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South China Morning Post
4 days ago
- South China Morning Post
The legacy of Hong Kong's signature curio shops
Since the mid-19th century, Hong Kong has been famed for the extensive array of (mostly, but not exclusively, Chinese) curios available in speciality shops. A mainstay of the local tourism industry, generations of visitors have departed these shores with some appealingly 'oriental' item tucked away in their baggage as a memento of their stay. While some are genuine antiques, most curios are recently manufactured. Porcelain items, jade and intricately carved netsuke remain popular, along with Swatow embroideries, Mandarin coats and scroll paintings. Despite the wholesale decimation of African elephant populations in recent years, carved ivory curios remain popular purchases for the less environmentally conscious, and Hong Kong's numerous ivory shops have insisted, for the past few decades, that items are all made from 'old stocks'. Tourists browse among the second-hand and curio stalls at Upper Lascar Row. Photo: Winson Wong From the 1920s, open-air second-hand stalls along Upper and Lower Lascar Rows , just below the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road, were regularly referenced in contemporary guidebooks and thus became popular tourist hunting grounds for curiosities. More credulous visitors still hope for hidden treasure among the random bric-a-brac, mostly caked in dust, found jumbled together. For some bargain hunters, this fusty atmosphere is a large part of the appeal. Until well into the 60s, these lanes also had a well-deserved reputation among local residents as a thief's market, where newly burgled householders surreptitiously checked out stalls to see whether their stolen property was being fenced. During the worldwide tourism boom that characterised the Roaring Twenties , wealthy passengers who travelled on round-the-world ocean liners typically staged through Hong Kong on their journeys. In the interwar years, upmarket shopping arcades located within popular hotels, such as The Peninsula in Kowloon or between the Gloucester and the Hongkong Hotel in Central, each had at least one curio dealer to meet demand from passing tourists. Surrounding backstreets had many more to choose from. Interwar Hong Kong was an excellent place to buy high-quality Japanese curios, such as netsuke, unusual as their widespread availability here may appear today. A hawker selling used goods on Upper Lascar Row in 1972. Photo: SCMP Archives Hong Kong in those years had a sizeable resident Japanese community, many of whom had made their homes in the British colony for decades, and who spoke English and Cantonese, as well as Japanese. As a free port, curio items, like almost everything else on offer in that long-ago 'shopping paradise', were imported and sold unburdened by export and import tariffs and local sales taxes. Consequently, purchases made in Hong Kong were frequently cheaper than in their country of origin. And unlike Japan, where curio items varied throughout the country, Hong Kong's speciality shops that sold such wares were within pleasant strolling distance of each other and stocked a wide variety.
South China Morning Post
27-05-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
How Hongkongers protected winter wardrobes from the perils of summer
Cool-weather clothes in Hong Kong have long been chosen from classic styles that would not date too quickly. As only three or four months of the year are suitable for most temperate-climate garments – barely two for heavier items, such as tweed overcoats – winter clothes were expected to last for many years, and would only be replaced on periodic long leaves or when an individual's body shape had changed too dramatically for alterations. Advertisement Hong Kong's torrid summer months with prolonged high humidity , weeks of constant rain and proliferation of silverfish, mites, moths and other insect pests, not to mention mould, mildew and damp, will ruin most fabrics not carefully packed away in specialised conditions. So what becomes of one's treasured cool-weather clothes from one winter season to the next – especially expensive, high-quality garments expected to be worn for decades – after they have been carefully packed away? A chilly December day is time to break out the warm winter clothing … but safely storing these seldom-worn garments in Hong Kong's humid summers has always posed a problem. Photo: Winson Wong Before residential air-conditioning became widespread from the 1970s, and the introduction of compact domestic-use dehumidification machines over the next two decades, creative storage solutions were essential. From India and Southeast Asia to China and Australia, sturdy, airtight trunks made from pressed sheet metal were the time-tested standby, which kept most clothes in good condition all year round. Garments were first carefully sponged down (if the fabric was unwashable) and hung for several hours in the sun – or dry-cleaned if local circumstances permitted – then carefully wrapped in clean paper, with crumbled-up camphor blocks strewn through the layers. Dried lavender, or other scented herbs, were generally used for more delicate items, such as silk or cashmere. After Naphthalene and other proprietary chemical insect repellents were introduced in the 1920s, these more pleasant-smelling natural materials fell into disuse. While undeniably effective, these products permanently impregnate everything from fabric and leather to timber-lined wardrobes and drawers, and no amount of careful airing in strong sunlight can ever remove that distinctive whiff of stale mothball. In cities such as Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, and much of tropical Asia, cool-weather clothes were seldom required anyway. A few cardigans or jerseys kept handy for occasional short holidays at hill stations such as Malaysia's Cameron Highlands, where mornings and evenings could be brisk, were quite enough. But in wealthy commercial cities with distinct cool seasons that lasted for a few months, like Kolkata and Hong Kong, many residents owned numerous expensive seasonal garments, such as furs, that required careful care during the rest of the year. A fur fashion show at the Hilton Hotel in 1977 was indicative of a Hong Kong society where the wealthiest have always 'said it with mink' despite animal rights concerns. Photo: SCMP Archives In these places, a full-length mink coat, sable jacket or silver fox stole paraded an imprimatur of personal wealth and, by extension, longed-for social standing, to the watching world-at-large. And several such luxuries, carefully rotated through the season's dinner parties, cocktail evenings and club nights, demonstrated just how much that fortunate individual – or her husband – was really worth.
