Temple Street

Walk under this archway, unveiled in 2010, and you're on Temple Street, Kowloon's best-known night market. Hong Kongers have long called it «the poor man's nightclub» and also «Men's Street», because its stalls mostly sold clothes and goods for men.

1A street named after a temple

The street already appears on an 1887 map, split into two sections by the Tin Hau Temple you'll see at the end: Temple Street South and Temple Street North. From the 1920s, the temple square became a popular place for entertainment, with hawkers, storytellers and street performers. In 1975 the government marked out a hawker zone here, with hundreds of numbered pitches. Stalls still set up there today, and the street really gets going after dark.

2A film set

Temple Street has appeared in dozens of films, often as a backdrop for gangs and the underworld: «Prince of Temple Street» (1992) or Stephen Chow's «The God of Cookery» (1996). The reality is calmer: stalls of T-shirts, watches, jade and souvenirs, and seafood and claypot rice restaurants with tables out in the street.

Haggling is part of the game here: hardly any price is final, so smile and make an offer.

3What to look for

• The archway, with its couplets in Chinese characters on both sides.
• The charcoal stoves where the claypot rice is cooked.
• The neon signs that survive on the façades.