Ippei-an Ramen & Bar, a Japanese restaurant that has been in operation for 42 years, is located in what people may say is one of Hong Kong’s worst locations.

Energy Plaza, a commercial building in Tsim Sha Tsui East, is no longer a lively spot. Quite a number of stores and restaurants have shut down over the past few years. The lights are dim, and you can hardly find the way to the ramen shop, which is tucked away in the basement.

Yet diners fill the 800-square-foot restaurant at lunch and dinner. Office workers, construction workers, secondary school students and tourists seek comfort in affordable, generous bowls of broth and noodles.

Opened in 1984, Ippei-an bills itself as Hong Kong’s first ramen restaurant. Its founder, Itsuko Shimada, emigrated to Hong Kong 55 years ago.

“I am almost a Hongkonger… I have spent more time in Hong Kong than in Japan,” Shimada spoke to HKFP in English mixed with Cantonese and Japanese. “My life has had its ups and downs here.”

Now in her early 70s, Shimada was a teenager when she and her parents moved from Tokyo to Hong Kong in 1971.

More than a decade later, Shimada, then newly divorced, founded Ippei-an. Her younger son, Kosei Kamatani, was one year old at that time. He later took over the family business after working for a multinational firm.

At its peak, their business had nearly a dozen restaurants across Hong Kong. However, it has been hard hit over the past three years, forcing the closure of several outlets, the mother and son told HKFP.

After suffering significant monthly losses, three restaurants have shuttered since the end of last year, including the 21-year-old branch in Mira Place, a shopping mall in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Their business was not immune to the spate of closures that affected the city’s restaurant and retail sectors in recent years.

“It’s sad to see so many shops and restaurants shutting down in Hong Kong. I’ve never seen this in all my years here,” said Shimada.

‘Too naive to be scared’

When Shimada opened her first ramen restaurant in Energy Plaza in 1984, just a year after the building opened, Hong Kong’s economy was booming.

Tsim Sha Tsui East was a burgeoning business centre at the time, teeming not only with offices but also with nightclubs, discotheques, and restaurants. Shimada recalled that Energy Plaza’s basement housed a popular discotheque back then.

Ippei-an operated from 12pm to 12am, serving mainly white-collar office workers during the day and predominantly clubbers and hostesses at night.

“It was a time when everybody came [to Tsim Sha Tsui] to enjoy themselves. One person could spend HK$2,000, HK$3,000 in one night [at a nightclub], giving HK$1,000 in tips,” Shimada said.

Born in Japan, Shimada never imagined a life in Hong Kong. However, her parents were adventurers who loved travelling to different countries, she said.

In her youth, her mother was a dancer with the renowned Shochiku Kagekidan – Tokyo’s legendary all-female revue, while her father was a manager there. They often travelled abroad for performances as well as for pleasure. After Shimada’s mother retired from dancing, the couple opened a snack bar named Ippei in Tokyo.

“But they didn’t want to just run a small shop in Tokyo. They hoped to explore other opportunities,” said Shimada. Her parents chose Hong Kong because they had friends in the city.

The couple also wanted her to go with them, she said, “because I was their only child.”

After a few years of settling in, they opened a karaoke nightclub in Tsim Sha Tsui in 1978, introducing karaoke, which had become popular in Japan, to Hong Kong.

There were no karaoke venues in Hong Kong at the time, Shimada said. “My parents shipped karaoke equipment from Japan to Hong Kong. But at that time, there were no private rooms. People just sang in the hall.”

After marrying in Japan, Shimada’s then-husband also moved to Hong Kong to assist her parents with the nightclub business. The young couple got divorced a few years later, leaving Shimada to raise her two sons.

To support her family, Shimada decided to follow in her parents’ footsteps and become an entrepreneur. Instead of running a nightclub, she was more interested in the catering business.

“Coincidentally, a friend introduced me to the owner of a renowned Nagasaki ramen restaurant. I ganbatte [persevered] and went to Nagasaki many times to beg him to teach me the recipe, especially the soy sauce-based broth,” Shimada said.

Back then, there were no ramen restaurants in Hong Kong, Shimada said, yet she found the courage to be the first entrepreneur to introduce authentic Japanese ramen to the Chinese-majority population.

She called the restaurant Ippei-an – an homage to her parents’ snack bar in Tokyo.

“I was too naive to be scared,” she said, laughing.

Yet, people usually become more cautious as they gain experience, she added. “Twenty years later, when I opened the second restaurant, I was very worried. Because I was already professional.”

‘Invisible hands’

Shimada said that in the 1980s, there were not many Japanese restaurants in Hong Kong, and it was difficult for her to find a Japanese chef. She employed a Hong Kong cook and shared Japanese cuisine recipes with him.

