How Lascar Row Got Its Name (October 2026)

If you walk through the narrow lanes between Hollywood Road and Queen’s Road Central in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, you will find yourself on a street lined with antique stalls, jade dealers, and curiosity shops. Tourists know it as Cat Street. Locals call it Mo Lo Sheung Gai, written in Cantonese as 摩羅上街. But its official English name, dating back to the earliest days of British colonial Hong Kong, is Upper Lascar Row.

The name carries a story that reaches across the Indian Ocean. It connects a Persian military term to Arab traders, Portuguese navigators, British merchant ships, and the Indian sailors who crewed them. Understanding how Lascar Row got its name from Indian sailors means tracing a word that traveled through five languages before it was stamped onto a Hong Kong street sign.

In this article, I will walk you through the complete etymology of “lascar,” the history of Indian seamen in the British Empire, how they arrived in Hong Kong, why a row of buildings was named after them, and how the street evolved from sailor housing to one of Hong Kong’s most famous antique markets. I will also address the Cantonese term “mo lo,” the Cat Street nickname, the 1911 fire, and the 2010 renaming debate.

The Short Answer: How Lascar Row Got Its Name From Indian Sailors

Lascar Row was named after the Indian sailors known as “lascars” who were housed in a row of accommodation buildings between Hollywood Road and Queen’s Road Central in Sheung Wan during the early British colonial period. The British East India Company employed these Indian seamen on its ships, and when Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842 after the Treaty of Nanking, lascars arrived with the East Indies Fleet. The colonial government built a row of houses to shelter them, and local residents began calling the lane Lascar Row.

The name stuck. It appears in colonial records from the mid-1800s and has survived through more than 180 years of Hong Kong history, even as the street itself transformed from sailor quarters into a bustling antique market.

What Does Lascar Mean? The Word Behind the Street Name

The word “lascar” did not originate with the British. It is a linguistic traveler, passing through at least four languages before it arrived in English and eventually gave its name to a Hong Kong street. Understanding this chain is essential to understanding how Lascar Row got its name from Indian sailors.

The journey begins with Persian. The original word is lashkar (لشکر), which means “army” or “military camp.” This was a common term across the Persian-speaking world, which in the medieval and early modern periods included much of the Indian subcontinent. From Persian, the word entered Arabic as al-askar (العسكر), carrying the same meaning of “army” or “military force.”

When Portuguese traders and navigators arrived in the Indian Ocean in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, they encountered this word through their contact with Arab and Indian seafarers. The Portuguese adapted it as lascarim, using it to describe the Indian sailors and militiamen they encountered along the Malabar Coast, in Goa, and across the Portuguese trading network in the East.

The British East India Company, which began establishing trading posts in India in the early 1600s, borrowed the term from the Portuguese. By the 17th century, British merchants and ship captains were using “lascar” to describe the Indian seamen they employed on their vessels. The word narrowed in meaning under British usage, shifting from a general term for “soldier” or “sailor” to a specific designation for Indian and South Asian crewmen serving on European ships.

In Hindi and Urdu, closely related languages of the Indian subcontinent, the word also exists as lashkari (لشکری), meaning “soldier” or “camp follower.” This South Asian usage reinforces the word’s deep roots in the military and maritime culture of the region. So when the British named a Hong Kong street “Lascar Row,” they were using a word that had already traveled through Persian, Arabic, Portuguese, and South Asian languages before being absorbed into English colonial vocabulary.

The Etymology Chain at a Glance

Here is how the word evolved across languages before it became a Hong Kong street name:

Persian: lashkar (army, military camp)

Arabic: al-askar (army, military force)

Portuguese: lascarim (Indian sailor or militiamen)

English (British colonial): lascar (Indian seaman employed on European ships)

Cantonese: mo lo (摩羅, local rendering of “lascar” or possibly “Moor”)

Hong Kong street name: Lascar Row, the lane where lascars were housed

Who Were the Lascars? Indian Sailors in the British Empire

Lascars were sailors or militiamen from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, and other regions east of the Cape of Good Hope who served on European ships from the 16th century until the mid-20th century. The term covered a wide range of roles and nationalities, but in the British colonial context, most lascars were Indian seamen drawn from the coastal regions of the subcontinent.

The British East India Company was the primary employer of lascars. The company operated a vast fleet of merchant vessels known as East Indiamen, which carried goods between Europe and Asia. These ships needed large crews, and Indian sailors provided a ready labor force that was skilled, experienced, and significantly cheaper than British seamen.

Most lascars came from specific regions of India. The Malabar Coast, in what is now Kerala, was a major source of recruitment, as was Bengal in the northeast. Gujarat, on the western coast, also supplied many sailors, as did the area around Bombay (now Mumbai). Each region contributed seamen with different specializations, from navigation to rigging to cooking.

