From wet markets to dai pai dongs: tracing hunger and sustenance

Hong Kong’s identity centers on its culinary pluralism: dai pai dongs beside fine dining rooms, salted fish alleys beside luxury towers. This landscape was never simply about taste, it was about survival. Each street name records how the city ate, survived, and improvised. This three‑part series traces Hong Kong’s relationship with food and drinks through its map.

The Baseline of Bite

Net Profits

Shore of Yau Ma Tei in 1880 (source: wiki)

Hong Kong’s culinary history began on the water. Before land reclamation reshaped the harbour, boat-dwelling Tanka and Hoklo communities mapped marine life onto local geography, naming coastal features after their daily catch: Tsing Yi 青衣 (“Black Tuskfish”), Lung Ha Wan 龍蝦灣 (“Lobster Bay”), and Yau Yue Wan 魷魚灣 (“Squid Bay”). When the Tanka anchorage of Shek Pai Wan urbanised in the 1960s, planners formalised this heritage through thematic lanes like Yue Fung Street 漁豐街 (“Abundant Fishing Street”) and Yue Wok Street 漁獲街 (“Fish Catch Street”).

Fishing practices shaped place names too. Yau Ma Tei 油麻地 reflects pre-nylon gear preparation: crews wove heavy hemp nets (ma, 麻) and sealed them with boiling tung oil (yau, 油) against rot. Though the water retreated, this landlocked neighbourhood preserves its trade legacy.

On Lamma Island, Sok Kwu Wan 索罟灣 honours mooring ropes (Sok 索) and nets (Kwu 罟). Offshore, Mong Yue Kok 望魚角 (“Watch Fish Corner”) recalls cliffside scouts tracking schools, while Cha Yue Pai 炸魚排 (“Bomb Fish Raft”) remembers the illicit era of blast fishing. Through these names, the modern coastline remains a permanent archive of survival and appetite.

Anchored Offshore

As Aberdeen urbanised, the Tai Pak Floating Restaurant 太白海鮮舫 (1950) and its colossal sister, Jumbo 珍寶海鮮舫, opened in 1976 as the iconic Jumbo Kingdom 珍寶王國. Tracing their roots to 1920s Pearl River “Songhall Boats” 歌堂船, barges where Tanka families hosted musical banquets, these floating palaces elevated aquatic heritage into world-renowned theatrical dining.

Rising from the Aberdeen South Typhoon Shelter with opulent imperial motifs, Jumbo Kingdom hosted over 30 million visitors across 44 years, drawing luminaries like Queen Elizabeth II, Jimmy Carter, and Tom Cruise. Guests arrived by sampan to feast on prime catches, like steamed red groupa (蒸紅斑) and Typhoon Shelter crab (避風塘炒蟹) buried in garlic and chilli or rustic Boat Noodles (艇仔粉). Jumbo’s grand hall even hosted the climax of Stephen Chow’s The God of Cookery (食神), immortalising its gilded throne.

Bridging ancestral waterborne culture with post-war tourism, Jumbo and Tai Pak anchored Hong Kong’s identity. Yet, soaring maintenance and pandemic stillness forced a 2020 closure. On June 14, 2022, amidst blaring ship horns and waving crowds, Jumbo was towed away, tragically capsizing near the Paracel Islands days later—a dramatic close to Hong Kong’s floating heritage.

Markets of Emptiness

Inland Hong Kong’s commercial geography followed agricultural harvest rhythms. The Chinese character for these rural markets, hui (墟), shares a root with emptiness (虛), capturing their temporal nature. As the Qing-era text Guangdong Xinyu (廣東新語) observed:

"In Guangdong, a rural market is called hui. When people gather, it is full; when they disperse, it is empty. Fullness is rare, emptiness is common—hence the name."
「粵謂野市曰虛。市之所在，有人則滿，無人則虛。滿時少，虛時多，故曰虛也，虛即廛也。」

The legacy of this rhythm survives in Yuen Long Old Market. Evolving from Ming-era roots, the Tang clan formally established Yuen Long Kau Hui in 1669, hardening this temporal hub into a permanent grid of ambition: Cheong Shing Street 長盛街 (“Long Prosperity Street”), Lei Yik Street 利益街 (“Profits Street”), and Wine Street 酒街. By the 19th century, nodes like Yuen Long Hui 圓蓢墟 had become vital engines of exchange, their narrow lanes crowded with inns, wine houses, and grain firms.

