Legends of old Hong Kong
This former British territory is synonymous with skyscrapers and light shows, but beneath its steely glint the city is beholden to deities, rituals and urban legends. Alongside myths inherited from China, Hong Kong ha!s spun its own tales from events in its modern history. Ghostly whispers about Sheung Wan and Western District have origins in the Bubonic Plague that began in 1894. Reports of poltergeists are common at sites where executions took place during WWII. Then there are the stories that no city is immune to, around murder scenes, prisons and cemeteries. But most fascinating are the legends born of the fantasies, obsessions and taboos of ordinary citizens, made wilder through decades of retelling.
1-Yau Ma Tei Theatre
Mention Yau Ma Tei Theatre to any Hong Konger and you’ll get a knowing smile. It’s unfair, but this 1930s relic a mix of classical, Art Deco and Chinese styles of architecture, and the only pre WWII theatre lef in Kowloon is best known for its years as a porno cinema. It began life showing silent filmsto hawkers and fishermen. Asthe film industry flourished in the 1960s,so did the cinema.The 1980sled to an influx of low budget porn and an ‘all you can watch’ policy, before the business went under in 1998. Despite this, the translations of the film titles legendary in their irreverence and too filthy for words stuck in the city’s memory. The theatre is now a Cantonese opera training and performance centre.
2- Wholesale Fruit Market
Behind the theatre isthe century old Wholesale Fruit Market, a labyrinth that once made a popular backdrop for crime thrillers. In the 1980s and 1990s, Triads exploited its shadowy layout to run drug trafc and gambling dens. Gang fights were frequent. Now peace (and CCTV) reign, and it’s a safe, indeed charming place in which to lose yourself. The one or two storey stone buildingsin the 1.5 hectare sprawlsport gables and pedimentsin a Dutch Colonialstyle, carved with traders’ names.Trees sprout from parapet walls, and smells of fruit, both fresh and rotting, permeate the arcades.
3 - JL Ceramics
Blindman Nanyin is a soulful music that featuressinging and narration in colloquial Cantonese. Originating in Guangdong during the Qing dynasty, it was performed by blind beggars all over Hong Kong in the early 20th century, notably in the opium dens, brothels and teahouses of the old red light district. The beggarssang of doomed love between courtesans and customers, life on the streets, suicide by opium swallowing harsh realitiesromanticised by posterity. The craf and antiquesshop JL Ceramics Concept Store holds Nanyin concerts, usually on the third Saturday of every month. You might hear Man Burning Funerary Goods, in which the lover of a debt ridden courtesan who hanged herself burns paper oferings. Check out the decor 1930s floor tiles and French doors, and original terrazzo stairwell.
4 - Luk Yu Tea House
Arguably Hong Kong’s most beautiful teahouse, 85 yearold Luk Yu was where illustrious painters and writers used to come for dim sum. It wasn’t until burglars made away with 18 paintingsin 1996 that the rest of Hong Kong realised the exorbitant value of its art collection. Today Luk Yu is known for its old school Cantonese cooking. Some of the waiters who poured tea for the literati as boys are still here, as are the lovely ceiling fans, folding screens and stained windowsthat together make up the finest example of Asian Art Deco in Hong Kong.
5 - Central Police Station
Hong Kong’s oldestsymbol of law and order has been turned into an arts hub called Tai Kwun (‘Big Station’) by a team starring Swiss architect firm Herzog & de Meuron, also behind the Tate Modern extension in London. The 19th century complex, ten minutesfrom Centralsubway station, comprisesthe old police HQ, a magistrate’s court and Victoria Prison. Fleeing rebels, exiled writers and prisoners of the Japanese military did time here, and public executionstook place. More than 2,000 spectators attended the first (in 1859), of two Englishmen convicted of murder. The facility isrife with ghoststories. One tells of a workerstruck dumb by the uncanny. The poor man slept in the hall by a connecting bridge between prison block and magistracy. One night he saw dead prisoners floating into his makeshif bedroom, and lost the ability to speak ever afer.
6 - Aberdeen West Typhoon Shelter
Vigorous dragonboat action at dusk is one of many ritual rich sightsin a city whose patron deity is Tin Hau, Goddess of the Sea. ‘On Tin Hau’s birthday we pay our respects at her temples,’says boatman Leung Ka lung. ‘Then we collect the partially burnt incense sticks and stash them away on our boats. If we need protection during a fishing trip, we light incense. Say we haul in a [human] corpse. Either we find an island to bury it or we light incense and bury it when we get home. People who throw one overboard are plagued by misfortune.’ If you want to see the harbour via boat ride yourself,sampan operators mill around the eastern end of Aberdeen Promenade, a 40 minute busride from Central. In the 1960s, the water was covered by a blanket of boats; now you’llsee fishing junks next to luxury yachts; temples and shipyardsside by side luxury high rises.