1954 Vegetable hawker, Aberdeen

Wed, 09/24/2014 - 21:09

I've been asked if there are any photos of people instead of buildings. So, here is the first of a few people photos. These notes are hand-written on the back:

Coolie girl going to market at Aberdeen, Hong Kong Island. She is barefoot & is carrying a baby covered by a quilt on her back.

5 Dec 1954

We can see Aberdeen harbour and Ap Lei Chau in the background.

She's a completely self-contained vegetable shop, with a variety of different vegetables, and the pan of her weighing scales peeping out of the basket on the left.

I wonder where she came from? Did she buy at the wholesale market then travel down to the south of the island to sell to the people on the boats? Or was she more local. I think there were still farming areas at Pok Fu Lam and Little Hong Kong into the 1950s, so maybe she'd walked over from one of them?

Reference: A36

Date picture taken
5 Dec 1954