Looking back –Sheung Wan Tour

Looking back –Sheung Wan Tour

The Sheung Wan tour consists of three parts. They are carried out on 3 different streets namely

Wing Lok Street

,

Ko Shing Street

and Tsz Mi Alley. 
Route: 

Ginseng and Bird's Nest Street (Wing Lok Street and Bonham Strand West) → Dried Seafood Street  (Des Voeux Road West)→ Herbal Medicine Street (Ko Shing Street) → Tsz Mi Alley

We started off at

Wing Lok Street

It is very accessible as it is located right in front of Sheung Wan MTR station exit A2. The narrow yet affluent street gives a refreshing impression to tourists who used to project Hong Kong as a city packed with businessmen. Tourists can have a look at the unique dried-seafood-selling market from which they can learn about different types of dried seafood such as dried sea cucumbers, dried shrimps and dried oysters. Shop owners are more than willing to introduce their products and the way to treat them so that the food could be best served. From this we can see that actually they are not doing the business for mere commercial purposes, but that they are also ready at anytime to promote the cuisine of dried seafood.

Tourists will then enjoy a long promenade all the way down

Wing Lok Street

exploring several alleys before reaching

Ko Shing Street

which is hailed as the “Street of Dried Seafood” by Hong Kong people. It is very much similar with

Wing Lok Street

apart from the fact that some of the shops there also sell Chinese medicine.

Finally Tsz Mi Alley is only few blocks away from

Ko Shing Street

Tsz Mi Alley is another narrow and gentle slope where a strong scent of dried salty fish fills up every single square feet of the area. Different kinds of salty fish are sold by both retailers and wholesalers there. Once again shopkeepers are always happy to explain the features of different kinds of salty fish and how they are manufactured.

Reflection and challenges

1) We did encounter challenges before and during the tour. When we were preparing for the tour, we discovered that we had to make sure that we knew clearly about different terms which we would have to interpret in order to let those who do not speak Cantonese understand the information that was being presented. For example, we needed to differentiate between species of dried sea cucumbers. We also had to translate the way that the shop owners’ recommendations on how to treat dried seafood.
Here is a video showing the explanation of the usage of seafood to us:

2) As we began the tour at

Wing Lok Street

the narrowness of the street caused problems as we moved among different shops. We had to walk sideways. In addition to the narrowness, trunks never ceased to unload cargoes which might physically hurt our tourists, making space even more limited.

3) Another challenge that we encountered was the strong scent of salty fish at Tsz Mi Alley. Some found it irritating while some were addicted to the smell. Therefore we actually had to isolate those who were allergic to it from others. Fortunately we had taken this into account prior to the tour and thus we prepared face masks and tissue paper.

4) The unexpected closure of some shops in the district also caused some inconvenience to us. Yet, there are still many other shops in there, it did not lead to a great trouble to us.

Basically it was the challenges that helped us learn things when we were preparing for the tour. Generally we had to put ourselves into tourists’ shoes so that we could spot out potential problems.