A mainland Chinese tourist was rescued after falling into the sea while reportedly taking photos at a lookout point near Clear Water Bay.

Police said they received a report just before 11am on Sunday that a woman lost her footing near a lighthouse by Fat Tong Mun, a channel separating Clear Water Bay and Tung Lung Chau, and fell into the sea. She was saved by somebody on a passing boat.

According to the police investigation, she fell from a three-metre-high cliff.

The 46-year-old was conscious when police arrived. She was sent to Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan for treatment, police added.

Local media reported that the woman was hiking with two friends when the incident happened. They stopped at the lighthouse for photos, and she slipped and fell. Hikers in the area alerted police.

She was reportedly rescued by a man in his 70s who was passing by on a fishing boat and heard her cries for help.

Located on an island called Tung Lung Chau, the lighthouse is a popular photo spot, according to conservation NGO Green Come True. But it cautions visitors to be safe and not get too close.

“However, please be aware that the lighthouse is located below the cliff. For safety reasons, it is recommended that you do not get too close for photography,” the NGO wrote in a Facebook post in 2024.

The incident comes a week before mainland China’s five-day Labour Day Golden Week holiday. Authorities expect that around 980,000 visitors from the mainland will cross the border, an increase of 7 per cent compared with last year.

Ahead of the Easter holiday, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said that with more visitors expected at country parks during the break, the public should follow direction signs when hiking and refrain from standing close to cliff edges.

Dengue fever poses a “moderate” risk to Hong Kong, a health official has said after the city recorded its first local case of the infection this year.

Albert Au, head of the Centre for Health Protection (CHP), said in an RTHK radio programme on Wednesday that rising temperatures and the imminent rainy season made environments more favourable for mosquito breeding.

“The infection rate for mosquito-borne diseases in Southeast Asia and neighbouring regions remains high,” Au said in Cantonese. “So we think the risk of an outbreak cannot be neglected.”

Hong Kong is investigating a local case of dengue fever after a 21-year-old man, who had not travelled outside the city lately, tested positive for the dengue virus.

According to a government statement on Tuesday, the man developed symptoms including fever and a rash last week, and is currently in stable condition in hospital.

He told authorities he had recently been bitten by mosquitoes near a construction site in Penny’s Bay on Lantau, where he works.

Environmental inspections showed there were “multiple sites conducive to mosquito breeding” there, including drainage channels with weeds and leaves, as well as stagnant water, the statement read.

The man lives at Tai Wo Estate in Tai Po. The CHP has set up a consultation booth at the estate to provide health assessments and dengue fever antibody tests for people with symptoms.

12 imported cases this year

So far, 12 other cases of dengue fever have been recorded this year, all of them imported.

Dengue fever, a viral infection transmitted to humans through mosquito bites, is most commonly recorded in warmer climates, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Most people experience mild or no symptoms, although severe cases – often caused by multiple infections – can lead to death.

Au said there might have been undiagnosed imported cases of dengue fever in the community that transmitted the virus locally. However, authorities have not found epidemiological links between the man’s case and other previously recorded imported cases.

In 2025, the city recorded 59 cases of dengue fever, all imported. In 2024, there were 161 cases, five of which were local.

According to the government statement, the 21-year-old’s household contacts and workers at the construction site are so far asymptomatic.

Members of the public are advised to inspect their homes and prevent water accumulation to remove potential mosquito breeding grounds.

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Words by James Lee.

Wielding a brush with bristles tapered to a needle-thin point, Joseph Tso applied black overglaze paint, filling the gaps in the outlines of an old Guangcai porcelain piece with a deftness that belies his age in the late seventies.

“These old ones, the outlines are all broken, and the colours have faded,” he said with his arm resting on a wooden box to keep the numbness in his hand at bay. “Back in the day, I would have just handed this to one of our painters.”

Tso is the third-generation owner of the 98-year-old Yuet Tung China Works in Kowloon Bay, the city’s oldest hand-painted porcelain factory.

He was six when he moved from mainland China to Hong Kong with his family in 1956. He grew up surrounded by porcelainware.

The factory was originally named Kam Wah Loong when it was established by Tso’s grandfather in 1928 in Kowloon City.

“Historically, there was a lot of conflict in China, whereas Hong Kong was much more stable. My grandfather saw an opportunity and realised that foreigners really liked our porcelain, so he set up the first factory,” Tso said.

Two decades later, after World War II, the factory was renamed Yuet Tung – its name to this day.

Industrial boom

The painstaking detail that goes into the Qing Dynasty-era craft, named guangcai or “Canton famille rose porcelain” in English, demands a three-year apprenticeship before craftspeople can work at the factory, Tso said.

