As retailers come and go in Hong Kong it is all too easy to become desensitised to the ever changing product scene - luxury clothes lead into jewellery, jewellery leads into shoes, shoes lead into electronics, and electronics lead back into clothes. Places that change hands as much as these never leave any trace of their former tenants, besides cracked paint or carpet stains perhaps. Stray out of the skyscrapers and bustle of the city however, and the shops and streets tell a very different story.
Shops long abandoned by their owners, as they await for tenants that never come; signs that crumble and flicker as they wait for customers; shopkeepers who show up for work because they simply know no else.
The further out of the city you go, life slows, as does retail and business. Slow business creates a beautiful thing in itself, where heritage and history are quite literally embodied by the store. Slow business here doesn't necessarily mean not meeting targets or anything, more that the attitude and operation simply operates at a slower pace, unbound by the shackles of expensive shopping centres and fast retail.
Scarier still, sometimes there is simply no way to tell - could this fish sign be relegated to the wear and tear wind and rain, destined never to glow again? Or is it a true artefact of generations, a monument to the habit and resilience of those who light it every day? Only time will tell.
Boxes of seafood related things line a window, how old are they?