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Mong Kok acid attacks drive shoppers away

By Shu-Ching Jean Chen, The Straits Times | Wed, Sep 16 2009

Hit by economic crisis, business in HK district has fallen even further

Mong Kok acid attacks drive shoppers away

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HONG KONG: The bustling Mong Kok shopping district is known as a bastion of triads where gun-toting, knife-wielding gangsters spatter blood across its small alleyways and packed streets.

That is at least how it is portrayed in Hong Kong action movies.

In real life, however, Mong Kok is a magnet for tourists, drawn by its inexpensive goods and handicrafts. Violent crimes rarely take place in broad daylight.

When they do, it is in the wee hours. Last month, for instance, a crime boss was ambushed and chopped to death in front of the nearby Kowloon Shangri-La Hotel at about 4am.

“Mong Kok has been a very safe place,” said 26-year-old salesman Poon Chin Fung, who mans an outdoor sales desk in the pedestrian area of Mong Kok for the city’s dominant Internet services provider Netvigator.

That has changed, however. Mr Poon’s wife now worries about his safety. The reason: On Sept 6, Mong Kok saw its fourth acid attack since December, with innocent passers-by injured like before.

At 6pm that day, a 28-year-old man aimed his acid throw at a couple who owned a handbag stall on Tung Choi Street, better known as Ladies’ Street.

The 53-year-old man, who was the most severely hurt, sustained damage in his eyes but escaped blindness and disfigurement to his face. Nine bystanders were also splashed with acid, with two women suffering burns.

With this incident, the total number of people injured in the attacks rose to 111, including a four-year-old.

The police believe the latest attack is not linked to the earlier ones, which took place in December, May and June.

In the previous attacks, toilet cleaners – easily available in supermarkets – were poured from rooftops of high-rise buildings overlooking Sai Yueng Choi Street in Mong Kok.

“My family is worried but I still need to work,” said Mr Poon.

Shopkeepers in Mong Kok’s busiest hub – the short, narrow strip across two parallel streets of Sai Yueng Choi Street South and Tung Choi Street – are worried about their livelihoods as well.

Business, already hit by the global economic crisis and Influenza A (H1N1), has fallen further with each acid attack.

Since the latest attack, Ladies’ Street has been eerily quiet. Its passageway, lined with stalls on each side, is empty of the normal throng of visitors who, in better days, would have had only elbow room to manoeuvre.

“Business has never been worse. It is worse than during the Sars epidemic,” a shoe vendor said. “During Sars, people still came shopping here, even though they’d wear a surgical mask. But now they do not want to be attacked by acid.”

The vendor, who asked not to be named, estimated traffic had trickled to a fifth of what it used to be.

Among the few foreign tourists who dared to venture to Ladies’ Street were two marketing students from Britain and Australia who were in Hong Kong for a three-month sojourn.

Both were not concerned about news of acid attacks, saying there were street crimes in their countries, too.

The police caught Chi Chi Hong as he ran away after his attack on the handbag stall owners. Chi, who allegedly acted to collect a HK$380,000 (S$70,000) debt owed by the handbag stall owners, was apparently sent by local triads. He is in jail pending trial.

But arrests have yet to be made in the earlier acid attacks, and the reward of HK$900,000 remains unclaimed.

Many crime experts in Hong Kong suggest that the suspects in the earlier attacks might have emotional problems.

Meanwhile, some order has returned to Sai Yueng Choi Street South – the scene of the first three attacks – after police set up observation posts there and installed surveillance cameras. More than 10 policemen patrol the street every day, often in pairs.

In fact, Mr Poon has set up his sales stand right next to a police van. “I’ll duck into a building if an attack happens again,” he said.

For more The Straits Times stories, click here.

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