Tam Pui Lin

The small path next to Yung Shu Tau was named as Market Street today. The area where Market Street Public Toilet and Yau Ma Tei Carpark Building are located today used to be populated with market stalls. Apart from several dozen wet market stalls selling meat, fish and vegetables, there were also medicine stalls and Tie Da stalls (Chinese medical treatment on traumatic injury). This was the busiest market in Yau Ma Tei. A row of Dai Pai Dongs occupied Market Street. The stall opposite to public toilet was belonged to ‘Big Bull’. Besides, Yau Kee and Yuen Choi Fat was famous for later supper and Teochew cold dishes respectively. Many celebrities often enjoyed later supper there.

Pui Lin’s family occupied a site and ran their stall in Yung Shau Tau Market. They placed their goods on wooden boxes and wooden racks. They got on well with their fellows so their ‘mobile’ stall was operated like a fixed stall. Although the peddlers held an itinerant hawker license, they had to run away during police patrol.In the past there were stalls for incense stick divination, fortune telling and Chinese character divination in Yung Shu Tau. Tam praised for the efficaciousness of incense stick divination and Chinese character divination.

Various peddlers set up their business in Yung Shu Tau. They included snack stalls offering food such as watermelon, grass jelly and sweet soup. There were also stalls performing kung fu, teeth extraction, story-telling and songs, etc. The section of Temple Street close to Yung Shu Tau was also prosperous. Fried clam, chicken intestine congee, watermelon, mango and fried chicken were offered. There were stalls selling groceries such as torches, earrings, garments and belts. Since young Pui Lin strolled around Yung Shu Tau and Temple Street to enjoy snacks and kung fu performance every night. She did not think about food hygiene at that time. There were some roadside prostitutes around. However they coexisted peacefully.

Title	Yung Shu Tau was a big market
Date	26/04/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	2m50s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YMT-TPL-HLT-001

In the past there were two markets in Yung Shu Tau. They were located at the area where Market Street Public Toilet and Jade Hawker Bazaar lie today. The market at today’s Jade Hawker Bazaar was larger. In 1956, they merged and at the same time moved to Reclamation Street Market. It was a small market in the past. Sellers set up their stalls with canvas. Later the canvas stalls were demolished because of poor businesses. Before the new market opened it had been pulled down already. The Tams had to scramble for space with their counterpart when they moved to the new market. Tam Pui Lin, only 10 at that time, had helped her parents out at the stall. She was too young to win a favorable area. She obtained a license and ran her own stall when she was 18. Later some sellers complained that the allocation of stalls was unfair. Thus the authority introduced a new legislation requiring all stalls to be reallocated every night. At 4 pm stall owners should go to the market’s office to draw a lot. The site was allocated by sheer luck. At that time each stall just occupied an area of 3’’× 4’’, which made business difficult. In 1979, stall owners thought it was inconvenient to move every night. They jointly declared that the final allocation would be regarded as permanent. Yet, they were allowed to exchange sites in private. Amazingly daily allocation lasted for 23 years.

Mid-1980s was the heyday of Reclamation Street Market. Even residents in Tsim Sha Tsui and Prince Edward would come to Yau Ma Tei for grocery shopping. At that time Pui Lin’s market stall could sell several dozen baskets of goods. Stocks of various products were almost exhausted. Recently, the population of Yau Ma Tei was ageing with the young people moving away. Moreover, supermarkets were gaining their popularity. Turnover in the market declined rapidly. Pui Lin relied on her regular customers to maintain the business of traditional wedding products. Nowadays the working environment in the market was poor. Traffic flow outside the market was heavy. Stall owners’ health was further deteriorated by the heat emitted from air-conditioning systems.

Title	Transformation of Reclamation Street Market
Date	26/04/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	3m10s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YMT-TPL-HLT-002

In 1979 the authority imposed a final allocation of stall site. Pui Lin’s parents unfortunately were given a site in the middle, where storage space was inadequate. They had no choice but to diversify their products. At the beginning their stalls mainly sold vegetables and melons. As Tam Pui Lin’s father had worked in a paper offering shop in Macau, he knew how to decorate wedding products. Therefore he packed some vegetables and plants for marriage. Within a short time ceremonial lotus gained immense popularity. Thus the stall shifted to selling wedding products. Auspiciousness was the key for wedding foods. For example, taro and garlic symbolised offspring and pregnancy respectively and pomelo leaf could exorcise evil spirits.

Their customers included Tankas and Teochews, who had different preferences. The former preferred lotus roots while the latter preferred taro and garlic. In the past people from different hometowns organized their wedding in a different way. For example, when Tanka practised the rite of ‘homecoming on the third day’, the homecoming parties held in the bride’s home usually lasted for several days. Later wedding ceremonies in different ethnic groups became more standardized. Ceremonial lotus of Tam’s stall had a very good sale. They had to obtain supply from Castle Peak and Yuen Long in the early days. For each trip they bought a pool of lotus root weighing several hundred catties. Now they get their goods from Mainland China.

Title	Hawker’s strategy of survival: from a vegetable stall to a specialty store selling wedding products
Date	26/04/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	2m20s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YMT-TPL-HLT-003

The citizens did not have a strong legal awareness in the early post-war period. It was common to see peddlers fight with each other and police receive bribes. Peddlers had to socialize with one another in order to survive. Tam Pui Lin reminisced that the police often sent agents to collect bribes from her parents when they were running their stall at Yung Shu Tau Market. The amount of bribes depended on the size of the stall. The average would be $30 per stall per week. Bribes would be collected several times a week. Each payment was $5 or $10. This phenomenon of police bribery was generally known as ‘Escape the Big Rat’ among the peddlers. In 1950s, the Tams were always in financial difficulties. All their earning could barely afford their living.

One day an agent came to collect bribe as usual. As Tam’s parents were not able to pay the protection money, their goods were confiscated. At that time Tam was only 5 to 6 years old. She came forward and desperately fought back. Finally she was arrested. She recalled that, as a child, she was simple-minded and straightforward. Family’s interest was on top of anything else so she had no ideas of the outcome. Since her parents were unable to pay for her bail, she was held in custody in Kowloon City overnight and released the next day. Since she was too young, she was looked after by the police. The constable who arrested her was scolded by his senior for catching a child. Afterwards Tam’s parents stood trial at South Kowloon Magistracy. It was a common practice to detain hawkers who were unable to pay collection money. Many male hawkers were even whipped by rattan stick coated with liquid medicine. Bribe was no longer required after the Tams’ stall moved to Reclamation Street Market in 1956.

Title	Blood and tears of itinerant hawker: paying protection money, being held in police custody and paying fine to Magistracy
Date	26/04/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	2m19s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YMT-TPL-HLT-004