Is the end of the road near for Hong Kong’s street hawkers?
As legislation restricts their activities, vendors recount multiple challenges to their way of life and claim their trade could vanish from the city in 50 years
Glossy Teslas and towering skyscrapers offer a striking counterpoint to the hollering street hawkers who push carts of goods and the omnipresent wafting of freshly baked bread and braised beef.
Bustling crowds slow their steps passing streetside stores that blast air conditioning into the smoggy air but do not pause for a second in front of the old man who sells newspapers under the bridge.
Restaurant chains such as Tsui Wah and Café de Coral have pushed street vendors and dai pai dong that span generations into the crevices between buildings, creating a rich but cacophonous burst of colour, smell and sound in the city’s niches.
Multimedia: how Hong Kong’s hawkers face a struggle to survive
However, ongoing anti-hawker legislation and other efforts to “clean up the streets” are pushing out a way of life long viewed as integral to the city’s identity.
Hawkers generally operate in one of four ways: at newspaper stalls; as itinerant cart pushers; at cooked-food stalls; and as fixed pitch hawkers who sell dry goods.
The longstanding tradition of plying one’s trade in the city’s busiest spaces is facing extinction unless the government loosens its tightening grip.
