There is a mysterious legend which travels amongst students who study in To Kwa Wan, a reclusive stationery shop is hidden in a gloomy alley. It has a magic price that is half of the market price, with half of the shop selling Zhizha and the other half selling stationeries, which adds a lot of bright colours to the store.
The shop is called “Wah Sang” and is common knowledge among students in the area.
At that time, in junior secondary school, I was curious and decided to find Wah Sang Stationery Store. One day, after school, I cautiously crossed the Ma Tau Wai Road, like an adventurer looking for treasure, and explored in different alleys. In accordance with the instructions given by the senior schoolmate, I turned into a narrow alley at the fourth intersection. After passing the disrepaired barber shop and the mahjong school in the neighbourhood, I finally saw “Wah Sang” at the end of the alley.
It was a very simple and ordinary traditional stationery store. Different colours of folders were inserted on the rusty shelves at the door. The cat calmly laid on the abandoned chair beside the door, to observe the students from different schools. The passage in the shop was very narrow, I could barely walk past it with my schoolbag, I had to reverse and make my way if there was someone walking towards me. The stationeries were not in packages, it just laid quietly in an old misty glass sliding door cabinet. The pencils were the familiar Chung Hwa brand, and the exercise books were those yellow papers with a single row of blue lines. Here you can get a whiff of a traditional stationery store, see the traces of the years, and feel how “Wah Sang” has traveled through these years.
“Wah Sang” represents the adolescent stationery sentiment of my secondary school time, and fills my nostalgic memories of To Kwa Wan.
