Ask Mr. Know-It-All: Why does everyone go to Pottinger Street for their costumes?

Dear Mr. Know-It-All,
On Halloween, everyone knows to go to Pottinger Street for their costumes. But why is that, exactly? – Costumed Crusader

Pottinger Street—known as sek baan gai (石板街), or “stone slab street,” thanks to its shallow, wide granite steps—is one of Hong Kong’s oldest streets. It was named in 1858 after Sir Henry Pottinger, the first Governor of Hong Kong. He was the one who negotiated the terms of the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, which relinquished Hong Kong Island to British rule, beyond the remit of his instructions from London. Pottinger resigned after only a single year in the post, but his name has lived beyond him in this street of face paint, feather boas and peril for those in high heels.

The first stalls sprung up on Pottinger Street after the end of World War II, as families scrambled to make money in the post-war slump. (During the war, an air-raid shelter running into the hillside was built under the street. Never used, it was eventually filled-in during the 80s.) The green tin stalls started out providing the kind of services any residential community needs—homeware, clothing alterations, bric-à-brac of all kinds. This continued through to the 1980s, when Hong Kong reared its head as one of the Asian tigers. As Central became less and less residential, the shops had to move with the times, and they switched to handicrafts and accessories—and ultimately, to costumes, wigs, decorations and all the paraphernalia you’d ever need for a Halloween in Lan Kwai Fong.

It’s a shame, in a way, that the street has gone from the quiet industry of metalworking and clothing alterations to the bustle of neon wigs, rubber masks and ludicrous hats. But history remains in those unmoving granite slabs, and even in places such as the new Pottinger Hong Kong hotel, which looks to reunite the street with its past. Besides, it’s the Hong Kong way: To shift with the times. To find the niche. To be the best place on this smoggy earth to find the perfect Halloween costume, even at 6pm on October 31 itself.

The last word about Pottinger Street should go to Sir Henry Pottinger himself. In 1842, he forwarded the signed Treaty of Nanking to the British Foreign Secretary. “The retention of Hong Kong is the only point in which I have intentionally exceeded my modified instructions,” he wrote, “but every single hour I have passed in this superb country has convinced me of the necessity and desirability of our possessing such a settlement.” It may not have seemed obvious then: but Pottinger was right all along.

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