The wet markets in Hong Kong have always had a special place in my heart. I used to follow my mum religiously into the market after she picked me up from school, and that's one of my favourite things to do with her. The market is a constant flux of hustle and bustle, a feast for the senses as soon as you step inside. Vendors would shout in Cantonese to attract passerby's attention, making loud announcements of what's the freshest produce they've got, how sweet their apples are, or whatever that's on sale at the end of the day. "Mai lai garn lah wei," a universal phrase that you'll hear at any wet market. In Cantonese, it means Come over here and check this out!". All sorts of vegetables and fruits are piled up into mountains. You can smell the fishiness even though you're a few corners away from the fishmongers' stalls.
Raw meat is shown naked by pointy-sharp hooks, with classic plastic red lamp shades hovering over it. The flesh glows with a pinkish rue, and I assume the lighting has something to do with making the meat look more fresh and appealing. You might wonder, are those meat safe to eat? Don't they go bad without being refrigerated? Upon asking one of the butchers, he told us the way the air-conditioning and ventilation system are built specifically to keep the meat stay fresh. Such question had never came across my mind, since I've been eating meat from the butchers at the markets since I was born. It's not just the meat you'll find in bare display here. Nothing goes to waste at the butchers. The ears, the kidneys, the livers, and even reproductive tracts of a pig are considered as delicacies in Hong Kong.
My mother would get fresh pork for making either soup, stir-fry or steamed pork patty. There are specific cuts used for each of these dishes. Lean pork with bones is ideal for Chinese soups, while ribs are great for stir-fry and minced pork with just the right fat ratio is perfect for a classic steamed pork patty with preserved mui choi (mustard greens in Cantonese). She'd tell the butcher approximately what the meat is for, and the butcher would take his sharpened knife, cutting through the meat swiftly, then throw the block onto the scale. His years of experience allow him to be almost 100% accurate of the portion his customers ask for.
Next door, rows and rows of vegetables line up next to each other. Our eggplants here are longer and slimmer, and I've lost count of the different types of melons we have in Hong Kong. Even bittermelons come in different shades. White bittermelons are perfect for juices or you could make them into a cold appetiser, topped with yuzu peels and a drizzle of honey. Apparently red carrots and ginger are grown a lot larger here compared to those in the West, and my guests often gasp in surprise as they lay their eyes upon these "giangantic" produce.
When it comes to seafood, Hong Kongers do not joke around. Look carefully at the back of the shop where the most prized fishes are swimming in. There are wild groupers with wild names such as sparrow grouper, eastern star grouper, and something as random and weird as mouse grouper. We've got wild scallops, abalones flown all the way from South Africa, lobsters from France, and long-haired crabs from Alaska and Hokkaido. If you're a seafood connoisseur, we have Scottish razor clams that are served either humbly steamed with garlic and glass noodles, or black bean sauce with green and red peppers, and onions. If you're in luck, you'll be able to get your hands on some goose knuckles, the type of exotic seafood that you'll find at Michelin Star restaurants. Believe it or not, we even have fishes that could help you heal faster. The Chinese say that Shek Shun Yu (rock fish) helps to heal wounds more quickly. My friend told me her brother actually asked their mother to make him fish soup made with specifically this breed of fish after he finished his surgery.
The wet markets are also a wonderland for kids who want to grab a quick bite after school. A five-dollar back in the 90s and early 2000s would cover a skewer of siu mai or curry fishballs, or a bud jai go, a brown/white sugar red bean cake steamed in a porcelain bowl. To make sure your belly is well-fed and stops grumbling before getting home, how about a serving of cheung fun? The rice noodle rolls are chopped into smaller pieces, drenched in soy sauce, sweet sauce, peanut sauce, and a generous handful of sesame. Two bamboo sticks in and voila! Here goes your breakfast/afternoon tea snack. There are also stalls dedicated specifically to soybean products. Whether it's silken tofu, semi-soft tofu to tofu pockets that float in noodles, or pickled veggies and pig blood cubes, the list almost goes endless. My very first memory at the wet market was my 4-year old self lurking around a tofu stall on the street in Shum Shui Po in Kowloon. The stall table just a tad taller than me, and my eyes couldn't help but stare at the assortments of goodies on display. I remember reaching out my little hand to someone right next to me, thinking that it was my mother. Only it turned out to be a middle-aged man. Thank goodness he was no "goldfish man" (a Cantonese slang that mums like to use to scare their kids to make sure they don't run around), and my mum found me almost going home with a stranger. She couldn't decide whether she should laugh or cry out of relief.
The wet market is also home to little ethnic food stores such as Indonesians' run mum-and-pop shops. My favourite sweet from the shop was pandan cake, with multi-layers of coconut milk and pandan. There's something about unwrapping a small piece of steamed, soft cake and taking the first bite, as you chew through the mix of milkiness and sweetness. It's also a token of comfort for the live-in housemaids who moved from their hometown in the Philippines or Indonesia to Hong Kong. These ladies sacrifice their personal lives and their families behind to make sure they make enough money to send back to their loved ones back home. The shops at the wet markets are their safe haven, their refuge when they live in a city that's far away from home. Some shops even make their own Indonesian / Filipino bentos.
It was only until I moved to Canada had I realised how spoiled I was, and how much I took it for granted of the wet markets in Hong Kong. The abundance of produces, the variety of seafood, the endless types of condiments, are what make Hong Kong and her cuisine so unique. When you buy veggies at a wet market in Hong Kong, the auntie will always give you free scallions to take home. I always thought it was a given that scallions come hand-in-hand with whatever veggies you're buying. But oh boy, I was so wrong. They don't give you free scallions in Canada, and when you buy them in the supermarkets, they're all stale and don't even come close to the fine quality that you're used to back home.
And that's when you know where your heart will always belong to. Hong Kong.
