A Man in His World
Sam, Leong Ka Hou
No one is able to go further inside the shop unless the hi-fis, video recorders and televisions are moved away. The only area that allows one to move is the working area, which is the office of the shopkeeper. It is at the entrance, taking 5% of the total area of the shop. The rest, including the second floor, is all occupied by the audiovisual equipments.
This unique shop can be found near Lin Kai Mio (蓮溪廟) in San Kio District (新橋區). Ken Leong, a middle-aged audiovisual equipment repairman and owner of the shop, starts his work every afternoon in the shop. In order to enter the office, he needs to move the audiovisual equipments away from their original place. He has been doing so for more than 30 years.
“Arranging these Hi-fis, video recorders and TVs is a daily routine for me,” Leong said casually, sitting on a little wooden chair in his office.
GATE TO THE PAST
“I like the atmosphere here. The arrangement is similar to my father’s shop in the past. It reminds me of my father and my childhood,” Leong said.
When Leong was a child, he and his two elder brothers sometimes helped his father to look after the old items and clean them inside the shop while his father was doing business at the stall just outside the shop. He described the task as “challenging” since many of the items were fragile.
“It’s hard to move in that small area,” Leong said, recalling if anyone broke any of them, they would either be scolded or beaten up by a feather duster depending on his father’s mood. “It was scary, but it was usually my eldest brother who got beaten up.”
Leong spends nearly half of the day working in his little office – repairing, receiving and buying audiovisual equipments. “My office is a gate that allows me to travel my past,” he said.
Leong said once entering the shop, he feels like he has gone to his father’s shop. The only difference is the things that fill up the shop. His father’s shop was crowded with old items like Chinese-styled sculptures, vases and scrolls of Chinese paintings. Besides, the audiovisual equipments remind him of the time when he decided to start learning the repairing skill.
BECOME A REPAIRMAN
Leong chose to be an audiovisual equipment repairman because he was very interested in televisions when he was a child. At that time, the television in his home did not work properly. He would like to know how to repair it, so that his family did not need to spend extra money on buying a new one. This made him start acquiring the skill.
According to Leong, he learned how to repair the equipments in a television technology institute which had already closed. He also worked as an apprentice at an electrical appliance store. He enjoys this occupation a lot since it is his interest.
“Repairing the audiovisual equipments reminds me of the time being an apprentice,” Leong said.
JUST A REPAIRMAN
Leong said that some people have misunderstandings about his and his father’s occupation. “We are not waste pickers,” said Leong, adding that it is kind of disrespectful to his father and him if one says they are “waste pickers” without knowing what exactly they are doing.
Leong said his father was a “purchaser”, a person who buys old items and later sells them to others. His father used to get different old items from the customers or go everywhere to have “door-to-door” trades.
“We pay for the items, and we don’t just get them from anywhere on the street,” Leong said.