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furniture shops. petting Wong’s cat at the shop. go with the flow,” she says.
“Furniture Street” is now packed Wong says her business has not Also being subjected to move are
with shops selling bread, noodles, pa- benefited from the newly launched ethnic minority residents in the cul-
per offerings, and many more. MTR line as her regular customers turally diverse community. According
A hardware store and a candy were relocated to public housing es- to the 2016 Population By-Census,
shop which Mok used to visit are tates in other districts. “I am suffering 10.1 per cent of Kowloon City Dis-
By Kajal Aidasani
closed. The site where they located is from 60 per cent business loss, mean- trict’s population, To Kwa Wan in-
now zoned for urban renewal. ing almost no salary,” she says. cluded, were ethnic minorities. One
Kalo Supermarket, a grocery shop The shop owner says her old cus- of them is Pakistan-born Wasal Khan,
run by Winnie Wong, is one of those tomers still visit her at the shop. “They owner of Mashaallah Provision Store,
affected by the redevelopment plans. come back two to three times a week who feels uncertain about the future.
Her shop moved from Hung Fook to take a final glimpse before more He has lived in To Kwa Wan for
Street to Yuk Shing Street, in June. buildings get demolished,” she says. nine years, and his shop which sells
“To be honest, small shops like us Although she feels attached to the South Asian snacks opened two years
are all struggling. We are just wait- blue-collar neighbourhood, she be- ago.
ing for government’s compensation,” lieves it is time to use an uplift. Khan’s home and his shop are both
Wong says. “The walls are cracked and leakage in the redevelopment area. He has
Her shop has withstood the test is a problem. It is similar to old people signed the relocation agreement but
of time in one of Hong Kong’s old- like me. When your internal system has not been informed about the of-
est districts for nearly two decades. It is malfunctioning, there is no way to ficial vacate date yet.
was even featured in a local illustrator, repair. You have to change the entire His monthly rental expense stays
Wai-wai’s postcard set entitled “Vin- thing,” she says. at HK$8600 during the years of urban
tage Shop with Love” with 19 sketches The 55-year-old grocery shop renewal project. But his business has
of shops in 2016. owner has spent 30 years in To Kwa dropped 70 per cent since the redevel-
Wong’s shop was loved by the Wan. She hopes she can stay in the opment projects emptied five streets
community - kids used to go for soda district for the rest of her life. by the end of August.
drinks after school, and their parents “My youth is here,” she sighs. “I “Buildings are cleared up. They are
bought daily necessities such as soy will live here anyway, but I am not all empty places now. Before there was
sauce. Workers used to gather there sure about my shop. The neighbour- no MTR, and now there is,” 43-year-
for beer, and some spent quality time hood is changing, and all I can do is to old Khan says.
Khan thinks he does not benefit
from the new MTR line as his old cus-
tomers are no longer here. They order
delivery by telephone once in a while,
and do not do shopping as often as
before.
According to the Urban Renewal
Authority’s website, a “people first,
district-based, public participatory”
approach should be adopted to carry
“

The neighbourhood is

changing, and all I can

do is to go with the flow.

Customers used to spend quality time petting the cat at Kalo Supermarket. ”