Lower thirds:

0:03  Report by / Camille Nedelec
0:12  Chan Tak Ching / 92-year-old Hong Kong hawker
0:44  Mr. Cheung, unofficial hawker assistant
1:00  Doren Kong / Hongkong law maker
1:40  Mr. Wong, Dai Pai Dong owner
2:22  Doren Kong / Hongkong law maker

Script:

Everyone calls her Por Por. It means Grandma, in Cantonese. 

She’s one of the oldest street sellers in Hong Kong - if not the world…

Chan Tak Ching, 92-year-old Hong Kong hawker

“It's worth it. I'm still healthy. I can sit for nine or ten hours a day. I'm tired, but I can endure it.”

Chan Tak Ching says hawking helped Hong Kong’s poor to survive when there wasn’t a social safety net. And the government encouraged it.

But not anymore. 

In July alone, she was fined four times - despite being licensed. 

Chan Tak Ching, 92-year-old Hong Kong hawker

“There are many ways to prosecute us, and as we get older, we can’t fight it. We’re like meat on a chopping board.” 

At 92 years old, Por Por can’t retire: 

if she did, her team would lose their jobs. 

Mr. Cheung, unofficial hawker assistant

“We cannot work as a hawker if Por Por retires, as we rely on her hawker license.”

Local authorities all but stopped issuing new licenses in 1972 - believing hawkers to be a nuisance and citing food safety concerns. And then, time did the rest. 

According to government figures, almost all itinerant hawkers like Por Por are over the age of sixty.

Their numbers have fallen by almost 80% in 24 years.

Doreen Kong, now a lawmaker in Hong Kong, is the daughter of a hawker. She’s calling on the government to do more to protect them.

DOREEN KONG - HK law maker

“If we want hawkers to stay in Hong Kong, to continue to be an icon for Hong Kong, we need to plan ahead.” 

The assistants of itinerant hawkers are technically not allowed to sell themselves. But it’s an open secret that aging, licensed hawkers have no choice but to rely on their younger colleagues.  

Fixed pitches like traditional street restaurants known as da pai dongs ARE allowed to hire assistants - but the license can only be passed on to a family member, once. 

Meaning their eventual demise is also inevitable. Almost 40 percent of them have disappeared in recent decades. 

Mr. Wong, Dai Pai Dong owner

“Each city has its unique characteristics, it would be ridiculous to completely abolish them.”

It’s a policy that leaves the almost 5000 hawker’s assistants in limbo… despite being arguably the best qualified for the job. 

DOREEN KONG - HK law maker

“By being an assistant, they know the life, they know how to run a hawker store and they know how difficult it is, right? You know, being under the sun and rain the whole time.”

Sociologists say that hawkers play a vital community-building role in the urban landscape - in a way that shopping malls, do not. 

Hawkers are part of Hong Kong’s heritage – in danger of becoming Hong Kong’s history. 

END