the dump,” says Paul. “I try my best to save them, so I collect records of every kind. It’s just like saving orphans.” Paul is not selective when it comes to buying or collecting the records—quality and rarity do not matter much to him. If the records can still be played, he is willing to keep them. He owns vinyls dating back to the 60s and 70s, right up to recent records by pop group Twins.

Paul does not consider himself a businessman, but rather a person who preserves culture. “Cultural preservation is important and you can’t view it as a business. If we think in terms of money, then I must be a dumbass because I have wasted a few million dollars storing these records, which do not have much commercial value. You never know if or when people would come and buy them,” Paul says. And while selling records sounds like fun, it’s not an easy path to take. Paul spend more than $200,000 on rent every year—not only does he rent a shop in Sham Shui Po, he also has to rent two warehouse spaces in Tuen Mun to store his darlings. Currently, Paul’s astonishing collection stands at nearly 300,000 records.

While selling records is hardly a profitable business, the monetary losses are nothing comparable to the ridicule he sometimes receives. “People tease me and say I’m collecting trash that no one wants. Their life is devoted to accumulating wealth, such as stocks and property. It is all very material. They want to eat good food and wear pretty clothes,” Paul says. “People are hostile to me because I think differently from the majority of people. They think that I am doing something against the mainstream and dislike me because I have too much attitude.”

It has been Paul’s love for the old times that keeps him going. “I was a teenager in the 70s, and even though 30 years have passed, I still think of myself as a teen. I still wear the same clothes and I listen to the same music. I am living in my own time and space.”

Visit Paul’s record shop at Flat D, 5/F, Wai Hong Building, 239 Cheung Sha Wan Rd., Sham Shui Po. It’s best to give Paul a call on 9841-7136 before you arrive.

Dream Home

A visit to Hong Kong’s caged and partitioned homes is all it takes to illustrate the vast rich-poor gap—the widest in the world—that Hong Kong suffers from.

Few would doubt that Hong Kong is a wealthy city. But underneath the surface of prosperity, many citizens are struggling with poverty and enduring the most intolerable living conditions imaginable. According to government statistics from 2008, around 100,000 people live in cage homes, cubicles or partitioned flats. Sham Shui Po is one of the poorest districts in the city, and it is where many of these appalling residences can be found. No one knows for certain how many partitioned flats or cage homes exist in Sham Shui Po—but they are certainly rife. Walk into a tong lau, or tenement house, and you’re likely to find several households crammed into an apartment that’s just a few hundred square feet. And although there are 10 or more people living under one roof, there is only one communal bathroom and kitchen. Inevitably, the hygiene conditions of these flats are poor.

Form 5 student Rachel Yiu lives with her family in one such room in Sham Shui Po. Although the room is less than 80 square feet, it is home to all five members of the Yiu family. “We arrived in Hong Kong about two years ago. The rent in Sham Shui Po was cheap so we moved in, but the room is so small that we can’t even move around,” she says. Although the family is glad to be under one roof after a long wait of six years (Yiu’s mother was separated from her husband and children while they were waiting from the mainland for right of abode), the family is unhappy about their current living conditions. “The room gets very stuffy and ventilation is poor in the summer. But we can’t switch on the fan at night even though it is very hot. The fan is so close to our bunk bed and we don’t want to have an accident,” Yiu says. During the hottest days of summer, the average temperature of partitioned rooms in Sham Shui Po can reach 38 degrees, according to a survey conducted by the Hong Kong-based charity Society of Community Organization (SoCO) in August.

It’s not just immigrant families living in partitioned flats. Many of Hong Kong’s lowest income groups also live in such spaces because of the relatively cheaper rents. Ho Po-yiu, 57, earns a monthly income of $6,000 and works 12 hours a day to make ends meet. “The most important thing is that the rent of a partitioned flat is cheap because we don’t have a high income,” he says. However, living in a partitioned flat is not easy at all and summer is the hardest time of year. “I have to rub alcohol over my body every night to keep fleas away from me. The fleas are so big and it can get very itchy if they bite me. Once, I caught more than 70 fleas during one night,” he adds.
Many of us complain about the prohibitively high rents and property prices in Hong Kong, but despite the apparently cheaper rent, residents of partitioned flats also fall victim to the cruel calculus of Hong Kong’s spiraling property market. According to a study by SoCO last year, tenants of partitioned flats pay around $30 to $50 per square foot, with the priciest rooms costing as high as $93 per square foot of space—an even higher price per square foot than most luxury flats such as Bel-Air and Pacific Palisades in the exclusive Braemar Hill area. The tenants are also vulnerable to unscrupulous landlords—the government abolished statutory rent control in 1998 and now most rents exceed the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) rental allowance. This means that tenants must dig deep into their pockets to try and make up the shortfall. This makes the life of CSSA recipients even harder.

Tenants are also at risk of being evicted at any time. “Landlords are turning partitioned flats into ‘suite flats,’ [which are larger and can be rented out to people with a slightly higher income]. They can double the rent for these flats. Many owners are trying to drive existing tenants away in order to convert partitioned flats into ‘suite flats’. The money is similar but it is less hassle for them to manage because there are fewer tenants,” says Sze Lai-shan, SoCO’s community organizer. As a result, the poorest members of the community have even fewer options because of this new practice adopted by the landlords.

It’s not hard to think of a solution to all these housing problems—the government simply ought to provide more public housing for low-income families and individuals. Currently, there are about 130,000 households on the waiting list for public housing, with around 3,000 new applications filed each month. Although the demand for public housing is surging, the government has actually built fewer public housing flats over the past few years. In 2000/2001, the Housing Authority built about 55,000 flats but the figure has dropped to about 15,000 for 2009/10. Under such policies, it is no wonder that partitioned flats and cage homes are still found in Hong Kong.