​

 

 

 

 

Walk through Lai Chi Kok Road, Sham Shui Po, people can hardly discover a fabric market if not for the huge handmade yellow banner with protest slogan hung on the banister. Enter the market and move along, the distance between each fabric stall is quite short, leaving a narrow lane for people to get by. Although stalls are all set out along a grid, the lack of clear guidance can let navigating the warren of closely packed stalls a challenge for many customers.

 

This inconspicuous bazaar is a go-to place for affordable fashion with a wide variety of fabrics to pick over,  and it’s also a land of treasure for design students, handcrafts makers, fashion designers and housewives. 

 

“I have been working in this fabric market for almost 40 years. I know every single detail of this land and every grain of sand here,”  Ho Ying, a 59-year-old fabric vendor, said. “It is just like home, but now is set to be bulldozed.”

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Yen Chow Street Hawker Bazaar, also known as Pang Jai in Cantonese, is the only wholesale and retail market offers an array of textiles, fabrics, and accessories in Hong Kong. There are 50 fabric vendors,  most of them are old, currently work here but none of them holds a hawker license, and 17 of them are still not registered by the government. Now Pang Jai is facing the dilemma of being dismantled,  textile vendors are reluctant to relocate and trying to resist.

​

Pang Jai was set up in 1978. Because of construction of Tsuen Wan Line, the government moved vendors off the nearby street to this temporary hawker bazaar, sitting opposite Sham Shui Po Police Station. More than 100 fabric hawkers once crammed into the site.

 

Chan Yu-tung, 85, is the oldest textile vendor in Pang Jai and the first people to start garment business here. Before this, he worked in Yu Chau Street for some 20 years. “The 1970s and ’80s were the heydays for Hong Kong’s garment businesses, ” Chan said. “We got our fabrics from the big factories and then take them to the public at cheap prices.”

 

“At first there were around 190 stalls here,” Chan added. “Now there’s only about 20 stalls.”

​

In August, 2015, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department officials gave notice to the vendors with legal licenses, around 20 persons, to leave and the hawker bazaar was designed to be closed and redeveloped into residential buildings. 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

The majority of licensed hawkers took the compensation from the government and went away from the fabric market, leaving unlicensed people to stay in Pang Jai. “Licensed vendors needed to pay an extra fee, around HK$100, every month, so we didn’t apply for a license at that time,” Pan Tai, working with her husband in Pang Jai for 23 years, said. “We were too shrewd as to consider making profits only.”

 

“Most of the fabric vendors work here do not have a hawker license,” Ho Ying, also known as chairperson of Yen Chow Street Hawkers Bazaar Concern Group, said. “We must unite to fight for the rights we deserve.”

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Plenty of design students and fashion designers took part in the organization as voluntary helpers after hearing the news that Pang Jai is going to be dismantled. “Many students in my class come here to choose  clothes in Pang Jai,” Nicole Wang, a fashion and textile design student of  Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said. “The fabric hawkers work here generally keep a limited education level, they need our help.”

​

On January 9, the government announced its plans to launch a design and fashion project, a new fashion hub, with a total usable floor area of about 3600 square meters in Sham Shui Po in 2023, aiming to turn the district into a fashion landmark. According to the government press release, all registered fabric vendors have offered compensation and priority bidding for new stalls next to the new fashion hub, with a 20 percent discount off their rent as well.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

“If we’re moving into that so-called fashion center, we won’t have this much space to display the fabrics,”  Pan said, “Also, the rent is barely 10 times as what it is now and we, as a small-scale fabric vendor, can’t even afford it.”

 

No matter what the future holds, Chan and Pan say they will continue to work in Pang Jai for as long as they can.

​

“Sometimes it’s not all about the profit, it can’t satisfy us materially because we charge people at a very loe price,” Pan added. “But we like the happiness and job satisfaction in return.”