YIP Sin Ching

Goldfish Street is a section of Tung Choi Street. There are numerous shops selling tropical animals, and of course an overwhelming number and variety of goldfish. This street has 40 -50 shops and stalls on both sides of the street, which makes up a gigantic aquarium. . It gives an incredible visual feast and tanks full of colorful coral and marine creatures. Though, behind this bizarre and incredible scene, there was so much more happenin.

It’s quite intriguing to me to see how these fishes were captured. These fishes appear to spend all day, up to 8-10 hours hanging in small, sealed bags. I was being told about the setting which is not just convenient and to attract customers, it also saves a lot of space since most of the stores with fish bags are small, and was incapable of placing all fishes in tanks and letting customers choose.
These bags are often under the heat of the sun, and although some of the smaller fish may have a bit of room to move around, the larger ones are just bent out of shape in the bags, or crowded into tanks so tightly you can’t even tell them apart. Bagged fishes may suffer from shock, oxygen starvation or even die from changes in water temperature. Many fairground fish die before or shortly after their new owners can get them home.

It’s frustrating to see people fail to notice the inhumane, cruel business practices that people’s insatiable appetite for profit runs at the expense of poor underage animals.