The streets of Hong Kong are like an open book, with each small store an unbound chapter. Strolling through once-busy neighborhoods, “For Rent” signs can be seen everywhere. These vacant storefronts not only epitomize the business ecosystem but also reflect the plight of small businesses under increasing pressure. The “For Rent” signs on these corner storefronts have become a glaring footnote to the city’s economic fabric, which has seen repeated creases over the past few years – high rents eroding profits, declining tourist traffic, and weak local consumption.

We visited a lot of stores on Hong Kong Island, and they told us that many of the stores around them had either closed down in the wake of the epidemic or shut down because they could not afford the high rents. However, amidst this dismal scene, there are still lights flickering. Their books are filled with the glaring words “loss”, but “there is no choice but to persevere,” says Sherily zhu, the owner of the crystal store, who has invested more than a million Hong Kong dollars in the store, “Now if we quit, there will be nothing left. The Escape room owners hold on to their life’s work like parents guarding their grown-up children; shopkeepers like Thron and Burrow try to prove the value of “slow business”; and Blotto is convinced that the neighborhood needs their lights. When business logic fails, emotion and conviction become the last pillars of perseverance.

Yet amid this bleak landscape, defiant lights still flicker. We visited multiple shops operating at a loss yet persisting against the odds—their ledgers awash in red ink, yet all echoing the same refrain: “No choice but to keep going.” Some cling to their life’s work like parents guarding a grown child; others strive to prove the worth of “slow business”; some simply believe the neighborhood needs their light. When commercial logic fails, emotion and conviction become the last anchors holding fast.  

On the mid-level escalator in Sai Ying Pun, you’ll find playful murals directing visitors to Thorn and Burrow, a store that’s an adventure to be discovered only by those who are patient enough to look for it. The elevator door opens with a ding on the second floor, revealing a handwritten wooden sign on the pale gray wall that reads Thorn and Burrow, and when you push open the glass door, the wind chimes jingle and the warmth of the woodsy scent greets you. On the shelves, handmade Japanese cast-iron kettles glow matte, Scandinavian stoneware plates are piled high, and in the corner, enamel pins by local Hong Kong designers gleam in the spotlight.

This upstairs boutique, a haven for slower-consumerism, has spent a decade weaving a web between niche artisans and urban life. Leaning against the counter, owner Ada quietly checks newly arrived stock and says, “Our location is extremely hidden—customers have to come upstairs to find us. So, getting people to climb up is an ongoing battle.”

Then came 2020. After the outbreak, tourists disappeared and locals shunned the enclosed space. The shortcomings of the upstairs location became fatal-“No one would come to a store that wasn’t on the street to buy spoons,” Ada sighs. To pay the high monthly rent, she had to close another room on the first floor and squeeze her stock into the 80 square meters of space on the second floor. The aisles have shrunk to 45 centimeters; Kyoto wind chimes jingle every time a customer turns around-“forced interactive Easter eggs,” she calls them. But the real pain was the loss of collaborators: seven of her 12 local artisans had gone on to run Uber or sell insurance. “The day I cleared out, I put a ‘thanks for the company’ goodbye note on the glass door. It was like losing a loved one.”

“According to the Hong Kong Federation of Small and Medium Businesses, even after the pandemic, nearly 70% (69.9%) of SMEs reported a decline in revenue compared to pre-pandemic levels, with less than 5% (4.4%) indicating any growth in business turnover.”

A survey by the Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises General Association shows that more than 70% of enterprises are willing to carry out digital upgrading, and some of them have increased the proportion of online sales through WeChat mini-programs and live broadcasting.For example, Sa Sa achieved counter-trend growth through small programs and live broadcasting, increasing the proportion of online sales to 30 percent.

However, there are many store owners who believe that brick-and-mortar stores still need to exist. James Assersohn, director of retail at Jones Lang LaSalle Asia Pacific, argues that despite the growing need for investment in technology, this does not mean that e-commerce will put physical stores out of business. Having an online platform is important for any retailer, but online shopping can never replace the experience and pleasure of shopping in a physical store,” he said.

When a cancer survivor leaves a wig as a souvenir in a puzzle box, when a high school club chips in to buy 30 tickets to a “rebirth party” for a depressed tutor, when a divorced couple of five years remembers the code to a safe by cracking the wedding day. –In the Causeway Bay “Are You Lost?” ‘s surveillance room, faded walkie-talkies record these moments that algorithms can’t compute. Owner YT NG pulls up a database of players in 2023, and the cursor stops on a line of encrypted tags: “Subject: Doomsday Bank Doomsday Bank; Passing Time: 47 minutes; Hidden Plot: Marriage Repair Progress +30%.”

“Escape rooms were never just playgrounds, but memory safes for urbanites.” YT strokes the mechanical lock from when the first store opened in 2013, with Escape room engraved on the cylinder, an initial memory. “A family member of an Alzheimer’s patient once chartered the store to help the old man rebuild his memory map using clues from the 100 cabinets of The Chinese Medicine Room Mystery – they later sent a photo of the old man clutching the clearance certificate as if it was the last piece of his time that hadn’t been stolen.”

