A space for secondhand goods: Trading the remnants of material life in Hong Kong

Abstract

Hong Kong is a convergence site for commodities and people from across the globe. The culture of mass consumption and disposability of consumer goods epitomized in this cosmopolitan center fuels the secondhand street markets located in the interstices of the city. During the marginal hours of the late evening and early morning in one of the poorest districts of Hong Kong, Sham Shui Po in Kowloon, a mix of regular and itinerant vendors consisting of locals and immigrants sells salvaged, secondhand goods. The market attracts elderly local residents, foreign domestic workers, African merchants, scrap recyclers, collectors, bargain hunters, and various customers looking to buy for personal use, for resale elsewhere, for refurbishing, or for further recycling. The mutual work of rehabilitating and revalorizing the remnants of material life characterizes this localized but highly global streetscape. These informal spaces of exchange, however marginalized and even criminalized, make possible the redemption of things discarded and abandoned. Trading salvaged goods offers a means to make ends meet for the urban poor. Especially in an area where the poor suffer from cramped living conditions, the street offers an open communal space for residents to conduct the business of life. Hawkers and street merchants have long been a cornerstone of street life in Hong Kong, but this heterogeneity is diminishing as the government moves to sanitize the streets and regulate the use of public spaces. Under threat is the unique density of social life on the streets of Sham Shui Po as gentrification through urban renewal ushers in sanitized residential complexes and corporate shopping centers. The locals who participate in the secondhand markets are asserting a claim on public space and attempting to create entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves in a global economy that discounts their participation and an urban landscape that discourages their presence.