“We couldn’t sell just ramen. So I also offered a variety of Japanese dishes. It’s like what I make at home, bringing people the taste of a mother’s cooking,” she said. Apart from ramen and dumplings, Ippei-an served dishes such as sizzling tofu and clam butter stir-fry.

“Back then in Hong Kong, there weren’t many types of Japanese seasonings available – unlike today, when there are so many available in the supermarkets – so I used to make a lot of sauces myself. Many years later, the chef at our new restaurant was so surprised that we made so many sauces,” Shimada said, giggling.

She juggled life as a working mother. Her parents helped her take care of her two sons, but she made sure to spend time with them. She rushed home every afternoon after the restaurant’s lunch hours, had an early dinner with the children, and headed back to Energy Plaza to work until midnight.

At the time, as many Japanese companies opened offices in Tsim Sha Tsui East, their staff frequented the ramen restaurant. It was where she found a second chance at love.

“I met my husband in the restaurant. He was my customer. He worked at a Japanese company nearby and came to Ippei-an for meals,” Shimada said.

In the early 1990s, she remarried. She thought of returning to Japan once in a while, but she found more opportunities in Hong Kong.

“It was like invisible hands pushing me forward. Other shopping malls invited me to open new restaurants in their venues, ” Shimada said.

In May 2005, she opened an Ippei-an branch in Mira Place and another in Elements, in West Kowloon, in 2007.

At the Mira Place branch, Shimada introduced a dual-concept model. During the day, the focus was on ramen and Japanese set meals. Late at night, the venue transitioned into a Japanese bistro, complete with dimmed lights and candles.

The restaurant capitalised on Hong Kong’s late-night lifestyle. After drinking at bars in Tsim Sha Tsui, customers would head to Ippei-an for comfort food and another round of drinks.

In 2007, Kamatani joined his mother to run the restaurant business. They opened ramen restaurants under a new brand, as well as a Japanese dessert shop.

Finding her roots

The mother-and-son team ran 11 restaurants across the city at their heyday in the early 2010s.

However, around 10 years ago, Kamatani began to notice a drop in business as more Japanese restaurants opened in Hong Kong. Then came the worst.

“Business became unstable during the 2019 social movement. And it was hard during the Covid-19 pandemic, but we tried to cut our costs, with some staff on unpaid leave,” said Kamatani, 43.

“To our surprise, business did not recover after the government lifted all Covid-19 restrictions in early 2023,” he said. He estimated that revenue had dropped by around 30 per cent compared with the pre-pandemic period.

The city’s catering sector has been hit by a wave of closures since 2024. Some entrepreneurs blamed the sluggish business on the mass emigration. Since the border reopened after the pandemic, Hongkongers have flocked to nearby mainland Chinese cities for more affordable meals and entertainment.

Shimada has also noticed some changes: Hong Kong residents are seeking lower prices while mainland Chinese chains are entering the market, offering cheaper options. Main roads in prime shopping areas, such as Nathan Road, have many empty shops.

Her son pointed out that operating a restaurant entails “lots of financial burdens,” such as rent, staff salaries and payments to food suppliers. “Running a catering business in Hong Kong, you’ll probably suffer from mental illness,” Kamatani quipped.

Sometimes Shimada regrets not having purchased a commercial property in Hong Kong.

“I was always thinking maybe I would return to Japan one day. But many things happened, and somehow I stayed here, ” Shimada said. “Now, when I return to Japan, my relatives say I don’t look like a Japanese person anymore.”

After her father died in the early 1990s, the family closed down the karaoke nightclub. Shimada remained in the city to take care of her mother, who died years later.

Shimada mostly retired from restaurants around 10 years ago to focus on caring for her husband, who had Alzheimer’s disease.

Her husband passed away in January. In the same month, Kamatani decided to close the Ippei-an branch in Mira Place.

Their lives are currently in transition. Kamatani is looking for an opportunity as a catering consultant in Europe, while Shimada is considering returning to manage Ippei-an.

The septuagenarian entrepreneur said she was uncertain about Hong Kong’s business prospects but wanted to continue running Ippei-an.

“Many regulars love it here. Some have dined here for many years and later came with their children, their grandchildren,” she said. “I always love seeing some customers sitting cross-legged here, which means they feel comfortable” – just as they are at home.

Recently, their business has been on the rise again, thanks to some foodie YouTubers. People are dining at Ippei-an not only for the noodles but also for the 1980s nostalgia. The landlord of Energy Plaza is being helpful, offering lower rent to its four-decade-long tenant.

“This is my root. I hope it can continue. My wish is that everyone feels happy,” Shimada said. “It feels like home here.”

Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) hospital in Lankien, a town in South Sudan’s Jonglei state, was hit by an airstrike in February, although the medical charity’s bright red logo was painted on the building’s roof.

