| Sham Shui Po | |||||||||||||||
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| Chinese | 深水埗 | ||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | "deep water pier" | ||||||||||||||
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Sham Shui Po, or Shamshuipo, is an area of Sham Shui Po District, Hong Kong, situated in the northwestern part of the Kowloon Peninsula, north of Tai Kok Tsui, east of Cheung Sha Wan and south of Shek Kip Mei. Sham Shui Po is known for its street market for electronic devices.
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Sham Shui Po in Cantonese means "Deep Water Pier". Its water was deeper than the beach of Cheung Sha Wan to the northwest. It is close to the former peninsula of Tai Kok Tsui. The low ridge of the peninsula ends in Sham Shui Po.
In the first stage, the town of Sham Shui Po was bounded by Yen Chow Street, Tung Chau Street, Wong Chuk Street and Apliu Street. Part of the town was on reclamation. The town was surrounded by villages of Un Chau, Tin Liu and Tong Mei. A nullah along Nam Cheong Street was constructed to drain the water of rivers north and east (which explains the street's wideness). The town was closed to Cosmopolitan Dock on the outer shore of Tai Kok Tsui.
Under Japanese occupation, a concentration camp was mainainted here for most of the duration of the Second World War. An account of life by a British POW has been published as The Hard Way: Surviving Shamshuipo POW Camp 1941-45 by Victor Stanley Ebbage (Spellmount, 2011).
As Sham Shui Po was one of the earliest developed areas in Hong Kong, it was once a commercial, industrial and transportation hub of the territory. As of 2003, Sham Shui Po is covered mainly by residential buildings, with public housing estates built on approximately 810,000 m² of land. Factories and warehouses are still concentrated mainly in Cheung Sha Wan.
Sham Shui Po is an area where urban decay is serious in Hong Kong. The government is carrying out urban renewal projects.
In July 2003 the Hong Kong Housing Society (HKHS) announced that its first urban renewal project would be to improve the living environment at Po On Road/Wai Wai Road in Sham Shui Po. Covering an area of 2,436 square metres and affecting approximately 500 households, this project will provide 330 residential flats, and some retail units. Government, institutional and community facilities will also be erected for the community. This development will require the HKHS to acquire about 157 properties, costing an estimated HK$240 million. The total development cost of the project is about HK$720 million.
In 2008, the North Kowloon Magistracy was part of the seven buildings of Batch I of the Hong Kong Government's Revitalising Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme[1] seeking adaptive reuse of government-owned historic buildings. On 17 February 2009, the government declared that the building will be used by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) (Traditional Chinese: 美國薩凡納藝術設計學院) as the school building as well as helping the old court become a Digital Media Centre of Asia.[2]
The street market in Sham Shui Po is a hotspot for both locals and tourists.
For those who are looking for electronics and accessories, the Apliu Street market is well known in Hong Kong. The vendors in this open-air street market sells a wide variety of products at reasonable prices, allowing individuals to trade second hand goods here. The sheer variety of things available at the market is astounding - different shops sell industrial electronics, analog and digital radio communications equipment, disco effects equipment, crockery, 1940s-era radios, LPs, torches, and audiophile hi-fi amplifiers in various stages of repair. The Hong Kong government promotes Apliu Street as Hong Kong's answer to Akihabara (in Japan).
The annual Hong Kong computer fair held in the streets of Sham Shui Po attracts a large crowd.
The market on Ki Lung Street is also famous for its fresh food and cheap prices. In the early 1990s, the Hong Kong government rebuilt the market and also added air conditioning.
There are numerous fashionwear wholesalers along Cheung Sha Wan Road. On weekends, some shops allow retail purchases, offering quality clothes at very affordable prices.
Nam Cheong Street and Ki Lung Street are most famous for their fabric stores, containing cloth, sash, ribbons and buttons.
Once infamous for pirated software but today considered one of the cheapest places in Hong Kong (if not the world) to get (or buy parts to build) a personal computer, the Golden Shopping Centre is a prominent IT shopping center. Golden Shopping Center Shops has extensive lines computer products from components like motherboards, RAM, and CPUs, complete systems, to various peripherals. Unlike purely consumer-oriented IT shopping centers, Golden features several stores specializing in professional and esoteric network equipment.
The Golden Shopping Centre is also known for the number of video game stores it contains, where people purchase gaming systems, software and accessories at either a slightly discounted price, or in special in-store packages which might include an extra game or extra accessories. Since the halls are extremely narrow, it is often very congested, especially on weekends. The mall has two floors. The upper floor, Golden Computer Centre (Chinese: 高登電腦中心), mainly sells games and gaming software, while the lower floor, Golden Computer Arcade (Chinese: 黃金電腦商場), focuses on the sales of computer-oriented hardware. They were originally fashion markets named "Golden Shopping Centre" and "Golden Shopping Arcade" respectively.
It was the first computer market in Hong Kong and today "Golden" (高登/黃金) is synonymous to "computer market" in the minds of Hong Kong people even though many other similar computer arcades have been established today.