These commercial arteries fuelled local food traditions, supplying ingredients to turn rural surpluses into legendary walled village 圍村 Poon Choi 盆菜 (“Basin Meals”). Rooted in Song Dynasty refugee lore, the dish stacked six humble staples: radish, pig skin, dried eel, squid, pork, and bean curd to absorb the rich juices of luxury additions above. As market wealth grew, affluent families like the Tangs expanded this tradition into lavish "Nine-Dish Banquets" (Gau Daai Gwai, 九大簋), serving delicacies in individual porcelain rooster bowls.

Rooted in Myth

Hoi Shum Island in the 1840s, now reclaimed (source: wiki)

Further east, To Kwa Wan 土瓜灣 connects an imperial legend with the region's ancient geography. Local folklore claims villagers fed sweet potatoes to the fleeing Southern Song Emperor Duanzong in 1277 while he took refuge near neighboring Sacred Hill (聖山). However, the South American tuber had not yet arrived in China; the name actually honours the to kwa (土瓜), a native greater yam cultivated across the local coastal plains.

This agricultural landscape was mirrored offshore by To Kwa Wan Island (Hoi Shum Island), a small, melon-shaped granite outcrop venerated by Tanka fishermen as a sacred sanctuary. While 1960s industrial land reclamation eventually erased the surrounding sea, the island's iconic Hoi Shum Rock 海心石 and Fish Tail Rock 魚尾石 were preserved inside modern Hoi Shum Park (海心公園), leaving an ancient geological remnant stranded inside a concrete neighbourhood.

Salt Economy

Worth Their Salt

Preserving hauls in a punishing subtropical climate demanded Hong Kong’s oldest state‑controlled enterprise: salt. For over two millennia, the salt trade was heavily taxed and regulated across Imperial China, where the court managed the coastline through government pans, treating the condiment as fiscal currency.

Salt worker in Tai O (source: Industrial History HK)

The imperial presence remains etched into the contemporary map. During the Northern Song dynasty, Kwun Tong 觀塘, originally 官塘, (“Official Pond”) operated as Kwun Fu Cheung 官富場, (“Official Government Wealth Field”), serving as an economic anchor on Kowloon Bay. Because salt functioned as liquid tender, these outposts became lucrative, dangerous frontiers. In 1197, under the Southern Song dynasty, fiscal tension erupted into open warfare in Tai O 大澳. When Lantau’s independent salt-makers defied the imperial monopoly, brutal clashes with dynastic enforcers ended in the massacre of more than three hundred workers.

Other remnants lie scattered across the coast, from Yim Tin Tsai 鹽田仔 (“Small Salt Pan”) in Tai Po to Yim Liu Ha 鹽寮下 (“Below the Salt Depot”) in Sha Tau Kok. The British colonial government extended this tradition of state control in 1844 by introducing its own short-lived salt tax. Through centuries of dynastic shifts and colonial governance, these toponyms preserve a time when the foundational seasoning of Hong Kong's kitchens was a matter of state revenue and bloody rebellion.

Scents and Sensibility

Salt gave Cantonese cuisine one of its defining flavours: ham yu (鹹魚, salted fish). Originally essential fuel for manual labourers stretching plain rice with a single, pungent fragment, immortalised in the idiom “eat salted fish, endure the thirst” (食得鹹魚抵得渴), its deep umami eventually entered grand banquet halls.