Within the lascar hierarchy, there were specific ranks. The serang was the bosun or headman of the lascar crew, effectively the equivalent of a boatswain. The tindal served as his assistant. A seacunny was the helmsman, a topaz was a deckhand, and a bhandary served as the cook. These roles reflected a structured labor system that the British had developed over centuries of maritime trade with India.

The use of lascars was not unique to the East India Company. The British Royal Navy, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), and the British India Steam Navigation Company all employed Indian seamen. By the 19th century, lascars were a fundamental part of British maritime infrastructure, and their presence extended to every port where British ships docked, including the new colony of Hong Kong.

How Indian Sailors Arrived in Hong Kong?

Lascars arrived in the Hong Kong region even before the colony was formally established. Indian sailors had been crewing British and Portuguese ships in the Pearl River Delta and the South China Sea for decades before the First Opium War. The Treaty of Nanking in 1842, which ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain, simply formalized a British presence that Indian seamen had already been supporting.

When Hong Kong became a British crown colony, the East Indies Fleet maintained a regular presence in its waters. Lascars crewed the supply ships, naval vessels, and merchantmen that connected Hong Kong to India, Britain, and other Asian ports. They were essential to the logistics of building and sustaining the new colony, transporting opium, cotton, tea, and manufactured goods between Asia and Europe.

The colonial government needed somewhere to house these sailors when they were ashore. The area between Hollywood Road and Queen’s Road Central in Sheung Wan, on the lower slopes of Victoria Peak, was designated for this purpose. A row of buildings was constructed or allocated to accommodate the Indian seamen, and this became the physical origin of the name Lascar Row.

The Indian presence in early Hong Kong was not limited to sailors. The colonial administration also brought in Indian soldiers, known as sepoys, who served in garrison duty. In 1847, the government built barracks at Sai Ying Pun, a neighborhood adjacent to Sheung Wan, to house Indian troops. These sepoy barracks reinforced the South Asian footprint in the western part of Hong Kong Island and contributed to the broader context in which Lascar Row was named.

Indian police officers also served in the Hong Kong colonial police force. Some were housed on or near Upper Lascar Row, adding another layer to the street’s Indian community. The dormitory that accommodated Indian police officers became one of the known landmarks on the street, and its presence is documented in colonial records cited by the Hong Kong Government Gazette.

Why Row? The Housing Built for Indian Seamen

The word “row” in Lascar Row is straightforward. It refers to a row of buildings, specifically the line of houses or accommodation blocks that were built to shelter Indian sailors and, later, Indian police officers. The term was common in British colonial urban planning, where rows of uniform housing were erected for specific groups of workers or military personnel.

In the case of Lascar Row, the buildings stood on a lane running between Hollywood Road, which was one of the first streets established in colonial Hong Kong, and Queen’s Road Central, the main thoroughfare along the northern coast of Hong Kong Island. The location was practical. It was close to the waterfront where ships docked, but slightly elevated on the slopes of Victoria Peak, which kept the housing above the worst of the harborfront congestion.

The Indian police dormitory on Upper Lascar Row was a specific building within this row. It housed officers who served in the Hong Kong colonial police, a force that, like many British colonial police services, included significant numbers of Indian and South Asian personnel. These officers patrolled the streets of early Hong Kong and lived in the same neighborhood as the lascar sailors, creating a concentrated Indian community in the Sheung Wan area.

The Cantonese Connection: From Lascar to Mo Lo

While the English name Lascar Row comes directly from the British colonial term for Indian sailors, the Cantonese name tells its own etymological story. The Cantonese term for the area is mo lo, written as 摩羅, and Upper Lascar Row is known as mo lo sheung gai (摩羅上街), which literally translates to “Mo Lo Upper Street.”

The origin of “mo lo” has been debated by linguists and historians. The most widely accepted theory, advanced by linguist Lisa Lim and documented in the South China Morning Post, traces the term to the Portuguese word mouro, meaning “Moor.” The Portuguese used “mouro” to describe Muslim traders and sailors they encountered in the Indian Ocean, many of whom were from the Indian subcontinent. When Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong encountered these South Asian seafarers, they adopted a phonetic rendering of the Portuguese term as “mo lo.”

An alternative theory suggests that “mo lo” derives from the word “Musselmen,” an archaic English term for Muslims. Some colonial records refer to Indian Muslim traders and sailors as “Musselmen,” and the Cantonese rendering of this word could also have produced “mo lo.” This theory is noted in Wikipedia’s article on Lascar Row and reflects the complexity of linguistic exchange in colonial port cities.

There is also a competing theory that connects “mo lo” to the word “Brahman,” suggesting that the term originally referred to Hindu priests from India. However, this theory is less widely supported than the Portuguese “mouro” or “Musselmen” origins, and most linguists favor the Muslim or Moor connection.

