'Pasar malams' seems like ideal, doesn't it. Every business comes with it's sets of problems. 'Pasar malams' are not permanent, they are fluid.  The street can be taken over overnight and rights denied if there is a need by the local council. The local gangster as mentioned are called " commitees" nowadays and most of the times they are the 'RELAs' there too. There are responsible for collection of money (under or ontop of the table) for rubbish collection and cleaning of the street after the session. Fights used to happen when another fresh trader moves in.

Usually I notice that if a trader wants to start, he will place a table at the far end of the 'pasar malam' and then see what happens. Then maybe the commitees will approach you or the local enforcement will approach you. If you go apply, they (local municipality) will tell you the quota is full for this or that 'pasar malam'. Some have friends selling in a particular spot and they multiply their table space and types of goods at the same spot. Some take over from existing traders.

'Pasar malam' worst nightmare is rain. Worst still when it rains after the stall has been set up. Just guessing how much a 'tong sui' seller makes is in the end a guess. He might be just selling only at 2 or 3 spots a week. Those that they allow him to sell. If he is selling well, then his must be good and that entails long ardous task of preparing unlike nowadays where a lot that uses powdered form of 'tongsui'. What difficulties he 's going through (I am sure he has problems) operatiing that stall is unknown to us. A motorbike carrying 600 bowls of tongsui doesn't really compute in my mind. That's  a lot of tongsui actually. You can actually gauge the amount he is carrying to sell. 3 types means 3 pots. A bowl is 300ml. 200 bowls is 60 litres. Multiply by another 3 means he is carrying 180 litres of tongsui on an old motorbike. That's almost 3 full tanks of petrol in a normal car. My guess is he probably selling half of what's mentioned.

Bear this in mind, " Ho Tai Em Ho Sek".