Hong Kong Stories

Playing music is the favourite pastime of many people in Hong Kong. However, how much of a struggle would it be to make a career in music? Both Alex and Moon are amateur musicians who are pursuing a dream in music in their spare time. Moon So has been passionate about music since childhood. She wanted to study music at university. But her father’s objection made her choose another field – diagnostic radiography. After graduation she became a diagnostic radiographer. But she continued to study music in her spare time. However, when she could no longer handle both she decided to quit her job. She became a full time music teacher. But soon she realised reality was too different from her idealistic notion. In the end she has decided to spend her time between making a living as a diagnostic radiographer and pursuing her interest in music by running an amateur orchestra which she has established. Alex Wong learned to play the oboe in secondary school. When he went to university he gave up studying music in favour of maths. After becoming a secondary school teacher, he picked up his interest in music again. He has bought many professional musical instruments and takes every opportunity to perform with amateur orchestras. His amateur status sometimes makes certain gigs unavailable to him. Although he has never received endorsement from his parents in his passion for music he still insists on being a professional amateur musician. He dreams of one day becoming a professional performer.

Wing, a full-time hair stylist, has been in the business for 20 years. He began as a hair salon apprentice. The pay was low and the hours were long. He gritted his teeth and stuck with it until he became a hair stylist. In 2003 the year of SARS he tried to start his own business. But he ended up closing the business and losing money. Having been through such ups and downs he still insists on doing his best in cutting each client’s hair. Everyone has a dream. Wing has loved the ocean since he was a child. Influenced by his brother Toby he started diving in his teens. He also fell in love with underwater photography. With years of hard work and dedication, Wing has collected, in his spare time, many rare and wonderful pictures of the underwater ecology in Hong Kong. His works have won local and international awards. As his proficiency begins to be recognised by professionals in the industry, he has begun to toy with the idea of becoming a professional underwater photographer. But to be an underwater photographer in Hong Kong he has to face many challenges. He also has family responsibilities. Between making a living and pursuing his dream, how will he choose? Should he boldly take the plunge, or wait to see if an opportunity will present itself?

Warout Lau is a piano tuner. But he doesn’t play the piano nor is he mesmerized by its crisp sounds. He is fascinated by the sound of something else, the gun. In 2003 Warout got hooked on practical shooting. This kind of air gun shooting activity requires you to accurately shoot all the targets in a simulated scenario in the shortest possible time. The gun holds a certain magic for Warout who loves machines. “From the first shot to the second and third shot, how fluidly and accurately they are executed is what fascinates me.” Warout is interested in how machines work. He started taking toy guns apart to study them when he was young. Later, with the support of his father, he started a shop after secondary school to repair and modify air guns. After 3 years his business went downhill. To make a living he decided to learn to be a piano tuner at a music store. He eventually took up work as a piano tuner. He has been working as one for over 20 years. He feels the gun and the piano have something in common. “How to make them work fluidly is my main area of work. With the piano you don’t just hit a key to make a sound. It’s important to make sure it works normally when you continue to play. It’s the same with guns. Once the bullet is fired you let go to allow all the parts return to their original place so that the second shot can be fired.” Warout loves practical shooting but he has not been able to make it his career. His dream is to promote this activity so it will be recognised as a sport. This is the only way shooters can become professional athletes or instructors.

History in Craftsman's hand Don’t think just because Louis Ho wears shorts and a tank top that he’s an ordinary artisan. You’ll never guess that in his spare time he uses his pen and a magnifying glass like a sleuth to trace and record some of Hong Kong’s forgotten history. Louis Ho is the 4th generation owner of a shop that makes pulley block. To continue the family business, he came back to work in the shop after graduating secondary school. In 2000 Louis Ho who had lost interest in wood discovered a new purpose in life. He found in a book a picture of a street that was wrongly captioned. The street in Yaumati was where he grew up in so he knew it very well, and his father also confirmed that he was right. Since then he has believed that it is important to verify history, that he should be as meticulous in researching history as he is in doing his work. He went on to trace the history of his own shop and also that of the Red Brick House. His passion actually helped to preserve this historical building. Even now he occasionally writes articles for newspapers, putting on record some of Hong Kong’s history that is rarely known. Having been tracing Hong Kong’s history for over a decade, Louis Ho and his like-minded friends feel that history is the soul of a place, without a soul a place will just be a shell. If no one continues to dig up our history, Hong Kong’s past will slowly become a blur and eventually disappear from the minds of the next generation.

