The most special thing about Cheng Shun is that it is located inside the Kwong King Building. The Kwong King Building is a representative of the iconic "monster buildings" in Hong Kong.
Although everyone calls them "monster buildings", they each have their own unique "monstrous" charm. For the Kwong King Building in San Po Kong, it is that it looks like a massive building assembled from different large blocks of components. Viewed from a distance, it has an imposing "domineering" presence, making it difficult to take in the entire structure.
The Kwong King Building, completed in 1972, was ahead of the trend of large-scale "podium" multi-story and multi-block private residential complexes in the city. It already had a massive podium with multi-story parking, murals, and a shopping mall. Interestingly, many of these "old private building shopping malls" have since "died", with most of them empty. But the Kwong King Mall has been well-operated, becoming a model for old residential building malls. No one ever imagined that one day, the Kwong King Building would be ranked among the top in a "100 Most Extraordinary Buildings" poll, and be preserved as a landmark in San Po Kong.
When it was seen as a new landmark, the Kwong King Building no longer had any residential tenants. But the Kwong King Mall, along with all the floors above it, have been transformed into a brand-new "vertical retro shopping route". Many industries that cannot be found elsewhere in the city, the sole survivors in Hong Kong, have set up shop here. Cheng Shun, a shoe repair and key duplication shop, has become a highlight of this mall. Among the hundreds of these "old-school classic small shops", Cheng Shun is the only one that is the "original" shoe repair and key duplication store. The neighboring shops find it hard to believe, and often come to Cheng Shun to listen to the owner tell stories of the old San Po Kong. The owner's favorite stories are about how they continue to do shoe repairs and key duplication, and how the two businesses came to be combined.
He would say that whenever there are two skills that are somehow combined together, it often has its origins on the street - the struggle for survival. The ice cream and noodle shops, the nail salons, they all emerged this way. Inside the Kwong King Building, there are many of these "combined shops" that cultural researchers love to study - they appear to have been together since ancient times, but only the shoe repair and key duplication shop, Cheng Shun, is the most classic example. Cheng Shun has become a research subject for countless university students, as physical keys have become almost obsolete in recent years, making Cheng Shun almost like a museum, supporting the new cultural economy of the Kwong King Building
Sampson Wong researches urbanization issues. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Manchester and is currently a lecturer in the General Education Foundation Course at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Most recently, he co-founded the video project When in Doubt, Go for a Walk with other Hong Kong artists, to explore questions about urban walking and urban well-being.
