一個夏午, 走進久遺了的上海街, 昔日繁榮不再, 只餘下寥寥幾間繡莊, 押店, 涼茶舖及麻雀館. 樓上茶居巳不復見, 上海食館, 百貨店皮鞋店也在逐漸消失.
曾幾何時這是一條十分有 "上海風"的街道, 不少洋貨及高品質的國貨衣飾也能在這裏找到. 每逢夕陽西下之後, 華燈初上, 踏進這條街, 總會有種走進異國夜市的感覺.紅紅黄黄的繡莊招牌, 店舖愈大招牌愈是搶眼. 洋傘也好, 綢緞也好, 甚至花式多多的暖水壺也是一些有質量而市民又能負擔的優良產品. 今天, 我們收入水平高了, 但一般人能夠負擔的貨品, 質量卻相對下降; 就連居住環境, 空氣質數, 生活節奏也隨之而改變, 或應說是犧牲.
對於從未有機會接觸過那個時代的80/90後來說, 每天只能擠進愈來愈沒有特式的鬧市街頭, 又或是千遍一律, 毫無生命的商場來說, 實在可惜; 不過, 也許至少比我們只能懷緬的人心理上活得輕鬆. 你呢? 會選擇做那一個年代的人?
Afternoon, in Summer, once I've been step into this street - Shanghai Street, in Hong Kong. Oops, what a colour tone of the past, the colour of wash out. Only a few fabric shop, ma-jong shop& Chinese herbal tea shop were found; Cantonese tea house up stairs, Shanghai restaurants, Chinese department stores, book stores were gone, ...all gone.
It was once a street full of Shanghai culture, lots of imported daily goods could be found here, well, in high quality of course, even though they were from mainland China at that time. Whenever the twilight falls, neon sign flash everywhere especially the red & yellow one for those fabric shop, which sale high quality silk, damask or tailor made wedding wear; the larger the signage, the larger the shop. I still remember, living in those years, we could buy affordable good daily stuff, like umbrella, thermal vase, black leather shoes, a "heavy" duty cotton blanket + salted Chinese ham to wait for the Winter to come. " A foreign night market" was the picture in my memory.
Today, we earn more, but our living standard drops, how come? not even we have to pay more of having an up to standard consumer product; we sacrify our living environment, air quality or even life pace.
For those who can only be part of the crowd in our liveliness district or shopping mall, the 80's & 90's, it is a regret; but compare with us who know the past and can only be a chase in memory, which era will you prefer to be?
