BACK TO THE BASICS
Hong Kong’s exotic Sham Shui Po up close
Clothes were hanging outside many windows of old flats while water kept dripping from air con units to the street below. The scene of Sham Shui Po, an old quarter in the northwest part of Kowloon in Hong Kong is far cry from the modern skyscrapers in the central area.
However, Sham Shui Po has its unique characteristics. It is home to working class people, textile manufacturers, trendy and fashion shops. It is also a place where you can catch a glimpse of a typical life of Hong Kong people.
“Sham Shui Po is the poorest district of Hong Kong so their housing is not as fancy nor pretty as those in the Central (business district). Shops offer cheaper products and the cost of living here tends to be lower as well,” said Olivia Tang, who was born in the community. She is our tour guide and a staff member from Walk in Hong Kong, a local tour operator founded five years ago to promote the lesserseen side of Hong Kong to tourists.
Although I’ve been to Hong Kong many times for business and leisure, it was the first time that I travelled like a local. Hosted by the Hong Kong Tourism Board, the walking tour started at YHA Mei Ho House Youth Hostel building, which was originally the first public housing project in Hong Kong.
That housing project started after a fire tragedy in Sham Shui Po in the early 1950s. Once, Sham Shui Po was home to numerous Chinese immigrants who migrated to Hong Kong from mainland China in the 1940s.
“On Christmas Eve in 1953, one family who made shoes knocked over a lamp, which caused a fire. It was a dry and windy night, and the fire spread quickly. About 58,000 people lost their homes overnight. They became homeless and slept on the street,” she said.
In 1954, Hong Kong governor Alexander Grantham kick-started the first public housing project called Shek Kip Mei Low-cost Housing Estate to help the victims. Since land was limited, the government built eight buildings, each with six storeys, all close to one another.
Aiming to squeeze in as many families as possible, each building was designed in the “H” shape. The two vertical beams of the H-shaped buildings were housing units and the horizontal beam was for public toilets.
The public housing project was known as a bedspace apartment or cage homes. The idea was taken from prison cells because they are built quickly, and look simple and cheap, she said.
“Each unit was very small, about 11m². My father has 10 siblings. They lived together with my grandmother and two of our great grandparents. There’s barely a space for a kitchen so they cooked outside the door along the corridor,” she said.
Although it was small, people felt they were lucky to live in their own home. “It was like winning a lottery,” she said.
One famous person who grew up in the community was the film director John Woo. His family migrated from China and after the fire disaster, his family slept on the street for a couple of years before they got a unit to live in.
“He was always getting into trouble when he was a teenager. One day while he was stepping out from his home, someone poured acid on him. Fortunately, a neighbour immediately took him outside and doused him with water, which saved his life,” she said.
Today most of the housing in the original Shek Kip Mei Low-cost Housing Estate has been demolished to pave the way for new, bigger public housing projects.
However, there is one building that has been preserved after it was closed down in 2000. It was renovated as the YHA Mei Ho House Youth Hostel in 2004. The property also houses and manages the Heritage of Mei Ho House Museum to show visitors the history of Sham Shui Po.
The museum has models of the cage houses where some families lived, including a working area and a bunkbed. There are also examples of old toilets, old pictures of the housing projects and the development of public housing in the area.
From the museum, our guide led us out to the street. We passed many housing projects built since the 70s and then stopped in a market area. Along the way, I felt like I was walking in the Sampheng-Phahurat area of Bangkok, where endless shophouses offer various types of factory products, clothes and handicrafts.
We passed shophouses selling herbal medicine, bakeries, fruit juice, restaurants, clothes, fashion accessories and jewellery until we reached to a tofu shophouse. It is called the Kung Wo Tofu Factory.
The restaurant has been in business for 100 years although the owner has switched hands, the guide told us.
“When I was a child, my mum always took me here to enjoy tofu. Tofu pudding is my favourite. It is delicious,” Tang said.
Tables in the shophouse are usually full. The customers were enjoying their soft tofu pudding. The dessert looks like tao huai in Thailand. The shop also offers deep fried tofu and soft tofu for snacks. We bought grab-andgo cold soya milk drinks.
The next stop was only 120 metres away from the tofu shophouse. It was a designer backpack shop called Doughnut (doughnutofficial.com).
“Our brand was started in 2010 by a young local designer. We also have our factory here