COMMENT | Roadside hawkers in Penang were scorned 40 years ago as “low-class” people “blocking traffic”. The old shops there were derided as “rundown and dirty”.

Today, the same hawkers are tourism superstars with long queues. Some have even received global Michelin food awards.

And those old shops? They have been refurbished as a Unesco World Heritage site. Property prices have soared.

The same scorning and scoffing is repeating itself with the back-street hawkers of Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur.