Hybridised business ventures are in-between social spaces which merge community group organisations and private businesses. These business ventures are generally lesbian cafes located upstairs in buildings in neighbourhoods known for shopping and tourism. High rental prices for street front premises have driven most businesses (including independent bookstores, bars and cafes) upstairs in commercial buildings. In order to keep the supply of land scarce so as to maintain high land prices, Hong Kong, with a population of seven million, has only 25 per cent of its overall land mass developed for housing. Under British administration, the Country Parks Ordinance classified 40 percent of Hong Kong’s land as country parks therefore rendering a large portion of land unavailable for urban development. Another factor limiting land availability is the city’s mountainous terrain which has made development difficult. The state-imposed policy of land scarcity has driven up rental rates and limited consumer spaces for lesbians. The existence of these spaces is conditional upon individuals’ own resources, whether they are small business owners looking to open up a lesbian cafe or customers trying to find a comfortable and safe space to hang out. I interviewed five cafe and restaurant owners among my sample of thirty women. Except for one woman, all four were in full-time or part-time employment elsewhere to support their businesses. They explained that their lesbian businesses were side businesses catering for the community’s needs for a place to meet. All the cafe owners had a specific social agenda, rather than a commercial one, in opening these cafes and all identified themselves as lesbians.
Thirty-year-old Anne opened a cafe with her partner, Sandy, in Tung Lo Wan rather than Mong Kok, an area more closely associated with night markets and Mainland Chinese tourists. Even though Mong Kok is a bustling shopping district, it is commonly perceived as an area associated with working class people, gang triads, sex workers, cheap goods and rowdy tourists. Eric Kit-Wai Ma’s study of the relationship between social class and alcohol noted that there is ‘a hierarchy of drinks’ where Mong Kok bars are taken to be inferior and less sophisticated as they serve beer and simple cocktails (Ma 2001: 128). Whereas Tung Lo Wan is a neighbourhood that is also frequented by tourists, it is perceived as a middle-class shopping area and a common meeting place for locals to engage in everyday activities such as shopping and dining in comparison to Mong Kok. When asked about the choice of location for her business, Anne was very vocal about her reason for not choosing Mong Kok even though I had only asked her if she would consider opening up a cafe in Tsim Sha Tsui, another tourist attraction and shopping area. Anne exclaimed, ‘Not in Mong Kok! So disgusting!’ Shocked by her reaction, I followed up to ask for an explanation, ‘Those people are not appropriate. I feel that those who know how to drink coffee or want to find a quiet place to have a cup of coffee are not the kind of people you’ll find in Mong Kok’. I was caught off guard by her seemingly rash comment and she continued to explain why she felt that way. ‘Because there are lesbians everywhere in Tung Lo Wan, and lesbians usually hang out in Tung Lo Wan’. Anne pointed to Tung Lo Wan as ‘very central’ and it has historically been an advantageous location for lesbian bars. Tung Lo Wan remains a social hub for some, although lesbians do hang out in other parts of the city.
Rather than opening another lesbian cafe, twenty-five-year old Nick raised funds with family members and opened a specialty store selling books, DVDs, TB chest binders, pins and mugs with LGBT visibility slogans in 2004. When asked why she opened a specialty store, she mentioned her trip to Taiwan: ‘I thought I should come back [from Australia] and open a les cafe. But when I came back, others had done it… I have just been to Taiwan and saw how well Gin Gin [a queer bookstore in Taipei] is doing. I know that a big shop would be too expensive, so I opened a smaller one’. She further said, ‘It’s not enough of a gimmick if I open another les cafe’. In other words, Nick needed to establish a viable niche business catering for women. The specialty store first opened in a maze-like smaller scale shopping arcade with tiny shops dotted along every corner. These shops usually cater to young people selling fashion items and do-it-yourself craft goods. Nick has been able to keep the store open for three years with the TB chest-binder as one of the bestselling items. After she gradually became more well known in the community, Nick opened a restaurant upstairs in another building with her cousin as a business partner. The restaurant, with its relatively large space, including an open-air terrace, drew immediate attention within the community as more and more women went there for late night drinks. However, the rent kept climbing in Tung Lo Wan so that, eventually, the restaurant closed down two years after it opened. Nick explained that she could not charge high prices for food because of severe competition in the area. She later opened another business, Mercury/T-Studio@Mate, offering small cubicle spaces for lesbian couples and friends to watch DVDs or to sing karaoke. Since intimate spaces for young lesbian couples are difficult to find, Nick’s intention was to offer temporary solace to couples and their friends. These sanctuary spaces are places to escape from parental supervision and public scrutiny as most young Hong Kong lesbians live with their families in tight living quarters.