Only after he graduated from secondary school in the late 1960s was he allowed to start learning porcelain techniques at the factory.

That was when Hong Kong’s industrial boom was in full swing, with several dozen workers hand-painting Yuet Tung’s porcelain and a client list containing the names of European royal families and overseas department stores.

“I would help with the external affairs, while my father would handle the manufacturing,” he said.

Tso attributes the factory’s success in part to his English-language education in the British colony, which helped him meet overseas buyers and expand the porcelain factory’s clientele worldwide.

At its peak, a vast majority of the factory’s business was export-driven. American department stores such as R.H. Macy – known today as Macy’s – led demand for the porcelain maker’s products, and would regularly ask the factory for new designs, while European royal families would commission the factory to have their coats of arms painted on porcelain dinnerware.

Local hotels such as the Peninsula and the Regent were also among Yuet Tung’s top clients.

The city’s industrial boom slowed after mainland China introduced economic reforms in 1978 and opened up to foreign trade and investment.

The resulting labour flight in the 1990s hit the factory hard after its painters, along with the dozens of other factories in Hong Kong, left for the mainland.

Yuet Tung is the only factory that stayed. “I didn’t want to go up for networking,” Tso said with a chuckle.

Now, only a low hum from an industrial kiln and the occasional clinking of porcelain plates punctuates the silence in the factory, as its ageing painters work quietly behind stacks of porcelainware.

After the city’s economy de-industrialised, Yuet Tung maintains its operations by serving luxury clients and selling custom pieces locally. In recent years, it has secured funding from the government’s Intangible Cultural Heritage scheme.

The human touch

Yuet Tung is still maintaining its local, hand-drawn heritage while introducing new techniques to help ease the painstaking work of its painters.

Traditional Guangcai artisans use black pigment and razor-thin brushes to draw outlines of motifs such as peonies, phoenixes, dragons, and carp on white porcelain. The outlined illustrations are then filled in with pale pinks and contrasting greens with touches of sharp vermillion and gold highlights.

After the painted wares are fired in an 800-degree-Celsius kiln, the special overglaze enamel paints are vitrified and bonded to the porcelain, taking on a transparent matte finish.

A closer look at some of the finished porcelains at the factory reveals black outlines that tend to vary in weight and coloured paints that creep beyond the dark lines.

Those distinct, organic visual imperfections are proof of Yuet Tung’s hand-painted craftsmanship and a testament to the artisans’ experience – as well as to their age, as they find it more challenging to paint with great precision.

“I was originally going to retire,” Tso said. “I’m 77, and some of the workers are over 80.”

Fully hand-drawn and painted porcelains have become far rarer, however. To take some of the strain off the elderly painters, Yuet Tung has introduced a special method of printing readymade “decals” of the outlines onto the porcelain, using a water-activated transfer paper.

The outlines are drawn on a tablet computer, then printed onto transfer paper, which is then cut out, moistened, and placed onto the porcelain. Once the outlines are transferred to the porcelain, the painters can fill in the colours by hand.

In the age of artificial intelligence, one may wonder whether they are tempted to join the AI bandwagon.

“You might say that AI can easily create a design, but AI creations are boring,” Tso said. “Even though all the old masters paint dragons, they all have their distinctive styles. AI doesn’t have that personalised touch.”

“People admire our creations for the handiwork,” he added.

The transfer paper technique retains some of the qualities of hand-painted outlines, such as a slightly raised texture, while precise linework retains a uniform thickness, Tso said. It also makes the products more affordable for customers, he added.

The technique was introduced by his daughter, Martina Tso, who runs the factory with her father.

Innovation

Martina Tso, who holds a bachelor’s degree in design from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and a master’s degree in comparative literature from the University of Hong Kong, now manages much of Yuet Tung’s business operation.

Since joining the family business, she has modernised some of the factory’s designs for collaborations with brands such as Casetify and Lane Crawford.

She also designed a special series of tableware themed “Canton People,” displayed at the Palace Museum in Beijing in November last year during an exhibition organised by the Hong Kong Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau.

Adopting techniques found in traditional Chinese paintings, Martina Tso depicts scenes at cha chaan teng – Hong Kong-style cafes – and dim sum restaurants with distinctive booth seats and trolleys, and the city’s skyline in the background.

Images of a modern city, such as the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and high-rises, are juxtaposed with traditional motifs like the pink rose.

“In the old days, we relied mostly on exports, but over the past decade we’ve found more local collaborations,” the fourth-generation entrepreneur said. “What we do really represents Hong Kong’s heritage.”