Shoe shiners in Hong Kong

Shoe shining first started to rise in the United States, which was the African American men who performed the service for the wealthy white men. Started from the late 19th century, the shoeshine services sprung up in Hong Kong. From the post-war period to the colonial period, the earliest gangs of shoe shiners were proclaimed as “Chat Hi Siu Gwai Dui” (Shoe Shine Busters 擦鞋小鬼隊). A band of seven elderly men clustered in Theatre Lane[2] just across Lan Kwai Fong, cleaning shoes of office executives. Key cutters and cobblers operate out of bright green tin stalls are the tools they need for buffing shoes. One local story about the Hong Kong Shoe Shine Busters goes like this: there was an American soldier who refused to have a shoe shining service, the shoe shiner then poured whitener all over his boots before disappearing into a nearby alley. Seeing his boots being ruined with specks of whitener, the soldier had no choice but to pay for the shoe shining service.[3]

Shoes shining business was seen as a shrinking business in the eye of the Urban Council (since merged into the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD)).[4] Therefore, since the early 1970s, the department refused to issue licenses to the shoes-polishers under normal circumstances. Renewing license was ceased as shoe shining was a dwindling trade in 2004.[5] As a result of natural attrition, the number of licensed fixed pitch bootblack hawker[6] decreases in Hong Kong.

However, even with the risk of being fined by the FEHD officials, many shoes shiners continued their business, especially in the area around the Central's Theatre Lane, where other traditional craftsmen set their station alongside the Pedder Building.

In those days, FEHD officials caught and fined the polishers up to $1,500 dollars nearly every day, while the owners of shops nearby also drove them away.

FEHD came down hard on the unlicensed shoe shiners by regularly issuing them with fines and confiscating their tools. Once, a shoe polisher, who identified himself as Mr. Lee, was prosecuted for operating without a license and causing public obstruction with his stall on the side of the street.

Later, the dispute between Mr. Lee and the officials made to the news and has aroused many public supports for the polishers. The issue has also moved a Civic Party legislator Audrey Eu to campaign on behalf of Mr. Lee and four more polishers, aiming to fight for licenses.[7]

After a series of lobbying and publicity stunts, her effort paid off with a discussion with the Central and Western District Council and local shop owners. In June, shoes shiners finally met the health inspector to discuss the possibility of issuing licenses.

On July 16, after the district council meeting, FEHD, for the first time, issued licenses to shoes polishers in Central, Admiralty and Western Districts. Shoe shiners receiving licences including one who operates at the portion of the footbridge in front of the east entrance of the Murray Road Multi-storey Carpark Building at Lambeth Walk, three at the portion of the southern side of the road space of the unnamed lane connecting Pedder Street and Theatre Lane, and four on the road space in front of House Nos. 1-7 Theatre Lane.[8] Each license costs HK$2,500 dollars per year.