Selling only underwear and towels, the name of "Ka Sun Department Store" has been in use since 1959. It has entered its 61st year this year and is still standing tall, what is the secret of its success? Let’s start with the backstory of the stallholder, Uncle Wai (Fung Kwong Wai).
Uncle Wai was born in 1936. He never went to school since his childhood because of poverty, so he followed his father’s footsteps by selling underwear and towels as a hawker. They first set up the hawker stall around the “Kai Liu”, the 7-storey resettlement estates in Kwun Tong, pushing over 1,000 pounds of goods up and down the hill every day. Life was tough by that time. Later, their business declined as the residents gradually moved out of the resettlement estates, so they became unlicensed hawkers in Kwun Tong for a while. Later on, Uncle Wai finally had a chance to take over the hawker’s license from his peer, and has been operating the Ka Sun Department Store in Mut Wah Street, Tung Yan Street, and the current Yue Man Hawker Bazaar successively. In 2000, when Kwun Tong started to be redeveloped, Uncle Wai decided to form the Temporary Market Mutual Aid Committee with his peers and has been the chairman of the committee since then. For over 20 years, not only he has to run his own business every day, but he also acts as the spokesman to voice out the views of his peers to various government departments in order to maintain the best ecology of the hawking industry.
Being responsible, honest, reliable, and having magnanimity has made Uncle Wai successfully gain the trust of people over the years. Despite the change of time, many loyal customers still follow Uncle Wai no matter where he has moved to. He also believes that only being considerate and able to make compromises can create a win-win situation, and honesty is the key to sustain the business. Uncle Wai is now in his eighties and no longer need to raise his three grown up children, he and his wife are still taking care of the stall every day with a positive, optimistic and tireless attitude, inspiring everyone in the YM2.