Tai Po

Behind the impressive high rises, glittering lights, and chic restaurants and shopping malls that adorn tourist brochures, the back streets of Hong Kong resemble those of any third world city. Pedestrians spit freely, discarded plastic bags and containers are thrown casually on the street, and rotting fruits and vegetables block drains. The stench of drains pervades back streets and the most fashionable areas. Nowhere is the resemblance to the third world more evident than in the “wet markets” that are found everywhere in Hong Kong.

So called because they are regularly hosed down with water (which also ensures that shoppers have to walk on soggy floors), wet markets are home to vegetable, fish, and meat vendors offering these staple items at prices far below those in supermarkets. In some respects, wet markets epitomize to roots of most Hong Kong citizens, resembling the open markets of Mainland China. The stalls may be crude and unhygienic, the floor may be wet and slippery, but the goods are fresh and cheap, and to most Hong Kong citizens, a bargain is what matters most. That’s probably why more than 100 wet and markets dot the Hong Kong landscape, located mainly on the ground floors and basements of housing estates and railway stations. Licensed stallholders compete with illegal hawkers, who brave the constant police patrols and arrests in order to sell inexpensive Chinese goods, mostly cheap rip-offs of western labels such as Nike and Polo.

When I lived in the staff quarters of the Chinese University in the late 1990s, my favorite wet market was in Tai Po, a market town in the New Territories only a 10-minute drive from campus. Although surrounded by an industrial estate, Tai Po still retains the flavor and friendliness of a traditional Chinese town. The buildings maybe mildewed and soot-stained, but Tai Po gains in friendliness what it lacks in glittering shopping malls. Especially in comparison with nearby Shatin, which boasts wall-to-wall, multistoried shopping malls with name brand stores that harbor sulky, indifferent saleswomen, Tai Po consists mainly of smaller and friendlier mom-and-pop stores located at street level, with the owners often living on the floor above. The numerous Chinese restaurants and the occasional Thai and Indian restaurant give the local McDonalds a run for its money. In those days, on the way to the wet market, a store that sold diving gear vied with the London Pub, and the Shalimar, the Indian curry place, which still adjoins a garish furniture store. Across the street was the best picture framer I have met in Hong Kong and down the street is the restaurant that sells snakes; the live commodities--cobras, vipers, and rat snakes, are displayed in wire cages for the customers’ selection. Sue’s Flower Shop competed with Wendy’s Flowers down the street, a jewelry shop with glittering showcases wedged between them. Across the street were two herbalists, whose salespeople didn’t speak a word of English yet served me with a smile. Next to the Thai restaurant was the barbershop, which still adjoins two bridal stores. Two pet stores are neighbors to a home for the aged. A few steps down is an old Chinese temple that houses sooty, spine-chilling figures of deities in dark corners.

The streets are narrow, jam-packed with bright green New Territories taxis and 16-seater “light” buses driven by speed maniacs. But, unlike in most Hong Kong towns, the sidewalks are broad and generally uncrowded. Old men sit in the squares playing mahjong or watching the world go by. Grandmothers, half bent with age, saunter down the streets on the way to and back from schools accompanying smartly attired preschoolers.

The wet market announced itself with a littering of discarded vegetables, fruits, and squashed dog turds. The entrance was narrow, two vegetable sellers having scattered their produce on either side. The narrow passageway was lined by a dry goods seller, pushing everything from dried frogs and lizards for medicinal purposes to tiny shrimp that add spice to fried rice. Further along is the doorway that advertised Indonesian lunches. An old Chinese woman surprised me one day by speaking in Malay, which lead me to assume that a few Chinese families that fled the anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia in the 1960s were probably resident there.

I would descend a few broken steps into the wet market proper. On my left was the vegetable stall run by two sisters, shy schoolgirls who took turns manning the stall. Even if their English was scanty, they were able to tell me the price. The opposite stall was run by an old woman who sold the best papaya in the market, although she was seldom found at her stall. Directly opposite were the stalls that sold seafood, but I would first see the frog-seller decapitating frogs in quick succession with an evil-looking cleaver. A few yards away over the sloshing floor stood my favorite fish-seller, Wincy. I usually visited the market during the early afternoon, and Wincy would greet me with raised eyebrows and the inevitable “Holiday today?” I was compelled to explain that it is merely my lunch hour, not a holiday. Wincy sold my favorite Spanish mackerel as well as red snapper, mullet, and shrimp. Her sisters stood on either side while her mother squatted on the stall, in charge of the shrimp. An expert at filleting or steaking the fish, Wincy wielded her cleaver with artistic ease and grace.

Although it has the look and feel of a traditional town, almost everyone in Tai Po speaks a smattering of English. The old man who sold me potatoes would cry “Four dollar” when I asked the price. When words fail, others would display the coins or the notes to indicate how much I owed them.

In every sense, Hong Kong is a place of contrasts, hanging precariously between the first and third worlds. Wet markets and traditional towns such as Tai Po may tilt it towards the latter, but the liveliness and bustle and the friendliness of the locals compensate for what may be lost of the glitter and glamour.

Alas, the wet market in Tai Po was pulled down some years ago and replaced with a gleaming, more “hygienic” structure. Living in far away Sai Kung, I don’t shop there anymore. But, the chicken tikka and the mutton curry of the Indian restaurant Shalimar still beckon, and I sneak off for lunch there once in a while.