By 1858, Sai Ying Pun controlled nearly 60% of Hong Kong’s fish stalls, formalising shoreline trading into Ham Yu Street 咸魚街 (“Salted Fish Street”). Late-1880s reclamation landlocked these brine-soaked workshops, creating dense, unsanitary conditions. When bubonic plague struck in 1894, colonial authorities declared the alley a biohazard and demolished it entirely.

Redevelopment brought a shift in urban semiotics. Authorities renamed the new paths Mui Fong Street 梅芳街 (“Plum Fragrance”) and Kwai Heung Street 桂香街 (“Osmanthus Fragrance”), substituting floral names to mask the visceral reality of the mui heung (霉香, "mould-fragrant") fish cure. Planners buried a prized fermentation process beneath an aromatic fiction. Still, a downscaled Ham Yu Street 咸魚街 survives nearby, preserving Sai Ying Pun's sensory memory. There, the unmistakable scent continues to perfume the air above dried seafood shops and local kitchens serving Claypot Salted Fish and Minced Pork Claypot Rice (鹹魚肉餅煲仔飯).

The Colonial Shift

Floating Assets

Hong Kong’s food supply originally relied on a precarious maritime network. Under the Canton System, Western merchants sourced provisions through officially appointed Chinese compradors. When geopolitical tensions escalated in 1839, Commissioner Lin Zexu weaponised this dependence, blockading Macau to starve British forces back onto their ships.

This imperial embargo inadvertently birthed a sprawling shadow economy. Defying Qing threats of execution, local boatmen leveraged ancestral maritime networks to provision the blockaded fleet. Bumboats and sampans transformed the anchorages of Victoria Harbour, Tung Kwu (Lung Kwu Chau) 龍鼓洲, and Kap Shui Mun 汲水門 into a vast, floating black market. Contemporary Western observers likened this chaotic assembly of up to 2,000 vessels to a “floating Wapping.”

As the colonial presence solidified, this waterborne economy washed ashore, laying the foundations for Hong Kong's earliest landward bazaars. Tsim Sha Tsui became a vital funnel for mainland vegetables, whilst coastal operators bartered cattle and poultry, frequently exchanging livestock for Bengal opium. The missionary Karl Gützlaff documented this aggressive open-air provisioning. His legacy survives geographically in Gützlaff Street 吉士笠街 in Central, a narrow, sloping lane beside Graham Street Market, where the frantic rhythms of this early shadow economy remain.

The Birth of the ‘Big License’

With Britain’s 1841 occupation of Hong Kong, the food supply came ashore. Pearl River Delta traders poured in, and within months, 600 hawkers crowded Queen’s Road. The colonial government introduced a regulatory framework in 1847 to manage this congestion, establishing the administrative foundation for formal street dining.

The true Dai Pai Dong 大牌檔 emerged post-WWII amidst wartime devastation and refugee influxes. To boost employment while controlling street vending, the Urban Council issued special cooked-food permits to fixed stalls. Authorities mandated that operators frame and display an oversized paper permit detailing stall coordinates and licensee details directly on the structure. This prominent "big licence" 大牌 (dai pai) gave these open-air kitchens their legendary name.

A *dai pai dong*, or “big licence stall”, in the early 1960s (source: HK Memory)

Bound to fixed pavement plots, vendors erected distinct green-canvas structures. Roaring kerosene fires delivered the essential wok hei 鑊氣 (‘breath of the wok’) required for Stir-fried Beef Ho Fun (乾炒牛河), while cheap, high-energy refreshments like Silk Stocking Milk Tea (絲襪奶茶) and Yuenyeung (鴛鴦) sustained manual labourers through gruelling shifts.

Beyond feeding working-class crowds, these open-air setups incubated Hong Kong’s culinary elite. Institutions such as Yung Kee 鏞記, Joy Hing Roasted Meat 再興燒臘飯店, and Kau Kee Beef Brisket 九記牛腩 all trace their roots to humble roadside stalls before establishing permanent dining empires.

