Wet markets: how to visit one properly

A "wet market" is simply a market selling fresh produce, meat, seafood and household goods — the name comes from the wet floors created by ice and washing down stalls, not anything to be wary of. They remain where much of Hong Kong actually does its everyday food shopping, alongside supermarkets.

What you'll find

Fresh vegetables and fruit, live and freshly killed poultry and fish, cuts of meat, dried goods, and often a cluster of cheap cooked-food stalls attached to or near the market itself — a good, unfiltered look at how the city actually eats day to day.

Basic etiquette

• These are working markets, not a tourist attraction laid on for visitors — move at the pace of the stallholders and other shoppers rather than blocking narrow aisles for photos.
• Ask before photographing individual vendors directly, particularly at their stall rather than the market generally.
• Some sections (particularly live poultry or seafood) can be intense for the unprepared — entirely normal, working parts of the market rather than anything to be alarmed by.

Where to look

Most neighbourhoods have at least a small wet market; larger, more established ones exist in older districts like Sheung Wan, Sham Shui Po and Tai Po, often housed in dedicated multi-storey municipal market buildings alongside a cooked-food floor.