Regardless of which specific derivation is correct, all the theories point to the same underlying reality. “Mo lo” was a Cantonese term for South Asian people, particularly Indian sailors and traders, who arrived in Hong Kong during the colonial period. The Cantonese name and the English name for the street, therefore, describe the same community and the same history.

Upper Lascar Row vs Lower Lascar Row

Lascar Row is actually the combined name for two adjacent streets in Sheung Wan. Upper Lascar Row (摩羅上街) is the section that runs parallel to Hollywood Road, higher up the slope of Victoria Peak. This is the section most visitors know today, famous for its dense concentration of antique stalls and curiosity shops.

Lower Lascar Row was historically the section closer to Queen’s Road Central, at a lower elevation. Over time, the name “Lower Lascar Row” fell out of official use, and this section is now known as Lok Ku Road (樂古道). The renaming of Lower Lascar Row to Lok Ku Road happened as part of broader street renaming efforts, though the historical connection between the two sections remains in the records.

The distinction between Upper and Lower Lascar Row mattered in the colonial period. Upper Lascar Row was more residential, housing the Indian sailors and police officers. Lower Lascar Row had a more mixed character, with commercial activity alongside housing. Today, visitors who go antique hunting are walking on Upper Lascar Row, while Lok Ku Road has developed its own identity as a separate street.

Cat Street: The Second Name and Its Mouse Goods Origin

Upper Lascar Row has a second, widely used nickname: Cat Street. This name has nothing to do with actual cats and everything to do with the street’s history as a market for stolen goods and secondhand items.

The nickname comes from a Cantonese expression involving cats and mice. In local slang, stolen goods were referred to as “mouse goods” or “rat goods” (老鼠貨, lo syu fo). The logic was that stolen items had been “nibbled” away from their original owners, much like mice taking small bites. The people who traded in these goods, and the street where they were sold, became associated with cats, because cats are the natural hunters of mice.

So Cat Street was where you went to find “mouse goods.” It was a market for secondhand items, some legitimate and some of questionable provenance, where dealers and bargain hunters could find everything from discarded colonial furniture to purportedly stolen jewelry. The nickname stuck and became more popular than the official name among both locals and tourists.

By the 1920s, the character of Upper Lascar Row had shifted. The Indian sailors and police officers who had given the street its name were largely gone, and the row of buildings had been converted into shops and market stalls. The street transformed from residential housing for seamen into a commercial marketplace for secondhand goods, and eventually into the antique and curio market that it remains today.

Visitors to Cat Street today describe it as a flea market where authentic Ming dynasty ceramics sit alongside mass-produced souvenirs. Long-time Hong Kong residents recall it as a place to hunt for hidden treasures among the clutter. The antique market that defines Upper Lascar Row in the 21st century is the direct descendant of the “mouse goods” trade that gave the street its feline nickname.

The 1911 Fire: A Dramatic Moment in Lascar Row History

In 1911, a major fire swept through Upper and Lower Lascar Row, destroying 16 houses. The fire was significant enough to be documented in the Hong Kong Government Gazette, which recorded the extent of the damage and the colonial government’s response.

Fires were a recurring threat in early Hong Kong. Much of the city’s housing was densely packed, built from timber and other flammable materials, and lacked modern fire safety infrastructure. The 1911 fire on Lascar Row was part of a broader pattern of devastating urban fires that struck Hong Kong’s older neighborhoods in the colonial period.

After the fire, the damaged buildings were rebuilt. The reconstruction likely accelerated the street’s transformation from residential housing into commercial space, as property owners rebuilt with shops and stalls in mind rather than sailor accommodation. The fire marks a turning point in the physical character of Lascar Row, bridging the gap between its origins as Indian seamen’s housing and its future as a market street.

The Lascars Experience: Life in Colonial Hong Kong

The Indian sailors who gave Lascar Row its name lived hard lives far from home. They served on ships for months or years at a time, crossing the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea on voyages that were dangerous, poorly compensated, and often involuntary. When they reached Hong Kong, the row of buildings in Sheung Wan provided basic shelter, but conditions were modest at best.

Lascars were paid significantly less than their British counterparts. A British seaman on an East Indiamen might earn several times what a lascar received for the same work. This wage gap was a deliberate feature of the colonial maritime labor system, not an accident. The East India Company and later British shipping companies employed Indian seamen precisely because they were cheaper, and the pay disparity was built into the structure of colonial commerce.

Living conditions on shore reflected this inequality. Lascar housing in Hong Kong and other colonial ports was basic and crowded. The sailors were separated from their families, who remained in India, and they had little opportunity to establish permanent roots in Hong Kong. Their presence in the colony was defined by their labor, not by any expectation of settlement or citizenship.

