War in Mongkok: Street art fights for shopper attention

It’s hard to describe the sound of Sai Yeung Choi Street in Hong Kong's Mongkok area on a typical evening. It’s the echo of horns and sirens through the Mongkok canyons, the cacophony of video billboards and shop stereos. It’s the sound of 16,000 shoppers flocking each hour to the most crassly commercial of Hong Kong's streets.

But there’s more to it than just shopping.

Since 2003, FM Theatre Power (FMTP) has used Sai Yeung Choi Street as the base for its off-kilter performances, turning a shrine to consumerism into a haven for art.

“We want to engage Hong Kong people in the street, to break the barrier between them and performers,” says Banky Yeung, FMTP’s enigmatic creative director. “They’re not used to seeing street performances. They think it’s for beggars. They think that streets are only for walking or shopping. That attitude goes up into the government. We want to challenge these negative perceptions.”

FMTP’s performances are hard to ignore. Last winter, one of the group’s actors, Fung Sai-kuen, stood on the side of the street with buckets of paint at his feet and a sign inviting passersby to paint on him. He drew a curious crowd every night as people picked up a brush and left their mark on his motionless body. Eventually, he became such a fixture that people came to Sai Yeung Choi Street especially to see him.

“Everyone had their own style,” recalls Fung. “Foreigners were very brave, they came right up and painted on me. Kids played with the paint for a long time and their parents were supportive, but rarely painted on me themselves. Towards the end, some people brought their own tools, like a step ladder, so that they could paint however they wanted.”

For the past ten years, a four-block stretch of Sai Yeung Choi Street has been closed to traffic every evening, making it one of the few places in Hong Kong with space for street performers and large crowds alike. On any given day, as many as half a dozen buskers can be found along the street, from magicians to old-timers singing warbly Cantopop.

Lo Wing, a singer, composer, and record producer who started playing music on the street, credits FMTP with making the street’s atmosphere more welcoming for street performers. He now sells about 30 CDs a night while performing on the street, and FMTP lets him store his equipment in its small t-shirt shop.

“I performed on the street before, about six years ago, but I was stopped by the police,” he says. “I was inspired to return by FMTP. I saw what they were doing and realized the potential of street performance. The response from the audience is very direct – if they like it, they stay, but if they don’t, they leave right away.

Not everyone sees FMTP as kindly as Lo. Its performances are panned by many critics as crude and immature. Some Mongkok shoppers accuse it of blocking the street.

In 2008, a Facebook group named “Kick FMTP Out of Mongkok” attracted more than 30,000 members. One 15-year-old member of the group was quoted in the South China Morning Post as saying that he was opposed to FMTP because “their performance takes up too much space and they're selling T-shirts on the street, which is illegal.”

But Yeung and his fellow performers remain defiant. What they want, he explains, is to disrupt the status quo and push Hong Kongers past their creative comfort zone by forcing them to accept culture as part of the city’s streetlife.

“We’re starting a kind of revolution,” he says – a revolution that begins by adding a bit of creative expression into Sai Yeung Choi Street’s commercial din.

Sai Yeung Choi Street can be reached by Mongkok MTR station, exit E2.