Lucy Lau, an MSF project coordinator deployed to the eastern African nation, said she believed the airstrike on February 3 was not a coincidence.

It was a tactical attack targeting the hospital’s main warehouse, destroying not only the building but also most of the critical supplies stored inside, she said in early April.

Before the airstrike, MSF received information about a possible attack on Lankien and decided to evacuate the hospital. Lau and other staff members were able to escape unscathed, but one worker was injured in the strike, which MSF blamed on the South Sudanese military.

She and her team were forced to cut their six-month mission short and leave the country the same evening.

Lankien is an opposition stronghold in South Sudan, a country that has been wracked by political instability since a civil war erupted in 2013. Despite a 2018 peace deal, armed conflict has continued between President Salva Kiir’s government troops and rebel forces loyal to former vice president Riek Machar.

Citing the UN, MSF said the renewed conflict killed 2,000 people and displaced 320,000 in 2025.

The humanitarian aid NGO also said that its health facility in Pieri, another town in Jonglei, was looted by unknown assailants on February 3, hours before the airstrike in Lankien.

In a statement issued the day after, MSF lambasted the attacks. ”While we are aware of the enormous needs in the country, we find it unacceptable to be a target for attacks,” said MSF operations manager Gul Badshah.

MSF suffered eight targeted attacks in 2025, forcing the charity to close two hospitals and suspend medical activities in Upper Nile, Jonglei and Central Equatoria states. The UN said an aerial bombing of an MSF hospital in Old Fangak, also located in Jonglei, in May last year “could amount to a war crime.”

Lau said the attacks were meant to cripple healthcare systems in an area controlled by political opponents, disregarding the effect on civilians.

Lau, an engineer by training, joined MSF’s logistics team in 2011. She said she had noticed an increased willingness in recent years to target civilian infrastructure and aid organisations in armed conflicts, resulting in greater difficulty in delivering humanitarian aid.

It “feels like a growing trend worldwide,” the 46-year-old said.

Underfunded

Lau was deployed to Jonglei state in October, four months before the airstrike, to work as a project coordinator.

She was responsible for managing MSF’s emergency medical projects, coordinating operations between different departments: medical, human resources, finance, and logistics.

The MSF hospital in Lankien treated paediatric malnutrition and maternity cases and provided treatment for infectious diseases, including cholera, tuberculosis, and HIV.

Disease outbreaks “are indirect impacts of the civil war,” especially in a country whose budget has gone mostly to the military, while healthcare is chronically underfunded, Lau said.

“I was told by officials that only 1 per cent of the 2026 national budget was allocated to the health ministry.”

Those seeking treatment included civilians hit by explosives and gunshot wounds. The hospital also ran programmes for survivors of intimate partner violence.

The Hongkonger, who arrived in South Sudan with a small MSF team, worked mostly with local healthcare workers and engineers. “These people spend most of their lives around this civil war. They’re tired,” she said.

‘Classic dilemma’

Despite the threat to their safety, healthcare workers still feel responsible for their patients.

Lau recalled how a team member, who took shelter in a nearby safe house after the bombardment, asked if they could head back to the hospital to treat wounded patients who had just arrived.

“Our duty is to help [patients], but we also have to consider our own well-being… they were worried about their own safety, then they turned their attention to how they could help the wounded,” Lau said. “It’s a classic dilemma.”

Because of the airstrike, tens of thousands of South Sudanese were displaced. Some fled into the bush and eventually to nearby villages, such as Chuil and Minkaman in Lakes state. Some with more means fled to neighbouring countries like Ethiopia or Uganda, Lau said.

The escalating violence means that local communities will be left without any healthcare in a country where the government’s healthcare budget is almost non-existent, Lau said.

Despite the attacks, MSF teams still in the country have scaled up medical and humanitarian support for displaced people. Since late February, they have provided 2,200 consultations, admitted 172 patients to the healthcare centre in Chuil, and referred 16 patients for further treatment.

US President Donald Trump’s USAID cuts have affected the ability of other international organisations to provide aid in South Sudan, leaving MSF, which does not accept US funding, as one of the few NGOs providing some semblance of a functioning healthcare system in the country, Lau said.

Space for aid

After years of working in conflict zones, including in Ukraine and Afghanistan, the MSF logistician has observed a growing trend of targeting civilian infrastructure, especially healthcare facilities.

In February, four years after Russia’s war in Ukraine began, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had recorded more than 2,800 attacks on Ukrainian health care, with the highest number logged in 2025.

Meanwhile, United Nations experts called Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, including bombing hospitals, “medicide.” Amid the ongoing US-Israeli attacks on Iran, the WHO said in early April it had verified more than 20 attacks on healthcare facilities in the Islamic republic since March 1.

Attacks on facilities such as hospitals are no longer an unfamiliar sight, Lau said.