In 1972, the government stopped issuing new licences, systematically dismantling the open-air grid. Stalls moved into municipal cooked-food centres or indoor shopfronts, though landmarks like Lan Fong Yuen 蘭芳園 in Central retained original street counters. By 2005, a mere 28 licensed stalls survived across historical pockets in Central, Tai Hang, and Sham Shui Po, preserving the sensory memory of Hong Kong’s open-air past.

Zoning the Chaos

Determined to sanitise an overwhelmingly organic food economy, the colonial administration partitioned the Chinese population into designated Bazaars in Sheung Wan. To combat chaotic hawkers and open-air butchers spilling onto thoroughfares, the government deployed strict street-hawking bans alongside heavily regulated public markets.

Check out the 1842 Plan of Hong Kong on HK Maps to see where this is in present day (source: UK National Archive)

At the center of this system stood Central Market, opened in 1842 on Marine Lot No. 16. Positioned at the hinge between the Upper and Lower Bazaars, its walled rectangle faced the Praya, physically intercepting provisions arriving by boat and foot traffic along Queen’s Road. This fortress of commerce represented the colony’s first purpose-built attempt to drag the visceral provisioning trade off the street grid into a controlled, taxable space. Eastern Market followed in 1844 near Arsenal Street, and Western Market in 1858. Together, these architectural interventions systematically swept raw fish, vegetable, and meat trades out of alleys and behind sterile colonial walls.

Oligarchs of Flesh

In 1844, the administration cleared the ad‑hoc Middle Bazaar, moving the Chinese population uphill into Taipingshan. To operationalise municipal markets without public funds, Governor John Davis introduced “market farming”, auctioning exclusive operating and taxing rights. This privatisation policy created a new class of wealthy Chinese food oligarchs.

Loo Aqui 盧亞貴, a Tanka man who parlayed wartime British provisioning into land rewards, secured a foothold at the Lower Bazaar. Kwai Wah Lane 貴華里 in Sheung Wan still bears his alias. From this base, he built a property empire funded by gambling dens and brothels, co‑founding Man Mo Temple before speculative losses bankrupted him by 1855.

Securing live cattle from the mainland was a high‑stakes trade dominated until the 1870s by Kwok Acheong 郭甘章/郭亞祥/郭松, nicknamed Ngau Lan Atsung (牛欄阿松, “Cattle Market Atsung”). Kwok similarly transitioned from Tanka provisioning to a massive shipping empire, becoming the colony’s largest individual ratepayer. His corporate legacy endures on the map through Fat Hing Street (發興街), named after his company, though A Chung Lane 郭松街 has since vanished.

1901 plan of Victoria showing the three streets named after Loo Aqui and Kwok Acheong (source: HK Maps)

Sanitising the Grid

Living Stock

Tycoons like Kwok Acheong amassed fortunes commanding the cattle pipeline from comfortable shipping offices, completely insulated from the landward urban crises triggered by their livestock. As meat and dairy spoiled quickly in the heat, livestock remained alive until the very moment of slaughter. Traders dragged cattle and pigs directly into ground-floor tenements, turning them into urban barns where livestock stood tethered in darkness beneath the cramped cubicles of labourers.

A view of the Chinese tenements in the city of Victoria, 1870s and drawings showing typical configurations of Chinese tenements in Taipingshan, 1882 (source: academia.edu)

This human-animal proximity created the perfect vector for the 1894 bubonic plague, which devastated Taipingshan. The crisis was etched into Pound Lane 磅巷, named for the Government Pound that impounded stray livestock. In the aftermath, authorities demolished the slums, rewrote zoning laws, and exiled livestock trading to Kennedy Town, establishing centralised slaughterhouses at Smithfield 士美菲路 (named after London’s famous meat market).