Discrimination was a constant reality. Lascars were subject to racial hierarchies that placed British officers and merchants at the top and Indian seamen near the bottom. They faced restrictions on movement, limited legal rights, and social prejudice. In Britain itself, lascars who arrived on ships from India were often left destitute in port cities, and charitable organizations had to be established to provide them with food and shelter while they waited for return voyages.

In Hong Kong, the position of lascars was complicated by the fact that the colony itself was newly established and still defining its social structures. Indian seamen occupied an ambiguous position. They were neither colonizers nor fully colonized, serving the British Empire while being subject to its racial hierarchies. Their presence on Lascar Row was a physical reminder of the complex, multi-ethnic reality of colonial Hong Kong, a city built not just by the British but by Indian labor, Indian sailors, and Indian soldiers.

The 2026 Renaming Debate

In 2026, a controversy erupted over the name of Lascar Row. Some community members and advocates argued that both the English name “Lascar” and the Cantonese term “mo lo” carried derogatory connotations and should be changed. The argument was rooted in the broader discussion about linguistic colonialism and the legacy of British-imposed terminology in Hong Kong’s public spaces.

Linguist Lisa Lim, writing in the South China Morning Post, framed the issue as part of a larger pattern. Across the former British crown colonies of Singapore, Penang, and Hong Kong, street names such as Sepoy Lines and Lascar Row recalled the tents of Indian infantrymen and the barracks of Indian ship crews. These names, Lim argued, were not neutral geographical labels but artifacts of colonial power that categorized people by race and occupation.

The Cantonese term “mo lo” was a particular flashpoint. Some South Asian residents of Hong Kong considered the term offensive, noting that it had been used as a racial descriptor and had acquired derogatory connotations over time. Others argued that the term was originally neutral, simply describing the South Asian community without malice, and that its meaning had evolved through usage rather than intent.

The Hong Kong government ultimately did not rename the street. The official name remained Upper Lascar Row, and the Cantonese name mo lo sheung gai continued in common use. The 2026 debate is remembered by politically engaged Hong Kong residents as an early moment in the city’s conversation about ethnic sensitivity and the legacy of colonial naming conventions. It raised questions that remain relevant today about how cities should handle historical street names that some find offensive.

From Sailors to Antiques: The Street’s Evolution

The transformation of Lascar Row from Indian sailor housing to antique market took more than a century. The process began in the early 1900s, as the colonial housing for lascars was gradually repurposed. By the 1920s, the street had become a market for secondhand goods, the “mouse goods” that gave it the Cat Street nickname.

The market evolved over the decades. What began as a place to offload stolen or discarded items gradually attracted dealers who specialized in antiques, jade, porcelain, and other collectibles. The proximity to Hollywood Road, which had its own community of antique dealers and art galleries, helped establish the area as a destination for collectors and curio seekers.

Today, Upper Lascar Row is one of Hong Kong’s most recognizable tourist attractions. Visitors browse narrow stalls piled with vintage posters, Mao-era memorabilia, carved wooden figures, old cameras, porcelain vases, and every variety of curiosity. The street retains its historical name, even though the Indian sailors who inspired it departed long ago. The name is the last visible trace of the community that once lived there, a linguistic fossil preserving the memory of Hong Kong’s South Asian maritime heritage.

For visitors, the street offers a tangible connection to Hong Kong’s layered past. Every antique on a Cat Street stall has passed through many hands, just as the word “lascar” itself passed through many languages. The street name reminds us that Hong Kong was always a crossroads, a place where Persian, Arabic, Portuguese, English, Cantonese, and many other languages and cultures met, mixed, and left their marks on the urban landscape.

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Conclusion

Understanding how Lascar Row got its name from Indian sailors requires following a word and a people across centuries and continents. The story begins with the Persian term “lashkar,” passes through Arabic and Portuguese, and arrives in English as “lascar,” the name the British gave to the Indian seamen who crewed their ships. When Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842, these sailors arrived with the East Indies Fleet and were housed in a row of buildings between Hollywood Road and Queen’s Road Central in Sheung Wan.

That row of buildings gave the street its name. The Indian sailors who lived there, along with the Indian police officers and sepoys who served the colonial government, created a South Asian community in early Hong Kong that is preserved in the street name to this day. The Cantonese term “mo lo” and the English “lascar” both point to the same history, even as the street itself has transformed from sailor housing into one of Hong Kong’s most famous antique markets.

Next time you walk through Cat Street, browsing the jade and porcelain and vintage curios, remember that the ground beneath your feet was once home to Indian sailors who crossed the ocean to serve a empire that barely acknowledged them. Their name lives on in the street sign above your head, a small piece of Hong Kong history that connects a narrow lane in Sheung Wan to the vast, interconnected world of the British colonial maritime trade.