words cindy lam

It may sound like an urban legend that before dawn each day a Hong Kong street belongs to goldfish.

But it is true. Such a street exists and as in the children’s book Secret Garden in which a garden appears at midnight but is gone in the morning. This ‘secret garden’ materializes, not in a book and not in a dream, just before the sun rises – but is gone by the time early commuters wend their way to their daily grind.

Tin Kwong Hui, literally meaning marketplace at dawn, is located at the junction of Flower Market Path and Boundary Street. It is a trading place for goldfish and aquarium equipment with a history that dates back to the early ’80s when fish hawkers gathered at Mong Kok KCR station, near Waterloo Road, to sell their wares. They traded only in the early hours to avoid blocking traffic and incurring the wrath of government officials and so the market became known as Tin Kwong Hui – the marketplace of the sunrise.

When the government reclaimed the land around the station for commercial use in the early nineties, many of the hawkers moved to more permanent facilities at Tung Choi Street, now nicknamed ‘Goldfish Street’ in Prince Edward. Some, however, decided to stay with the lifestyle, and moved their Goldfish Market to its current location.

The market at Boundary Street consists of two types of sellers – wholesalers and home breeders. The former are large-scale producers and sell fish to retail stores as well as their early-rising customers at Tin Kwong Hui. Many customers aim their 5am visits to the market at these bigger breeders, as the price is a fifth of any retail tag. A kindergarten principal bustles about, buying goldfish in bulk. At first, the hawkers think she must be someone rich, very rich, as she mentions owning an outdoor pond and is looking for bigger fish. But she laughs and tells them, “No, I am actually just buying for the enjoyment of my kindergarten kids.” She says the good prices drew her here and then buys mainly from the stall of wholesalers Mr and Mrs Wong who run a large fish farm in the New Territories. The Wongs and their minivan are among the earliest here every day, barring Mondays and rainy days.

By 5:30am they have everything set up—not only fish in transparent plastic bags but turtles and seaweeds in baskets on the pavement. “We know all the species by heart. Many customers are real goldfish experts. We have got to answer them thoroughly. We mainly distinguish the fish according to the shape, the tail, the color, the eyes or the size. The oviformis is egg-shaped, just like little marbles. People love them because they swim so cutely. There is the uranoscopus, which have their eyes bulging out. And not all goldfish are golden in color, we also have ‘Black Angels’ which are black in color. People like them to have a change, or for diversity in their tanks.” “Actually many fish-breeders and sellers make up names for the fish, not according to their scientific names but rather to their looks. There are goldfish, discus, parrot fish, stream fish, and tropical fish but all have funny substitute names like ‘Golden Monkey’, ‘Peacon’.. We call this one ‘Fortune Fish’,” says Mrs. Wong, picking up a fish of golden orange. Smiling she continues “Chinese like lucky names, and many buy fish for feng shui purposes. Lucky names help sell the fish.”

The Wongs also have large torches on hand for customers to spotlight the glittering goldfish for a better look. The dimness of the market becoming a scintillating interplay of colour, flashes and fish as the customers examine the different fish. Besides the Wongs, there are between eight to ten vendors each day offering a wide variety of fish and supplies. On Sundays, there will be more vendors but fish sell out a lot faster. You have to act quickly to pick your favourite bags and fish.

Compared to the wholesalers in their vans, the home breeders often bring their fish here on foot, spreading their beauties across the pavement. Usually they breed their fish at home – like Mr Chan from Shek Kip Mei. As long as it does not rain, he comes every day, carrying his fish all the way in boxes to Prince Edward. He doesn’t exactly know how many tanks he has at home but he is frank about how he breeds the fish. “I would put one male and one female of the same species to a tank and let them mate. Not every couple works but eventually a female will lay eggs.” Individual sellers like him tend to breed only the most beautiful, and thus the most expensive, species – spread out before him are many tropical fish, some with big tails, and one with a large colourful head, called a ‘Flower Horn’. He says "Normally this size of fish would be worth $3,000 but in the current economic climate it’s hard to sell at such a price, I would be happy to have it away at $1,000. Things have changed a lot”, he sighs, and drifts to reminiscences of the old days at the Mong Kok train station.

“There were many more vendors and customers then – and fewer retail outlets in those days (today the main locations for goldfish shopping are Tung Choi Street and the HK Aquarium Plaza at Quarry Bay) and people flocked to Tin Kwong Hui to buy all kinds of fish, feed and equipment,” Mr Chan remembers. “Since 1997, fewer and fewer people come here, and very few are now willing to pay for expensive species”.

The smaller vendors, like Mr. Chan, remain after the bigger ones have retreated for the day. They are more mobile and stay on hoping customers will still be interested after all the hustling with their bigger competitors. But these home breeders are also more laid back, taking time to chat
with customers and brag about their swimming beauties.

Mr Chan says not all necessarily breed their fish themselves – some will be imported from the Mainland. The Customs and Excise Department allows people to take as many fish as they want across the border, as long as it’s not an endangered species. Mr Chan takes advantage of that, ‘shipping’ the fish himself. He says for the more valuable species, it is very profitable to buy in Mainland and sell in Hong Kong.

As the sun emerges, even the smaller vendors start to pack up and move on. Trucks and vans were initially scattered in all directions – only nighttime allow such haphazard parking. But as 7am approaches, the last of the hawkers leave even though there are still many customers. Some of whom complain about arriving too late. “It is hard to get up so early, I think I’ll have to come again on the weekend,” one groans. At 7:30am, when the school buses start to appear on Boundary Street, the pavement is clear – as if the market was a dream.

Taxi Intelligence

Taxi drivers know the most about Hong Kong’s hidden places – the first I knew of Tin Kwong Hui was when passing by in a taxi after working overtime one morning. I thought there had been a traffic accident but the driver laughed and said it was the goldfish market. And that was how I was introduced to this little-known congregation. On the mornings I visited the market, some of the taxi drivers stopped by to buy fish. While I was talking to vendors, one joined our conversation, commenting that I had probably not been born when these vendors first sold at Tin Kwong Hui – hinting to the that fact that he had been a loyal customer since the early ’80s. He said he usually visited the market when his shift ended, more convenient than for those with regular working hours. A surprising number of taxis parked by the market, and it seemed as though the taxi drivers have a kind of special connection with the goldfish market. Perhaps because they share the life of business at that hour, or perhaps the taxi drivers just like to keep their fingers on the pulse of the city’s secrets.