Then & Now | How Friday market in Shek Kong, where Hong Kong’s British service wives found discounted delights, is but a memory, like so much else in the city
- Wives of British soldiers bought clothes, vases and other discounted goods at a weekly bazaar near the garrison in then remote Shek Kong in the New Territories
- With the British leaving Hong Kong with the 1997 handover, the market closed for good – and now lives on only in the memories of those who shopped there
Stick around in one place for long enough and unexpected aspects of one’s own personal life experiences merge into local historical memory, and pique the interest of a younger generation.
This happened recently, when a young Hong Kong Chinese friend who lives elsewhere in the New Territories came to stay with us at Shek Kong.
Along with curious discussions of what is locally termed “Army Camp Food” – the kind of Indian-influenced fare that used to be available from local military canteens – talk also turned to the long ago vanished Friday market at Shek Kong Village, which he had, of course, never seen for himself.
In those years, Shek Kong was remote from urban Hong Kong; various welfare provisions, such as the Friday market, helped alleviate the social isolation many service wives – especially those with young children – experienced in their daily lives.