Ladies' Market

This guide to Ladies' Market in Mong Kok goes back to 1975, when tens of thousands of unlicensed hawkers were selling from bamboo poles and folding tables across Hong Kong after the oil crisis wiped out factory jobs. It follows the government's decision to designate Tung Choi Street as the city's first official hawker zone, the vegetable that gave the street its name, and how the first vendors and shoppers here were mostly women, earning it the nickname Women's Street. Listen for how the market grew from a single sanctioned block into the kilometer-long strip you're walking now.