The Central Market
Along the busy Queen’s Road Central stands a market that has a long history serving the daily needs of Central residents since the beginning of Hong Kong as a British colony. First opened in 1842, the year after the British formally began their colonial administration of Hong Kong, the Central Market has gone through a few constructed buildings as a market place.
Central Market: A Brief History
In its very inception, the Central Market stood on Queen’s Road Central, then the throughway that ran the east-west direction near the coastline of Hong Kong Island’s northern shore. The natural inference is that this location would be ideal for the sake of logistics.
The Central Market was always part of Victoria City, but certainly the settlement area for the Chinese residents, at the city’s western end. It is believed that the very first Central Market was built to cater to the needs of the influx of Chinese population from Guangdong at that time.
In 1858, the second generation Central Market building was reconstructed to once again answer the demand for marketplaces due to an influx of Chinese population. The market was officially named Central Market then, and its boundary was demarcated with the bordering Jubilee Street and Queen Victoria Street.
Beginning in 1889, the Central Market underwent another reconstruction. The third generation Central Market was a red brick building with granite finish. It also had two stories and two blocks, with a central avenue that separated them.
The modernization of the Central Market continued well into the 20th century. In 1939, the fourth generation Central Market came into being, in the architectural style of the Streamline Moderne that served the functional purposes of the market. The building accommodated 250 market stalls with an open atrium.
The Central Market had witnessed more than a century of changes in this location of Hong Kong’s business district. Having gone through a few phases of reinvention, it finally ceased in its historic role as a wet market in 2003. In 2002, the Hong Kong Government had put the market on the Land Application List for 2004. That meant that the original plan for this space was the demolishment of the market building for new uses. For years, the Central Market lied vacant awaiting the final determination of its fate.
In 2005, a group of stakeholders, including architects, district councils and some important persons in the society, called upon the government to preserve the Central Market. They cited the reason that the Central Market was the only surviving building in Hong Kong that represented the Bauhaus architectural style. There was a bit of controversy then, but in 2009, the government finally included the Central Market into its heritage preservation program, “Conserving Central.”
In 2021, the Hong Kong Government finally finished the revitalization of the Central Market and it reopened for business, although certainly in a format that meets the current standards of higher-end leisure and dining.
The Historical Significance of the Central Market in the Early Colonial Times
Despite it being a marketplace for the early merchants and farmers of Hong Kong, the Central Market stood for a historical significance far beyond being a place of business for the Chinese community living in the “Chinese section” of Victoria City. A number of academic articles about the history of the Central Market note a common observation. The Central Market was a perfect microcosm that reflected the complicated relationships between the colonial government of Hong Kong, the business communities (both Chinese and foreign) that represented the money, and the lives of the common shopkeepers that simply wanted to make a living.
In 1842, the Central Market began its first page in history with the support by then Colonial Secretary Colonel George Malcolm. In its very beginning, the colonial government owned the central market and collected a standard rate of rent from the stalls. A certain man named Hwei Aqui was the superintendent of the market.
However, in 1844, the government wished to turn a profit from the market. The decision was to auction the right to the market to the highest bidder, who would hold the license for a fixed term to run the market. He would be allowed to charge the stalls at whatever rate that he deemed fit. The owner of the market had the obligation to pay the government rent on an annual basis, but he also had the obligation to maintain the physical infrastructure of the market and the roads. As it turned out, Hwei Aqui won the bid. Perhaps not too surprisingly, the rent for the market experienced significant hikes very quickly. Hwei Aqui was soon in debt as he became too ambitious trying to develop the property in the land between Queen’s Road Central and the shoreline.
Before Hwei Aqui’s death in 1846, he entered into a number of complicated shareholder arrangements, debt instruments and partnerships to maintain the business at Central Market and the corresponding property development. In his dealing with fellow Chinese businessmen and the colonial government arose many disputes that exposed the extortionary practices of the colonial government officials and scandals involving foreigners. Lawsuits and media expose about the corruption troubled the Central Market within its first decade of existence.
Until 1847, the Chinese people of Hong Kong monopolized the market business. But eventually the colonial government opened up the licensing mechanism for application by foreign and Chinese merchants alike. The wet market was very much a Chinese way to acquire daily necessities, but both foreigners and Chinese businessmen perceived the profitability of being a market proprietor.
A Revitalized Space for Leisure
The Central Market now is populated with trendy establishments, be they food, coffee, bar, souvenirs or any kind of shop, featuring local or foreign varieties in what they sell. The venue offers an outdoor seating area, which would have been the open atrium of the 4th generation Central Market. On good days they are the perfect sit-down ambience for coffee.
Needless to say, the dramas of business and government dealings under Hwei Aqui’s early lease of the market are but buried in esoteric history journals. Perhaps what remains of the Central Market now are merely touches of nostalgia. The original staircases are preserved. There are also signages here and there that bear a significance that only a keen eye for historic detail would be able to notice. On the underground floor, a section with exhibits introduces a brief history of the Central Market, for those that are indeed interested in the heritage that it represents. There are stalls set up that purport to convey just a sense of the past, reenacting scenes of the fresh foods that were sold in this market.
Sources
Descriptions on site at the Central market
The Wikipedia on the Central Market.
Dafydd Emrys Evans, The Origins of Hong Kong’s Central Market and the Tarrant Affair, 12 J. of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 150 (1972).
The Central Market website.