Tai Tung Martial Arts

Today Was a really great day to be Street sweeping. Not much garbage either. Just some poo, and a bunch of cigarette butts. To get the equipment I went in with the maintenance man into the place where Moh Goon used to be. I peaked in at the back wall where the incense and firecrackers used to be stored.

Now it is only a storage area. I flashed back to all the Tai Tung Moh Goon memories I had before stepping back out, broom and trash can in hand.

It's kind of a shame actually. I mean I guess it works as a storage room. But obviously before the stuff was stored elsewhere. When it was kind of a rec room for the maintenance people that was cool because they needed one. But now it's just a place to store stuff and frankly, in a spot that could get a lot of rent if the right business has it. Maybe a Day Care (though there are many day cares) or a Martial Arts Studio. Or perhaps a community work out room that had Martial Arts, Yoga, a chess club, classes people coming in and out all the time. Just because we couldn't make it doesn't mean nobody can.

And by the way Mission Park had a similar room, which had all of these things. Lion Dance class too. The class wasn't that popular, but I think in Tai Tung they could make it work because there are so many residents or people with ties to those projects who could put together a group. Wouldn't that be cool? I just feel like that space, despite the fact that we could never turn a profit was meant to be a tea drinking old men chilling outside and youth running around Moh Goon that made the community safer and also brought outsiders in, in a good way. I mean, if the classes were super cheap or even free or crowdfunded you could have all these students join and also all the rich people gentrifying the neighborhood could mingle with some residents.. and when you have mingling like that, people can come together and get things done. It could be Mah Jong (in a more benign way than gambling) or chess or music or Kung Fu or anything. It doesn't really matter. Yeah there are a lot of community spaces already. But with the increase of residents... isn't there always a need for more?