The Aromas of Hong Kong - Charlie's Blog Contribution

Oh most persistent Reader, Marie’s exquisite raconteuring will be taking a brief hiatus today, as her feet and mind rest up from the weekend’s adventures. She has so kindly allowed an interlocutor into your midst, who only hopes to be as entertaining. She will be returning you to your regularly scheduled Blog shortly. 

One of the first things that Marie noticed on our daily outings around town was the variety of smells that Hong Kong boasts. You would be hard pressed to find a similar experience in the United States of the powerful aromas that suddenly and unexpectedly change from one to a completely different other. To speak of smells seems counter-productive; you must smell a smell to experience it. That being said, you cannot experience Hong Kong, with out experiencing its scents.  

The smells of wet market stand out prominently in my mind as those of Hong Kong. Of the myriad odors that emanate from these jostling alleys, boisterous with the sounds of economy, one in particular hits a unique tenor. The piercing redolence brings me back to a four year old boy hustled along behind Mother on semi-weekly market trips for groceries, being followed by mimetic cries in English announcing plainly visible wares.

Wet markets are so-called because of the fresh produce being hawked, but the name just as aptly could refer to the cascading water through the roadside gutters. Run-off from freshening the fruits and vegetables constantly flows into open-air gutters, mingling with road grime and market detritus. This mix gives off a fetid odor, only palatable to those with either cultural anosmia or romanticized recollections of their childhood. The smell of wet market does not end there. Passing a meat or fish stand, the fetid vegetal mixes with that of freshly butchered stock (don’t worry, if slaughter occurs on-site, it is done out of sight). The sectioned meat is hung off hooks, lending the air a muddy sickly-sweetness, with understated but still sharp copper and salt that you can only understand by, well, sitting around and smelling drying blood.

Moving down the alley passed an apothecary, the fragrance of dried herbs pours forth. I wish I knew what comprised this alluring amalgam, but that would require a lifetime of cultivation in folklore. What clearly smells through is the overpowering aroma of ginseng and dried ginger root, but this is swirled with strains of damp grain and a fermented herbal note. Peering in at the jars upon jars arranged on the high shelves, you’ll see nondescript leaves, crusty granules, and luminous jars of golden liquid, suspended in which are stringy root, bone (gelatinous with age), and the odd reptilian profile.

Next door may be a dried goods stand, the concrete hidden beneath plastic bowl boasting shrimp, bigger shrimp, biggest shrimp, and various sizes of fish ranging from the tetra-sized to over three feet long. Dried octopus, cuttlefish and squid could hang from the walls, with a variety of plumed skeletons of fungi and vegetables. These stalls exude undertones of herbs and dust, with a brackish liqueur smell.     

Drafts between the stalls intermittently rise, pushing all other smells far away. These carry the scents of peanut oil, garlic, ginger, mushrooms, peppers, meat and fish, ginger, all manner of soy bean, vinegar and a host of mysterious spice powders. Closer to the dai pai dongs, rice and steamed or baked dough smells strongly, born on wisps of steam launched from cook tops hardly visible through the activity of the roadside kitchens. The clamor of the Chinese counterpart to line cooks, yelling for ingredients and repeating orders, and that of the diners themselves, is a raucous euphony. I have no, and will never have, any idea of what is said, but these are the smells that will be my childhood.