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Then & NowThe legacy of Hong Kong’s signature curio shops
Long a magnet for tourists, the vast choice of ‘oriental’ curios on sale at visitor hotspots across Hong Kong have been a feature of the city since its urban beginnings
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Since the mid-19th century, Hong Kong has been famed for the extensive array of (mostly, but not exclusively, Chinese) curios available in speciality shops. A mainstay of the local tourism industry, generations of visitors have departed these shores with some appealingly “oriental” item tucked away in their baggage as a memento of their stay. While some are genuine antiques, most curios are recently manufactured. Porcelain items, jade and intricately carved netsuke remain popular, along with Swatow embroideries, Mandarin coats and scroll paintings.
Despite the wholesale decimation of African elephant populations in recent years, carved ivory curios remain popular purchases for the less environmentally conscious, and Hong Kong’s numerous ivory shops have insisted, for the past few decades, that items are all made from “old stocks”.
From the 1920s, open-air second-hand stalls along Upper and Lower Lascar Rows, just below the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road, were regularly referenced in contemporary guidebooks and thus became popular tourist hunting grounds for curiosities. More credulous visitors still hope for hidden treasure among the random bric-a-brac, mostly caked in dust, found jumbled together. For some bargain hunters, this fusty atmosphere is a large part of the appeal. Until well into the 60s, these lanes also had a well-deserved reputation among local residents as a thief’s market, where newly burgled householders surreptitiously checked out stalls to see whether their stolen property was being fenced.
During the worldwide tourism boom that characterised the Roaring Twenties, wealthy passengers who travelled on round-the-world ocean liners typically staged through Hong Kong on their journeys. In the interwar years, upmarket shopping arcades located within popular hotels, such as The Peninsula in Kowloon or between the Gloucester and the Hongkong Hotel in Central, each had at least one curio dealer to meet demand from passing tourists. Surrounding backstreets had many more to choose from.
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