2 Lascar Row
Next to Hollywood Road are two streets—Upper Lascar Row and Lok Ku Road, which was previously known as Lower Lascar Row—whose combined name is Lascar Row. In British English, “lascar” denotes the Indian and South Asian sailors who served in the British Merchant Navy. The area is right by the sea in Sheung Wan and was once filled with rows of lodging where lascars stayed when their ships docked at the port city, hence the name. However, the Chinese back then mistook the sailors to be the Muslim Moors (摩囉), so that the Chinese name of the street is a mistranslation that reads “Moor Street” (摩羅街).
In 2010, some politicians petitioned the government to give thought to the city’s minorities and change Lascar Row’s Chinese name, but the government rejected citing inconvenience, historical value, and the neutrality of the Cantonese term.