Hong Kong’s expat party hub transformed by Chinese influx
Lan Kwai Fong was once the area in Hong Kong most associated with the city’s nightlife and its expat community but it now serves a more mainland Chinese clientele.
Pedestrians in the Lan Kwai Fong area that was once synonymous with Hong Kong nightlife. Bloomberg
For years, Anthony Yiu had an English-only menu for his two small bars in Hong Kong’s nightlife hub Lan Kwai Fong because most of his customers were expats, local professionals and foreign tourists. It wasn’t until this year that he decided to add a Chinese version to it.
“In the past, Lan Kwai Fong was full of expats and locals who were upper-middle class and had strong spending power,” says Yiu, 32, who’s been struggling to make a profit for months from his bars, Shots and Chord. “A lot of them left Hong Kong over the past few years during the social unrest and COVID. And those were our target customers. Now the visitors here are mainly from mainland China.”
