HF: I am very happy to offer a little publicity to Lindsay Varty and the recent publication of her book, Sunset Survivors: Meet the people keeping Hong Kong’s traditional industries alive. This has been receiving excellent reviews and I understand from Lindsay that the first print has already sold out. Lindsay first contacted me in March wondering if she could […]
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Dan Waters: In 1957 I led a class of building students to a building site in Central District, Hong Kong, to see an exhibition of Acrow, tubular steel and tubular aluminium scaffolding. The exhibition aroused interest in the industry and elsewhere and there were those who prophesied that the use of bamboo scaffolding was drawing to a close. But while […]
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HF: Further to Dan Waters article “A Joss-stick Mill in Tsuen Wan” published August 26 2013 and “A water powered tilt-hammer incense mill” published 17th November 2013. Here is another photograph sent in by IDJ. It’s not dated. The title is “Wooden Water-wheel in an old village building near Tsuen Wan”. This may well be an incense mill. Does anyone know if […]
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Recollections of a Visit To a Joss-stick Mill in Tsuen Wan By Dan Waters The manufacturing of Joss Sticks in Hong Kong is believed to go back at least four centuries. It has also been suggested that the primary industry in incense trees gave Hong Kong its name — namely Heung Kong, meaning ‘fragrant harbour’. But there are few incense trees […]
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It’s 1952, summer presumably, two policemen are walking into Lock Road, TST. Mohan’s Tailors is on the left, well known at time and I believe continuing on to today. Pretty obviously the subject of interest is the person in the centre. What is he or she carrying? What was it used for? Why was it being moved around TST? It’s […]
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Hugh Farmer: When I first came to Lamma Island in the early 1990s a powerful odour greeted the visitor as you entered Yung Shue Wan. The smell was instantly recognisable and initially overwhelmingly unpleasant. The manufacturing of shrimp paste. I got used to the odour. Then I began to actually like it. And now I miss it, it’s still made on […]
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The “Castle Peak Pottery Kiln” [青山陶窰] or “Dragon Kiln” [龍窰]) is located at Hin Fat Lane, Tuen Mun, off Castle Peak Road. Information about it can be found in the Antiquities Advisory Board Historic Building Appraisal report N147 shown below. The kiln’s grade 3 status was confirmed on 16th September 2014. However a March 2018 article in the Hong Kong Free […]
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HF: These are the six fish that are mentioned in the HKU report of the mid-1950s, The Bionomics of Pondfish Culture in the New Territories, by T Chow. And these are the latest statistics from AFCD: This article was first posted on 9th July 2014. Related Indhhk articles: The Bionomics of Pondfish Culture in the New Territories The Fresh Water Fish Farming […]
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HF: While walking along the section of the Wong Nai Chung Tree Walk (part of the Wong Nai Chung Gap Trail) where it passes above the Hong Kong Cricket Club, on Saturday 6th January 2018, I came across the following Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department sign in front of a rather anonymous tree, a Reevesia (Reevesia thyrsoidea). Somewhat of a […]
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“Born and raised in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, at the heart of eastern China’s silk-producing Yangtze River Delta region, Zhao began his more than 40-year career as a ronghua creator as a 19 year old at a state-owned factory. The art of making ronghua – literally “velvet flower” – dates back to the Tang dynasty (618-907) and refers to the creation of not […]
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