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Jennifer Ngo

Nikki Sun

Elizabeth Cheung

While the hawker control patrol spiralled out of control to become the catalyst for the violent clashes in Mong Kok, several hawkers continued selling their cooked food even as pepper spray hung in the air, with some returning on Tuesday night despite the tension.
The food cart hawkers with their steaming fishballs and rice rolls did not have a licence and relied on the run-up to the Lunar New Year and the first few days of the festive period to earn extra income – and to operate with less fear of facing the full brunt of the law.
And one night after the riot, around 10 returned to the area to do business.

MULTIMEDIA SPECIAL: How Hong Kong’s hawkers face a struggle to survive
“I don’t agree [with the riot]. We hawkers don’t make trouble, we just want to make a living,” said a Mrs Chan, who has been selling roasted squid and maltose biscuits for 38 years. “My children asked me not to run the business today. But I will lose HK$7,000 to HK$8,000 if I don’t operate my business.”
She only runs her cart for three days for the Lunar New Year, earning up to HK$4,000. She left at around 10pm on the night of the riot, but was back selling her snacks in an alley beside Portland Street the next day.
“The hawkers don’t want trouble. They just want to make a bit of a living. I think things escalated because the young people who were about didn’t like to see how even on New Year’s Day hawkers are harassed ...”
Lau Siu-lai, a sociology lecturer and advocate for hawker rights, took to selling from a stall herself. “We heard that pepper spray was used but no police came over to our section, so we continued,” she said yesterday.
She dished out rice rolls every five seconds just a block away from the violence.
“We went to have a look [in the clash zones] and we saw that even after the pepper spray, there were hawkers working. I didn’t even know about the gunshots until someone called me and told me.”
Lau said most of her friends supported the hawkers and saw them as an indispensible part of local culture.
READ MORE: #Fishballrevolution: Hong Kong’s social media users react to violent Mong Kok hawker protest
While their cause seems to have been taken up radical localists, the hawkers themselves said they did not want the extra attention to affect their livelihoods.


Another hawker, Chan Kong-chiu, who started out as an “on-the-run” illegal hawker in 1977 before becoming licensed to operate in Fa Yuen Street in Mong Kok, said he did not think hawkers were involved in the violence.
“The hawkers don’t want trouble. They just want to make a bit of a living. I think things escalated because the young people who were about didn’t like to see how even on New Year’s Day hawkers are harassed. They became a bit hot-headed,” he said.
The hawkers not only reflected the shared history of the city, said Chan, but offered a cheap meal option for the working class while performing honest work.
“The unlicensed cart hawkers normally are tolerated during the first four days of the new year,” he said.
READ MORE: 54 nabbed for Mong Kok riot, says Hong Kong police chief, with more arrests to come
Chan said the hawker issue had simmered among locals for decades, especially in the face of stepped-up law enforcement.
A resident surnamed Wong who lives on Shanghai Street in Mong Kok said it was a shame that hawkers could not continue their small business during the first three days of the new year. “Hong Kong is losing its human touch,” Wong said.

The last hawker licence was issued in 1973. Itinerant food hawkers were never licensed because they were seen as obstructing streets and causing hygiene problems.
The rules – a ban on new licences and severe limits on their transfers – have shrunk the number of legal hawkers in Hong Kong from 50,000 in 1974 to about 6,000 in 2014.


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Mong Kok riot

Fish balls, not street brawls: Hong Kong’s hawkers get back to business in Mong Kok, want no more trouble with localists 

epa05151638 A street hawker sells 'stinky tofu' in Portland Street, Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China, 09 February 2016. Mong Kok stayed quiet after the previous night's violent clashes between police and protesters that were sparked by the Hong Kong authorities attempting to enforce the law on hawkers selling illegal street food. EPA/ALEX HOFFORD

A hawker was asked to leave from an alley on Portland Street by police officers in Mong Kok. 09FEB16 SCMP/ Nora Tam

"Fixed" and itinerant vendors, plus people eating foods on the street at Dundas Street between Sai Yeung Choi Road and Fa Yuen Street, Mongkok. 03 March 2005

A street hawker sells 'stinky tofu' in Portland Street, Mong Kok, after the previous night's violent clashes between police and protesters. Photo: EPA

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A government patrol spiralled out of control, and vendors insist they simply want to make a living
