Chinatown turning into foreigntown

FOREIGNTOWN is now a more apt description for Petaling Street popularly known as the Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur. 

Nanyang Siang Pau reported that instead of being managed by local Chinese, half the 200-over stalls at Petaling Street were now manned by workers from Myanmar, Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh.  

“Most of them are hired by locals who have aged or are not interested in being hawkers anymore,” it said.  

However, there are also foreign workers who have become their own boss by renting the stalls from their former employers. 

According to the daily, most of the foreign workers work 15 hours a day with salaries ranging from RM30 to RM35 daily.  

A Bangladeshi, who sells clothes, said he and his counterparts were very happy working there as their Chinese employers treated them well. 

“Most of us are very thrifty because we need to send money home. We also seldom go out during our off days as we are worried about being checked by the police,” said the illegal worker.  

Kuala Lumpur Hawkers Association vice-president Datuk Ang Say Tee said he was worried that foreign workers would one day replace the locals.  

“Many local hawkers dare not complain about the foreign workers as they do not know their background and are afraid that they will give trouble,” he said.  

“Many local hawkers from the older generation can only resort to employing foreign workers to solve the shortage of manpower,” he said.  

He pointed out that the influx of such workers created inconvenience to the local hawkers as they do not pay any fee to Kuala Lumpur City Hall. 

“They are also very rude to tourists and this has left a bad impression on the country,” he said.  

Other News & Views is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a sub-heading, it denotes a separate news item