tim's experiment

Fotan used to be famous, if anything, as a large nugget of industrial premises surrounded by housing estates on the adjacent hills, with the prices rising roughly according to altitude. Times have, as they say, changed. The industrial scene is still surprisingly active, considering industry is supposed to have expired in Hong Kong and moved over the border, leaving nothing behind except a few head offices and two functional constituencies. but it has declined considerably. Flatted factories have now become so cheap that they are hired by visual artists of various kinds. Real estate agents now offer the former palaces of productivity as “studios”. We even have an annual arts festival.

Also, Fotan is one of the few places in Hong Kong which still has dai pai dongs. You remember those street food places, which offered every variation of congee with dough sticks, or basic classics like won ton soup. Mostly they have been suppressed by our caring government, in a bid to make the city safe for proper cafe proprietors who pay rent to our beloved property developers. Their survival in Fotan owes something, I suppose, to the obscurity of the place and simple lethargy, and something to the reasonable consideration that there are very few alternatives on offer for the proletarian in search of a cheap lunch.

But they are open in the evenings as well, and the three by the bus station have become something of a culinary Mecca for people looking for cheap decent food in the open air.  It is also legal to smoke, no doubt an attraction for some diners. At weekends surprisingly expensive cars unload family parties and later in the evening the odd daring individual may even park his car in the bus station itself. The dai pai dongs have become something of a historical monument: a piece of that collective memory which crops up so often these days. Foreign visitors think they are wonderful.

In other words these are prime targets for reform and “improvement”. Get down there while you still can. I recommend the roast pigeon.