Close ties

Wearing a pair of Cantonese-style flipflops and sitting in his shop, Brightman warmly welcomes every customer who drops by. Most are regulars.

Peter Millward, a British musician, has regularly visited Vibe since its inception in 2018. He always enjoys dropping by and peeking his head into the shop to see who is there for a lively chat.

Millward says there was a huge difference after Brightman took over the shop.

"I wouldn't go to the shop if I needed a specific book previously, but now people just casually drop in and have conversations together. Everyone gets involved," he says.

Beyond the book and music shop itself, Brightman aspired to craft a hub of community interaction, where conversations could flow and cultural exchanges could take place.

Every Saturday, he would invite a musician or a writer to visit the store. The gathering soon became a local attraction, drawing many residents from the neighborhood to mingle and take part in the cultural festivities.

As musicians filled the air with melodies and writers shared anecdotes from their lives, visitors were welcomed to join in, sit among the guests, and immerse themselves in a tapestry of global narratives.

"I met many people who became really close friends of mine," Brightman says. "Since then, the shop started to metamorphose into something different, like a media center that we could entertain people in."

Brightman's Vibe community continues to connect Mui Wo residents. From children accompanied by their parents curiously discovering the shop to Hong Kong seniors randomly dropping by to gift a few books, it is a leisurely place for residents to take a rest. Even Keung To, a singer from the popular Hong Kong boy band Mirror, has visited.

"It's a kind of culture that you can't describe. … People living here all tend to be friendly to each other, no matter if they know each other or not," Millward says.

"When you are in a community, you always get something back," he says. "Joining Vibe lets me play music with people I wouldn't play with and triggers something in me cooperating with a band or a musician in the shop. It's all worthwhile."

"We don't make a lot of money but I run this shop by passion," Brightman says. Wealth is not the objective; it is the enrichment of the community and the nurturing of cultural bonds that matter most, he says.

The shop runs at a loss, Brightman says, but many residents and friends help him manage the store as volunteers.

"They will come here every week and help me rearrange the books and greet the customers," he says. "Thanks to their help, the shop can still run.

"The shop does not have a value in my head. Instead, what it has is a sense of wellbeing. I spend money on this shop but I feel that I'm giving something back to the community."

Hu Xinyue contributed to this story.