All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
Examples of “Shanghai” range Losol (low solubility) brand ware, a highly collectable, c.1912–1936, Art Nouveau, flow-blue style earthenware manufactured by Keeling & Co Ltd. of Burslem, England. The “Shanghai” pattern features vibrant, multicoloured scenes including flowers (such as peonies), green foliage, and exotic birds…
My VoiceMap tour of art deco Hong Kong’s Kadoorie Hill and environs also takes you through a few Kowloon local markets….
Yuen Po Street Bird Market was established after the former “Bird Street” at Hong Lok Street was demolished in the 1990s. At Yuen Po moon gateways divide the length of the street into a series of traditional-style courtyards.
Keeping songbirds as pets has been a popular practice in China for centuries, particularly among the nobility and the scholarly elite, and particularly during the Qing Dynasty. It’s never completely died out and similar markets and “bird walkers” are to be found in every mainland Chinese city as well as Hong Kong. However, some think the tradition remained stronger in Hong Kong due to particularly dense living conditions and small flats.
A telescope from Voigtlander & Sohn, a long-established company within the optics and photographic industry, headquartered in Braunschweig, that recently came up for auction. And so a rabbit hole…..! It was originally sold by Chas J Gaupp of Hong Kong, of who more below….
Chas. J Gaupp were a long-established Watch Makers, Opticians, Chronometers & Jewellers in Hong Kong – basically anything optical, lens or such like.
Here’s a great photo of Queens Road Looking West which includes their store and is by the great John Thomson. The building in the foreground is the Victoria Exchange, and next to it is Chas. J. Gaupp & Co (#54-56). The old Oriental Bank building is underneath and behind the trees opposite. The lanterns and decorations were to celebrate the visit to Hong Kong of H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh in 1869.
I believe they had a branch in Singapore too. Around 1904 they moved their store to Chater Road. They also made chronometers, which were especially important prior to the establishment of the Hong Kong Observatory…
UK citizens will be able to travel visa-free to China for trips under 30 days. The change brings the UK in line with countries including France, Germany, Italy, Australia and Japan.
The fragrant and charming Mongkok Flower Market is defined by its streets of low-rise, traditional street-level shops, just by some stunning art-deco on Prince Edward Road West. It’s a delightful, bustling local market.
So, of course, Hong Kong’s ever-meddling, rarely-improving, Urban Renewal Authority (URA) wishes to trash it with one of its invariably horrid “redevelopment plans”. Where you can still see small flourishing businesses, cafes, human scale life, they see yet more malls, bland indoor markets and fake canals. What a disaster, if it happens.
But for now at least you can wander the market, admire the shophouses and see the adjacent art-deco apartment buildings on my VoiceMap walking tour of Kowloon’s art deco treasures and hidden local gems….click here….
I’ll be zooming in to the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club book group February 2 (7pm HK time) to discuss my book Her Lotus Year: China, The Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson. If you are a member of the Hong Kong FCC then let the administration office now and they’ll add you to the group’s Whats-app to access either the evening at the FCC. If you are in Hong Kong and would like to join the FCC Book Group, either for this event or for others too, email me (paul@chinarhyming.com) and let me know….there are ways!!
The stories about the end of newsstands in China is very sad – I’ve always enjoyed browsing them for new magazines and regional media. Here’s a couple of photos – a Beijing news kiosk in 2002 and a mobile bicycle newsstand in Kunming, 2004….
