Occupied Space, Occupied Time: Food Hawking and the Central Market in Hong Kong’s Victoria City during the Opium War

Abstract

This article explains British measures against food hawking in the emergent city of Victoria, Hong Kong during the Opium War. It argues that British interest in the long-term development of Hong Kong can be traced back to the establishment in May 1842 of the Central Market in Victoria specifically to prevent food peddling. It was a time when Hong Kong was still under military occupation and its status as a British colony was uncertain. Although Hong Kong’s public markets were associated with many of the problems that came with early British rule in the territory, the British administrators of Opium War Hong Kong intended that the Central Market, the first public market in Victoria, benefit both the Western and Chinese communities. This article also argues that the founding of the Central Market to eliminate food hawking exemplifies the overall manner that the British authorities took in dealing with the urban Chinese population. In addition to strictly prohibiting Chinese peddling, which often obstructed roads and streets, the authorities encouraged Chinese food hawkers to move to the orderly Central Market. While the British authorities exercised some direct control to maintain social order inside the Central Market, the government appointed a better-off Chinese person to oversee its routine operation. The 1842 Central Market was one of the earliest urban Chinese “elite organizations” in British Hong Kong where Chinese elites managed the affairs of the Chinese community of Victoria city.