Hong Kong street food
[1] They can be found throughout the city, especially in the areas of Mong Kok, Causeway Bay, Yuen Long, Tsuen Wan, and Kwun Tong.
Cultural research suggests that food stalls supply a variety of snacks, including both local and international, ranging from red-bean pudding from Guangdong to Thai prawn cutlets.
[3] As highlighted in a feature article namely 'Finding the Dining Habit of the Unemployed' (Chinese: 尋找地踎飲食), the scene of hawkers carrying wood barrels, traditional wares and stoves has become part of the history of local street snacks.
[4] In the 1950s, facing the economic downturn and high unemployment rate, the majority of grass roots were forced to become itinerant hawkers to maintain their livelihood.
However, the Hong Kong government has banned these type of shops in order to build a hygienic image of the society while maintaining public health.
According to a publicity film released by the Medical and Health Department in 1987, food stalls were considered unhygienic in terms of their environment and cooking process.
At that time, people lived in extremely crammed environment, many them chose to start their 'business' in the street, including food selling, singing and story telling.
Due to the limited supply of itinerant licenses and the introduction of a compulsory deletion policy, hawkers have a fixed bunk after moving into shopping malls.
[18] But nowadays, street snacks are mainly located in six districts, including Eastern, Central and Western, Wan Chai, Yau Tsim Mong, Sham Shui Po and Kowloon City.
[20] According to Reuters' article, Hong Kong street food gourmets was ranked the first in the top 10 street-food cities by online travel advisor Cheapflights.com in 2013.
The alterable essence of local street food has demonstrated Hong Kong cultural acceptance and serves as a medium to display its character to the world.
In 2015, a marked rise in nativist sentiment led to the growing influence of localist parties such as Civic Passion and Hong Kong Indigenous.
Localists, feeling that street vendors – who generally representing the bottom stratum of Hong Kong society – were being increasingly oppressed by a government colluding with commercial interests and property owners, offered high-profile support for the traditional lunar new year Kweilin Street Night Market in 2015 when it was targeted for closure by the CY Leung administration.
On the eve of lunar new year in 2016, FEHD inspectors carried out a pre-emptive raid against street vendors in Sham Shui Po, and made arrests and seizures.
This led to the 2016 Mong Kok civil unrest, where nativists defended stall holders from being victimised by FEHD inspectors and engaged in confrontations with the police.
