Hollywood Road, Hong Kong

While Hollywood in California, USA, is a world-famed movieland, Hollywood Road Central, Hong Kong S.A.R., China is known to the world likewise for it did show the early pictures of Hong Kong in various Hollywood movies.

Hollywood Road is filled with trinket and antique shops of all sorts: from Chinese furniture to porcelain ware, from Buddha sculptures to Tibetan rugs, from Japanese netsukes to Coromandel screens, from Ming dynasty ceramic horsemen and kitsch Maoist memorabilia. The street runs between Central and Sheung Wan, with Wyndham Street, Ladder Street and Upper Lascar Row in the vicinity.

Hollywood Road was the second road to be built when the colony of Hong Kong was founded, after Queen's Road Central. It was the first to be completed.

More than 100 years ago, Hollywood Road was rather close to the coastline, compared to the current position of Bonham Strand. In those days, foreign merchants and sailors would put up the antiques and artefacts they "collected" from China for sale here on their way back to Europe. This is how Hollywood Road began its role as an antique market. In early 1960s there was a celebrated Hollywood movie called The World of Suzie Wong whose shooting was taken part in Hollywood Road. Am old wood-built building was re-constructed as a bar for the movie scene.

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Union Church

There was a Union Church in the street founded in 1844 by the Reverend James Legge, a Scottish missionary who had been sent to Hong Kong in 1843 by the London Missionary Society. The first Union Church was built in 1845 on Hollywood Road above Central. Every Sunday an English language service was held in the morning and a Chinese language service in the afternoon. The Church was later relocated to a new site on Staunton Street.

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Central Police Station

Central Police Station was the first police station in Hong Kong. The oldest structure within the compound is a barrack block built in 1864. It is a three-storey building constructed alongside Victoria Prison (see below). A storey was later added to the mass in 1905. In 1919, Headquarters Block facing Hollywood Road was constructed. Subsequently in 1925, the two-storey Stable Block was constructed at the northwest end of the procession ground and later used as a munitions store. The Police Station accompanied by the former Central Magistracy and Victoria Prison form a group of historical architecture representing law and order in Hong Kong.

Name origin

Some people think that the road was named after the box-office success of the illustrious movieland flick, The World of Suzie Wong. In fact the road was put up early in 1844 where Hollywood was still a concept in mind. The name of the street orginates from the "holly wood" grown around the area.

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Notable streets nearby

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Upper Lascar Row / Cat Street

Upper Lascar Row was a narrow sidewalk running parallel to the north of Hollywood Road, was like the Bermondsey Market in London.

There was an Indian police dormitory, and "Lascar" were the seamen coming from the East Indies.

In the old days, jokingly, if you have something stolen, you are almost certain that you could find it back here.

Cantonese people called thieves as rats, and the dealers who purchased goods from the rats as cats. Thus this street is also known as "Cat Street" by the locals.

Now, there is a wide range of antiques which are popular among tourists.

Ladder Street

One of the most visited temples in Hong Kong, the Man Mo Temple, is on Hollywood Road off Ladder Street. There is also the oldest western hospital, the Tung Wah Hospital, and some funeral homes in the area.

It is said that more than 100 years ago, when the coolies died, their bodies were rested here for funeral services before they were carried back to their home villages back in the Mainland China.

Euphemistically, people call these shops as "long-living shops".

Another old-fashioned slang is "four-and-a-half-piece", possibly referring to the number of pieces of wood used to make a coffin.

Ladder streets refers to small streets that provide pathways up and down steep hills.

It is primarily used as a term in Hong Kong to refer to streets running from the waterfront area to the Victoria Harbour, up towards the direction of the Victoria Peak.

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Old Bailey Street

The Old Bailey was a major jail in London, U.K.. The first prison in Hong Kong was built in the Old Bailey Street named Victoria Prison.

While the population in Hong Kong had been escalating in its later days, a bigger prison with more room was badly demanded. In 1925, a larger jail was constructed in Stanley known as Stanley Prison, to where prisoners with sentences more than a year would be sentenced.

Prisoners were forced to parade in public in the early colonisation of Hong Kong. Their back might be first beaten with a cane, with their arms locked with a cangue on which their name and crimes committed were penned in ink.

An Indian police would grab prisoners to the plaza in front of the Man Mo Temple where the lawbreakers might be scoffed and condemned by the passers-by. After few hours, a criminal was sent back to the jail.

This punishment was abolished after World War I.

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