Ricky, a self-proclaimed maniac, has been pursued by international media for interviews because he has realized a childhood dream by creating an android all by himself. He insists that he likes to play in life, to do what interests him. That sounds so carefree. But how many have been able to put it into action? Like many Ricky was introduced to robots through watching cartoon in his childhood. Like many children he also wondered if it would become a reality. And like many he has to work for a living when he grew up. He becomes a graphic designer but the only difference is he never gave up his childhood dream. He has poured $400,000 into developing Mark I, an android fashioned after a Hollywood movie star. Mark I is very life-like and has detailed expressions. To produce an android usually takes a great deal of money and a whole team for research and development. But Ricky has managed to do it on his own. This is why the media from around the world have been interviewing him. Becoming a graphic designer in the 90s, Ricky has seen the heyday and the decline of the industry. Robot technology on the other hand has made leaps and bounds, from mechanical arms to androids that can walk. He believes this is a new industrial revolution. But Hong Kong has been slow to catch up. At the crossroad of a dying industry of graphic design and a new thriving industry of robot, will he be able to continue his robot dream?

Pokfulam Village on Hong Kong Island has a long history. It has a hundred-year-old tradition of fire dragon dance at Mid-Autumn Festival. The 30-metre long fire dragon is practically built singlehandedly by its resident Ng Kong Kin. Master Ng Kong Kin grew up in Pokfulam Village. He learned to make fire dragons as a child. To carry on the traditional he has opened a workshop in the village to teach the art of making fire dragon. He does not put on airs and is very friendly with his students whom he encourages to be creative. But he is committed to upholding his village’s tradition. As they say, “Fame without compromising the original quality, innovation without forgetting the past.” He is content to live a simple life in the village running a fish stall next to his workshop. He is fine with just getting by. Since 2013 another district on Hong Kong Island started the fire dragon dance tradition at the Mid-Autumn Festival. The one promoting it is Ng Kong Kin’s older brother Ng Kong Nam. He too grew up in Pokfulam Village. Although he has moved out he still loves the fire dragon tradition. He has introduced this tradition to Aberdeen and is teaching fire-dragon making at a youth centre there to the younger generation. He wants more people to know this tradition. Besides being a bone-setter he also teaches the Choi Lee Fat school of Chinese boxing and lion dance. He learned kung fu as a child and is very serious and determined to pass on this traditional culture. He hopes his nephew, Ng Kong Kin’s son, will be the one to continue to uphold their traditions. The Ng brothers remember their childhood playing at the Pokfulam Reservoir gathering material to make a fire dragon: bamboo, Chinese fan palm, and Banyan tree air roots. They may be very different in character but they share the same goal of promoting the fire dragon tradition.

Do you still remember the old textbooks you studied in primary and secondary school? Most likely they were thrown away once the exam was over or simply lost. Do you remember what you read or learned from them? Lau Chi Chung is a visual artist and a visual art teacher. A decade or so ago he started collecting old things. He has amassed thousands of old primary and secondary textbooks. To share the fruits of his labour of love, he has opened an exhibition space in Wanchai. When he looks through these old textbooks, Lau enjoys the interesting illustrations. But what’s more important is that with the passage of time, reading them is like reading the modern history of Hong Kong.

When you pedal a bike with your feet you can travel in different cities to see different sights. When you make a bike with your hands you can create different styles to realise your imaginative ideas. Gary Chan, a bike maker, was a worker at a plastic bag printing factory 10 years ago. An accidental brush with a cyclist who hurled expletives at him galvanised him into creating his own bike. Despite his lack of knowledge about bicycles, he managed to create his first bike with only his application and determination using makeshift tools and discarded material. This embarks him on an unusual and adventurous journey. He furtively assembled his bike in the corridor of a factory building and test-ran it on the streets in the middle of the night. The falls and injuries he sustained did not deter him from devoting himself to creating his bike because the freedom for creativity and self-expression seems to keep growing. So are the styles of the bikes he made with his hands. There is a scooter bike, a Harley pedal bike, a reclining bike and a two-headed bike, to name a few. They are interesting and fun to ride on. Making bikes was originally a kind of self-indulgence for Gary. But fate would have it that when he was trial-running his solar-powered tricycle on the road he was charged and fined. It made the news and his bikes became known. Artists and designers came knocking at his door to work with him. Gary’s creative journey has the potential to go further. He may even be able to turn it into a career, depending on his imagination and determination to explore.