Street Cleaning

This desire to scrub the city of its messy history extended to the map. As public markets multiplied, adjoining lanes were pragmatically christened "Market Street" (街市街). By the early 20th century, a dozen identical Market Streets created administrative headaches for postal deliveries and police patrols, prompting a systematic cartographic purge.

In Sheung Wan, the original Market Street was the epicenter of the 1894 plague. After the government demolished the tenements, the street was reborn in 1909 as Po Hing Fong 普慶坊 (“Terrace of Universal Celebration”), replacing mass mortality with forced optimism. Across the harbour, Hung Hom’s Market Street was renamed Wuhu Street 蕪湖街, replacing its market identity with a mainland Chinese city.

Today, only the Market Streets of Yau Ma Tei and Tsuen Wan survive as linguistic fossils. Western Market fronts New Market Street 新街市街, a name introduced when the government extended the market northward onto newly reclaimed land over a century ago, freezing the exact moment the colonial footprint shifted.

Plotting Growth

Monetise the Marshland

Before becoming one of the densest urban districts on Earth, modern Mong Kok was a coastal marshland named Mang Kok (芒角, "Corner of Fern-Gorse"). Under British administration, Chinese farmers cleared the brushland and engineered the swamps into productive market gardens to feed a growing population. When the government later paved over the area, the rectangular geometry of these water plots provided a template for developers, locking the footprint of modern streets to the dimensions of vegetable fields.

This agricultural history survives in local toponyms. Sai Yeung Choi Street (西洋菜街) marks where flooded fields grew watercress, a European herb introduced via Macau that became a staple of Cantonese lou fo tong (老火湯, slow-cooked soup). Simmered with pig's kernel, dried duck gizzards, and sweet dates, this broth served as a seasonal remedy to clear internal heat (下火) in the humid climate. Adjacent fields of water spinach inspired Tung Choi Street (通菜街). Intensive irrigation for these crops triggered mosquito concerns, prompting the colonial government to evict growers to rural districts and replace marshlands with concrete high-rises.

Pigs and Pragmatism

Widows being gifted cattle by Horace Kadoorie (source: HK Heritage)

After 1949, a massive refugee influx forced Hong Kong to confront a looming hunger crisis. The colony’s survival depended on turning the rugged New Territories into productive farmland. Stepping into the gap was the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association (KAAA), founded in 1951 by Lawrence and Horace Kadoorie.

The brothers designed a model for self-reliance, terracing steep hillsides across Tai Mo Shan and equipping refugees with livestock, tools, and training. KAAA distributed tens of thousands of animals, and donated cement to build over 300 kilometres of rural roads, dams, and channels. By the 1970s, these farms supplied over half of Hong Kong’s fresh greens, securing the base ingredients for the city's wet markets.

Today, the Kadoorie name is associated with premium addresses like Kadoorie Avenue and Kadoorie Close. However, the true monument to this history lives in forgotten corners of the New Territories: abandoned pigsties, concrete footbridges, and water embankments still stamped with the KAAA insignia, marking where displaced people engineered their own survival.

Conclusion

Hong Kong’s map is a monument to appetite, its street names carrying forward the labour of fishermen, hawkers, and refugees who fed the city even as colonial authorities tried to sanitise or erase their traces. Floral renamings and zoning laws sought to domesticate appetite, yet the geography resisted, holding on to the memory of salted fish, basin feasts, and green‑canopied kitchens. What survives is not just nomenclature but a reminder that survival itself shaped the city. The geography speaks of hunger as the force that shaped Hong Kong, a reminder that sustenance was never incidental but foundational to the city’s identity.

In the Next Installment...

Securing food was only half the battle. As Hong Kong expanded into a dense imperial hub, absolute freshwater scarcity became its paramount existential crisis. The city’s topography permanently records this desperate hydrological engineering. Next, we map these liquid histories, from contagion-breeding urban wells to sweeping colonial catchwaters and life-preserving ice.

Appetite for Survival