Hong Kong district history: Yau Ma Tei, frenetic 24/7 urban centre that’s unlike anywhere else in the city
A neighbourhood seething with energy by day and night, Yau Ma Tei has resisted gentrification and remains after dark the haunt of hawkers, street performers and prostitutes, as it has been for decades
The news came on the 16th of April: insurgents were planning an attack on Yau Ma Tei. The plan was to load up two junks with guns and men, then sneak them up to the shore under the cover of darkness. From there, the men would sink a police boat, attack the Yau Ma Tei Police Station and fire at the buildings along the shore.
“This was a daring plan, but one which could well have succeeded – cargo junks in large numbers came into Yau Ma Tei at every hour of the day and night, and there were no controls on them,” writes historian Patrick Hase in The Six Day War of 1899: Hong Kong in The Age of Imperialism.
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Alarmed, the governor sent 100 men from the Hong Kong Volunteer Corps to defend the neighbourhood. The night passed without incident. The insurgents – New Territories villagers who were resisting the imposition of British rule in 1898 – had decided to abort their attack.
Yau Ma Tei has changed so much since then it can be hard to wrap your mind around this episode. The shoreline has moved a kilometre to the west to accommodate railway lines, motorways and a “spaghetti junction” interchange.
But the police station is still there, albeit a slightly newer version built in 1922 one block to the west, at the corner of Canton Road and Public Square Street. Today it stands empty – the police have moved yet again – waiting for the next chapter in its life.
There’s nowhere in Hong Kong quite like Yau Ma Tei. It seethes with energy at all hours of the day.