Making a stand for the future

Hong Kong’s classic newsstands are disappearing, but many who depend on them for their livelihood and many others who see the stands as an important cultural tradition are fighting to keep them going.

The practice of newspaper hawking, once a thriving industry familiar to our city’s streets, is struggling to survive. In a bid to preserve what many see as an important cultural tradition, hawkers are seeking new ideas to save their trade.

According to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, of the thousands of newspaper stalls that existed in the 1990s in Hong Kong, only 420 are left. Soon it may be hard to spot one of these formerly ubiquitous newsstands — propped against a wall along a busy street set up on several crude wooden benches, or beneath an overpass with a simple but distinctive kiosk as the crowds bustle past.

“There is nothing to say. Few still read newspapers,” a newspaper hawker in Causeway Bay surnamed Chow reflected. Chow has been in the business for over 20 years at the same hawking stand. Under its simple plastic awning, newspapers were tidily piled up; magazines climbed up the wall; books lay neatly flattened out on the table. Cigarettes, gum and some other regular offerings filled almost every inch of the rest of the stall. All goods were displayed in a fastidiously orderly manner, making full use of the tightly restricted space. It seemed Chow could produce whatever anyone might ask from his skimpy but mysteriously well-organized treasure trove.

The location is ideal, relatively speaking — at a crossroads where the large crowds come and go. People walked by but hardly anybody took notice of the newspaper stand right around the corner. Occasionally a customer would come along and buy a bottle of water. Chow said sales volume had dropped dramatically. He said he earned a “humble living”, relying on the sale of beverages and political books.

Another newspaper hawker surnamed Fung agreed with Chow. “Newspapers and magazines are not easy to sell.” Fung’s stall looks a little shabbier than Chow’s, made of wooden boxes and with a canopy which covered less than half of it. His working hours are from early in the morning to nine at night, even if business is poor and few customers visit the stall. He sat on a tacky chair, reading the newspapers he wished he could sell to kill time.

Cultural relics

There is, however, a movement afoot to have newspaper hawking recognized as a piece of cultural heritage with historical significance. In her book OnStreet Newspaper Stall, Chong Yuk-sik, who has a doctorate degree in sociology from the University of Hong Kong, wrote: “The newspaper stalls present the history of the development of Hong Kong, which is an indispensable street-cultural relic that has to be protected”.

The establishment of newspaper stalls in Hong Kong was related to the opposition that arose to the late Qing dynasty (1644 -1911) — the last feudal dynasty in China — in the early 1900s, according to Chong.

Chong found that the first recorded newsstand in Hong Kong was established right in front of the British colonial government headquarters at Garden Road in Central. The stand sold periodicals, openly defying the Qing Dynasty, back in 1904. Business, reportedly, was brisk.

In the 1930s, newspaper hawking also reflected an important part of the social welfare history of Hong Kong. In 1936, Ronald Ruskin Todd, the first chairman of the Urban Council — a statutory authority which oversaw the city’s hygiene, restaurants and leisure facilities — promulgated Todd’s Memorandum, which declared that the hawking license was a substitute for the Poor Law, a legislation introduced in Britain in 1601 to help the jobless and the homeless to find accommodation and food, and promote vocational training.

Todd’s Memorandum limited newspaper-hawking license owners to the underprivileged. From then on, licenses were given routinely to those who had recovered from infectious diseases until the 1970s, according to Chong’s account in her book. For example, in 1955 a person newly recovered from leprosy was assigned to hawk newspapers in Jordan by the Social Welfare Department and the Urban Council.

At that time, newspaper hawking was constantly being challenged for obstructing the streets. And indeed most of them were in the habit of displaying their wares in somewhat irregular fashion.

That came to a stop in 1956 when a British police officer, a superintendent in Sham Shui Po District who sympathized with the hawkers — who were constantly being hounded by the government for obstructing the streets — designed a standardized newsstand for the hawkers. Afterward, the design of a stall conformed to a certain standard, with even the colors displayed coming under strict regulation.

“Besides bringing convenience to the people, newspaper hawking is also a part of street culture,” said Lam Cheung-foo, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Newspaper Hawker Association.

There are several factors that have made the situation dire for hawkers. Convenience stores have long joined in the market for selling newspapers and today, many publications like magazines choose these chain stores rather than hawkers to distribute their products. The emergence of free newspapers dealt another blow. Who needs to pay for a newspaper if they can get them free at MTR stations?

But it is the rise of new technology that has created the greatest challenge for newspaper hawking. With the popularization of smartphones and easy and cheap internet access, people can read news they are interested in anywhere, anytime. Getting information from newspapers is becoming rather outdated.

Adapting to survive

But while hawkers have struggled, they have not gone down without a fight. One way they have pushed back is by attempting to beautify their stalls. Lam pointed to the distinctive “street style” of the newsstands amid the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong — an attractive feature of the city for tourists to enjoy.

In April 2016, the Newspaper Hawker Association invited local artists to design lucky cat figurines and place them on four stalls at Mong Kok, Tsim Sha Tsui, Yau Ma Tei and Ngau Tau Kok. With such ideas, newsstands are eager to catch the attention of the younger generation by adding new elements to traditional stands.

“The campaign was good. Many young people stopped when they spotted the cats and took photos with them. They also bought snacks from the hawkers. It seems they pay more attention to our stalls now,” Lam said.

They are also striving to sell more merchandise other than newspapers. Water, cigarettes and other goods sell much better than newspapers. The government expanded the list of additional commodities permitted for sale at newsstands from eight to 12 items in 2009. The restriction on the area used for the sale of additional commodities has also been relaxed — doubled to 50 percent of the total stall area. However, hawkers are still seeking greater relaxation of the regulations. “The world is changing; so should the newsstands. Newspaper stalls have to adapt to this fast-developing society,” Lam said. He also pointed out that the price of goods at newspaper stalls is cheaper than at convenience stores, giving customers greater choice.

The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department is willing to communicate with the trade. The government will continue to provide a convenient business environment for the hawking activities of licensed newspaper hawkers, Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man said in a response to a Legislative Council inquiry on Nov 30, 2016. The government is, however, adamant that newspaper stalls should maintain the currently specified size, to prevent street obstructions and environmental nuisance. The additional commodities permitted for sale should not affect public health and food safety, and the space occupied for such sales should be in proper proportion, Ko explained.

The newspaper stand is not only “a cultural, character-defining element” of Hong Kong which contributes to “the diversity and richness of our city’s streetscape” and gives the city “a distinctive and unique identity”, but also a requisite for a healthy economy, according to Lee Ho-yin, associate professor and head of architectural conservation programs at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Hong Kong.

“The value is in achieving sustainable economic growth through diversity, which is the most fundamental ingredient for sustainable development,” Lee said. “Small businesses can help diversify consumer choice for local residents. For tourists, a vibrant street market provides an attraction with a distinct local favor.”

He added that Singapore, which once got rid of street stalls, is trying to revive them in its Chinatown. “This change of heart is due to the realization of the real economic value of the stalls, which were once seen as obsolescent and having no place in the future of modern Singapore.”

According to Lee, Hong Kong’s newsstands should be kept as a “living cultural heritage” rather than being preserved in an old-fashioned form, which he believes would be the surest way to kill the newsstands.

Lee also noted that this should be done with modern thinking on conservation in mind, by a process of identifying and protecting the “character-defining elements” to retain the newspaper stand’s core character. “Sustainability can only be possible if the newspaper stands are allowed to remain relevant by changing and adapting to contemporary needs,” Lee

advised.