Cat Street Market and Man Mo Temple
21/05/2018
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By Ms Rainy Chan - Regional Vice President, The Peninsula Hotels and General Manager, The Peninsula Hong Kong
"I love visiting Cat Street (Upper Lascar Row) on Hong Kong Island for its well-known antiques market and seeking out interesting pieces dating from the 1930s. Located just below Hollywood Road, near the Man Mo Temple, discover exquisite objects and art pieces recovered from almost every Chinese dynasty, as well as magnificent reproductions. Here you can find antique cameras, vintage posters, old clocks, vinyl and shellac records, radios, dusty old coins and other intriguing trinkets – all of which were part of ordinary life 80 or 90 years ago.
I often combine a trip to Cat Street with a visit to the Man Mo Temple. In the early days of Hong Kong, there were no temples in Sheung Wan, but the incoming Chinese population petitioned the new British administration to grant land to build a temple and the Man Mo Temple site was established.
The inside of the temple is magnificent, full of incense coils offered by merchants and residents, as well as gilded sedan chairs used to carry the statues of the gods through the streets to drive out the demons of disease. The Temple’s old Meeting Hall is home to fortune tellers and sellers of good luck tokens. The Man Mo Temple is truly redolent of the past and has played a significant role in Chinese ritual and religion in Hong Kong for over 160 years."
"I love visiting Cat Street (Upper Lascar Row) on Hong Kong Island for its well-known antiques market and seeking out interesting pieces dating from the 1930s. Located just below Hollywood Road, near the Man Mo Temple, discover exquisite objects and art pieces recovered from almost every Chinese dynasty, as well as magnificent reproductions. Here you can find antique cameras, vintage posters, old clocks, vinyl and shellac records, radios, dusty old coins and other intriguing trinkets – all of which were part of ordinary life 80 or 90 years ago.
I often combine a trip to Cat Street with a visit to the Man Mo Temple. In the early days of Hong Kong, there were no temples in Sheung Wan, but the incoming Chinese population petitioned the new British administration to grant land to build a temple and the Man Mo Temple site was established.
The inside of the temple is magnificent, full of incense coils offered by merchants and residents, as well as gilded sedan chairs used to carry the statues of the gods through the streets to drive out the demons of disease. The Temple’s old Meeting Hall is home to fortune tellers and sellers of good luck tokens. The Man Mo Temple is truly redolent of the past and has played a significant role in Chinese ritual and religion in Hong Kong for over 160 years."