To boost nightlife tourism, why not promote Hong Kong’s dai pai dong?

In a city that never sleeps, instead of looking to organise new nightlife attractions, it makes more sense to highlight the ones that already exist as recognisable parts of local culture

John Hanzhang Ye

Published: 8:15am, 18 Aug 2023

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On Sunday, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po announced the government’s intention to work with various sectors to boost Hong Kong’s nightlife, including organising night bazaars to increase spending.

While it is admirable of the government to try and keep the momentum of economic recovery going, Chan’s proposal has drawn questions about the profitability of new businesses and increased competition for already struggling restaurants.

The proposal’s biggest drawback is that it seems to have overlooked Hong Kong’s vibrant local culture and natural charm. Instead of a new night bazaar hosted by the government, why not look at what the city already has?

Hong Kong has long been famous as the city that never sleeps and Lan Kwai Fong is arguably its best-known nightlife representative. Before the pandemic, it was a heaving hotspot in the evening. People of both Eastern and Western cultures ended their workday in its bars, gathering to enjoy drinks, music and each other’s company.

It is a symbol of Hong Kong’s embrace of the liberal Western lifestyle even as the city kept its Chinese cultural roots.

Many locals, however, preferred evenings at the dai pai dong – open-air food stalls – and cooked food centres, having a hot meal and a cold beer with friends.

But while clearly beloved by Hongkongers, dai pai dong and food bazaars seem to be seen by the government more as a subject to be managed than an attraction to be promoted. Other than a brief mention in 2017 that the Hong Kong Tourism Board was open to the idea of promoting dai pai dong and cooked food centres, little has been done since.

A miniature model of a dai pai dong at the “Our Hong Kong Story” exhibition at Nina Mall in Tsuen Wan on December 21. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

Asian cities are famous for their nightlife, from the after-dark bustle of Tokyo’s Shinjuku to the night markets in Taipei. Travel destinations in their own right, these are lively pockets of local culture and tradition that did not emerge as a result of careful government planning.

These places attract tourists because they tell a story. If the Hong Kong government wants to boost the city’s nightlife, it needs to first consider what kind of stories the city has to tell.

Take Taiwan, where Taipei’s night markets are the most famous but such markets are actually found all over the island. The biggest and most well-known ones, such as the Shilin and Raohe night markets, are well-managed attractions serving both locals and tourists. But they did not start out that way.

Like many of the best such tourist attractions, these markets had spontaneous, unplanned and humble beginnings that generated their own popularity and took off. By the time the government stepped in, there were already established markets and a thriving nightlife ready to be regulated and promoted.

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Hong Kong has its own such attractions too: the dai pai dong and cooked food centres.

For many tourists, particularly those from mainland China, these are the colourful icons of Hong Kong’s streets, the familiar backdrop to so many Hong Kong films. For Hongkongers, these are the places they are most familiar with and enjoy.

Dai pai dong and cooked food centres are the perfect, ready-made candidates for the government to promote as after-dark attractions.

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The government does not need to look very far to boost Hong Kong’s nightlife attractions, hunting for hosts for more concerts, new conferences or fresh international contests. Yes, these events attract tourists too but they are temporary, even one-off, draws. And they are likely to serve a brief surge in visitors without adding much to the nightlife enjoyment of most of the population.

What the government should do is to to look at the features of Hong Kong culture that it manages, and in the case of dai pai dong and cooked food centres, appreciate them as unique reflections of cultural charm – and resist the tendency to dismiss them as lowbrow.

Increasingly, more tourists – and locals – prefer grit to glitter: turning away from modern, large-scale, planned events to seek out small, colourful, organic pockets of local history and culture.

This is the perfect chance for the government to revisit the idea of dai pai dong and food bazaars as tourist attractions. In doing so, it must reconsider what story it wants to tell about Hong Kong’s nightlife – and what that says about the lives of Hongkongers.

John Hanzhang Ye is a PhD student in science and technology history at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and also holds an MPhil degree in sociology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong