Photo Essay: The Colours and Things of Upper Lascar Row Antique Street Market

Upper Lascar Row, also known as Cat Street, is a quaint outdoor street market best known for antique shopping. The street market sells everything from cartoon figurines, pre-1997 Hong Kong memorabilia, 1980s technology, old movie posters, porcelain, Buddha statues, and jade gems.

The 1920s in British Hong Kong saw the neighbourhood transform into an open-air marketplace for stollen second-hand goods and antiques. The Cantonese name of the market, Cat Street (貓街 maau1 gaai1), derives from the cat and mouse nature of the street. Stolen goods, also known as “mouse goods” (老鼠貨 lou5 syu2 fo3), are reportedly sold at vendors’ stores; the people who rummage around the markets in search of a bargain are called cats.

Today's Cat Street has a regular flow of regulars and inquisitive local tourists visiting. You can find antique dealers selling Chairman Mao manikins, copper coins, postcards of 1800s Hong Kong, stamps, Qing dynasty vases, watches, and wooden statues.