The holes in the wall

Sai Kung has been my home for ten years, the longest I have lived in one place. I don't have to extol its charms here, but the laid back nature of the place and the people, and the sea and green hills all around, are obviously what keeps me here, considering that I drive nearly 50 kms. round trip to get to work.

In Sri Lanka, my family owned a small pharmacy, and to keep that small business going was a constant struggle. When my parents bought the business, I was already teaching full-time and had my own family, and, in order to help them out, I worked at the pharmacy for free. My evenings and weekends were spent there, time that may have been better spent with my own little family. But, without my support, the pharmacy would have gone bust. The point here is that I know the daily struggles and heartbreaks of small business people.

I see many such businesses around Sai Kung town, and each business represents someone's dream. It could be a small bakery (quite a number of my students, English majors, wish to own bakeries!), a handicrafts shop, a dry cleaning store, a small noodle shop, a small spa, a vegetable stall, a bookstore. The list goes on.

I remember some of the small businesses in Sai Kung that are no more. Three in particular, all on Chan Man Street, come to mind. Around the corner, opposite McDonald's, was a store that sold beautiful handicrafts and souvenirs from New Zealand. Next to the entrance to the car park was a dry cleaning store run by a husband and wife team. They didn't speak English but provided excellent service with a smile. Then, next to the Japan Home Centre, was a dispensary where the staff spoke English and provided good advice on treatment for minor ailments. All three stores are gone now, and even the stores that replaced them are only a memory. What we have are the holes in the wall seen in the photo below.



What drove these businesses away is not the lack of custom but rapacious landlords, who gouge their tenants for rents that are unrealistic and inhumane. They would rather keep the stores vacant for months or years rather than lower the rent, even during an economic crisis. This particular building on Chan Man Street is supposedly owned by the heirs (whoever they are) of Nina Wang, who, according to the SCMP, was Asia's richest woman with a fortune estimated at HK$100 billion. (Despite all that money, she reportedly ate McDonald's hamburgers, and her estate is now being contested before the courts.) All that wealth did not help the small traders who rented these shop spaces. Rents may have gone up steeply when Starbucks moved in to the neighborhood.



This noodle shop at the corner of Fuk Man Road and Chan Man Street reportedly pays $60,000 per month in rent. They can't last long at that rate by selling $25 bowls of noodles. There might be another hole-in-the-wall here soon.

I am fond of a small restaurant that barely occupies 700 sq. ft. The business is just surviving, already paying nearly $22,000 per month. The last time I saw her, the owner/manager was nervous because her lease was coming up for renewal. Even in these troubled times, she feared that the landlord would ask for a higher rent.

PS. May 10. The landlord did ask for a massive increase in rent, from $22,000 to $34,000 per month. The restaurant will close at the end of this month. The owners will move to Tai Po to start another restaurant on premises fort which they can afford the rent. Sai Kung is the loser.