“Pricing in Hong Kong outlets is 10-20% higher than overseas, at three times the cost of others.” On YT’s global income and expenditure statement, the Singapore and Manila outlets hang like two steel cables on the survival scale of the loss-making local outlets. This is not a simple business strategy, but a complex spatial game: the Shinsaibashi store in Osaka, with a monthly rent one-fifth of that of the Causeway Bay store, replicates the cast-iron prison gates of the “Victoria Prison” theme; while the team in Kuala Lumpur is customizing the script of the company’s “Financial Crisis Escape,” Hong Kong shopkeepers are dismantling the parts of the Tuen Mun store and then sent overseas, “saving organ parts Hong Kong sales clerks are dismantling organ parts from the Tuen Mun store and sending them overseas, “saving enough storage fees to pay for half a month’s air-conditioning for the Yuen Long store.”

The Hong Kong branch has a much lower profit margin than overseas, but the emotional retention rate of players is exceptionally high. The secret is hidden in the official website’s “LOST2024” password page — an unsigned message reads, “In the secret room at 97 Nathan Road, we found our daughter’s favorite strawberry hairpin before she disappeared. Although the store in reality has closed down, at least here she lives forever on that virtual street.”

In the twilight, YT gazed at the surveillance footage of that store in Repulse Bay: five high school students scrambling to put together the stone slabs, and the neon sign in the window that said “Yoshi’s Store for Rent” tinting the exit lights blood-colored. “The rent went up 300 percent, but something has to be more alive than the numbers.” He presses pause, and in the glass reflection, the figures of cheering players overlap with the advertisement for rent on the corner, like a double riddle about urban survival.

The cheapest “life-saving dice” on the 2024 wine list at Blotto’s in Kane’s Landing, made with expiring gin and convenience-store lemon tea, and rimmed with expiring coarse salt, is owner Austin’s first-aid plan to deal with the skyrocketing number of bars and plummeting number of customers. Seven years ago they wove illusions of liquid nitrogen fumes with edible gold leaf without thinking about the ingredients or cost of the food, and now the back kitchen freezer is labeled with the warning, “Not a single piece of ice should be wasted.”

“All the bars in Hong Kong are playing cost-shrinking.” Zelia flips through her coffee-stained purchase order: Thai limes are replacing the French variety (lower cost), recycled wine bottles are being used to grow herbs (saving 800hkd a month on potting), and coasters have switched to misprinted, discarded cardboard, which is eco-friendly and special. “When the supplier said last week that absinthe was going up another 15%, I poured a sample on the ledger on the spot – look, does the stain look like a countdown to bankruptcy?”

Zelia’s cell phone album holds 487 scraps – spilled glasses, blurred lampshades, the defocused side faces of customers. It’s a series of “imperfect aesthetics” she curated for Instagram, with a caption that reads, “Truth is more intoxicating than filters.” Each post contains Morse code clues that can be deciphered in exchange for a free snack at the store.

This “pixel alchemy” has boosted online conversions by 28 percent, but at the cost of Zelia’s sleep – she replies to private messages at 3 a.m. every day, using emoji codes to agree on “smuggling hours” (off-peak hours) with her regular customers. “(a secret discount for off-peak hours). When she mistakenly posted the “smuggling menu” to her public account, prompting 200 inquiries, she made the mistake of launching a flash mob: “Since I can’t hide it, I’ll turn the loophole into an egg.”

Bartender Keith’s schedule is a quantum mechanical map: he’s a janitor on Mondays ($58 an hour), doubles as an accountant on Wednesdays ($75 an hour), and transforms into a magician on the weekends (who draws a cut on tips). Tucked under the bar is his folding bed – Blotto’s invention to combat the “overnight shift allowance.” “We’re more convenience store than 7-11.” Keith laughs to himself as he wipes his glass, “Even the cockroaches know I lived here before them.”

When the government promoted the “Night Economy 2.0” program, Blotto did the opposite: cut 40 percent of the seating capacity, stopped serving free peanuts, and even removed the bathroom mirrors (to prevent customers from taking selfies and lingering). The latest killer is “darkness therapy” – after turning off 80% of the lighting, the average customer’s stay was shortened by 23 minutes, and the speed of drink consumption increased by 1.7 times.

“It’s the singularity of Hong Kong bars.” Austin checks for counterfeit bills under an ultraviolet light – an acquaintance paid with photocopied Hong Kong dollars, and the security watermark was actually hand-drawn. “When survival becomes art, every decision is performance art.” He confiscates the counterfeit bills but leaves copies to paste on the title page of the 2024 ledger: a modernist graffiti painted in deficit.

In the second-floor window of the Sai Ying Pun tenement building, Thorn and Burrow’s Showa table lamp is still lit, the cracked glass patched with gold paint in the shape of a lightning bolt.Ada caresses a handwritten letter left behind by a customer, softly repeating the words that have been said countless times, “Some things shouldn’t go away, just like the need for a light on a street corner to always be on.”

The sea breeze from Kennedy Town rolls through Blotto’s half-hidden door as Austin drops the last of his homemade ice cubes into the shaker and turns his head to smile at his drunken acquaintance, “Remember? I told you this isn’t a bar-”
“It’s our second home!” Several voices picked up on this at once, mixed with the soft sound of ice cubes crunching at the bottom of the glass.

In the night, the neon sign of “Gee’s Store for Rent” is still on the corner, but there are always some lights that refuse to be folded into the digital folds of the ledger.