According to MSF, the government, opposition forces, and non-state armed groups have all openly violated international humanitarian law by repeatedly attacking its medical facilities and staff.

In August, gunmen intercepted an MSF convoy and abducted a team leader just four days after the abduction of health ministry staff. The MSF team leader was released hours later.

During her deployment in South Sudan, Lau was responsible for negotiating with different factions, including the government and the opposition, to protect MSF’s personnel, clinics, and patients within conflict zones.

Although MSF maintains a neutral stance in the conflict, the government questioned why Lau’s team was operating on opposition territory. “But we had teams providing services on government territory too; it just wasn’t my team,” she said.

MSF said that since December, the government had ordered blockades barring humanitarian access exclusively in parts of opposition-held areas of Jonglei state, in a bid to place pressure on opposition territory, including the civilian populations living there.

The international charity warned that the restrictions could bring “dangerous consequences for children, pregnant women, and people living with chronic or life-threatening conditions.”

Lau and her team had to consider whether certain actions, such as operating in an opposition stronghold, would make them lose access to other parts of the state.

“We used to feel guaranteed that we would be protected working in a hospital. We can’t think like that anymore,” she said.

“The space for our work has become much smaller. There are now many more risks we have to consider, and we need to consider whether those risks are worth taking, and that is a fine line.”

MSF, as an impartial humanitarian aid provider, “can’t really help improve the situation in terms of the war,” Lau said.

“But we can have an effect on the lives of individuals, and to them, that’s what’s important,” especially while international attention and support are limited, she added,

As of Friday, an independent committee investigating the deadly Tai Po fire has held 10 hearing sessions. Those who have testified include Wang Fuk Court residents as well as employees of firms responsible for fire safety and building management at the estate.

The hearings began on March 19, nearly four months after the fire killed 168 people and displaced thousands in late November. The full-day sessions – from 10am to around 4.30pm – will continue on most weekdays in April and are open to the public.

So far, the testimonies have painted a picture of residents’ complaints falling on deaf ears, as well as potential negligence of the firms engaged at Wang Fuk Court.

With the first round of hearings concluding on April 2, and the second round beginning on Wednesday, here are the major takeaways so far.

Cigarette likely cause of fire

At the time of the fire, Wang Fuk Court was undergoing a large-scale renovation project. During the hearings, multiple residents said they had seen workers smoking.

Senior Counsel Victor Dawes, lead lawyer for the committee, said on the first day of the hearing that the likely cause of the initial fire was a lit cigarette on a flat roof of the light well outside flats 104 and 105 of Wang Cheong House.

The finding is based on a preliminary report by the government laboratory and the Fire Investigation Task Force, an interdepartmental team set up by the authorities.

Dawes said the cigarette was believed to have ignited nearby combustible carton boxes. The concrete at the bottom of the light well was severely damaged, and a metal fence was also deformed, showing the severity of the fire there.

He added that “all the evidence” points to this as the start of the fire. During the hearing, he played videos filmed by a passer-by that showed a fire on a lower floor of one of the buildings.

Little action on residents’ complaints about workers smoking

In response to residents’ reports of workers smoking, the Labour Department conducted 16 inspections, but said the complaints were unsubstantiated.

It is also unclear which government department is in charge of enforcing no-smoking rules on construction sites. In response to one complainant, the Labour Department referred the matter to the Fire Services Department (FSD), which replied by email that the issue was not under its purview.

Cheng Tsz-ying, a property officer at Wang Fuk Court’s estate management company ISS EastPoint Properties, confirmed that she had received complaints about workers smoking.

She said ISS EastPoint passed the complaints on to the main renovation contractor, Prestige Construction & Engineering. While Prestige appeared to have put in place “some measures,” the problem remained, and ISS EastPoint did not follow up.

Cheng said the management company had limited power and was not able to “control Prestige workers.”

Complaints about foam boards brushed off

The hearings also drew attention to the use of flammable foam boards to protect windows during renovation work. It is believed that the boards played a role in exacerbating the spread of the fire and blocked residents’ views, making it more difficult for them to realise the severity of the blaze.

On the second day of the hearings, Dawes said residents filed complaints about the boards with the FSD, but the department responded that the matter was “beyond [its] ambit.”

Meanwhile, the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit, which oversees building safety for government housing, said regulations on the use of external wall cladding did not apply to Wang Fuk Court because the foam boards were used on a “temporary basis” – despite having been installed for a full year.

Fire alarms turned off by unqualified electrician

Non-functioning fire alarms at Wang Fuk Court have been attributed to the high death toll at Wang Fuk Court. Multiple residents, as well as a building attendant, told the hearings that the fire alarms did not go off during the blaze.

Electrician Law Kwok-shui, employed by ISS EastPoint, testified that he turned off main switches in all eight of the estate’s buildings because he was told to empty the fire water tanks ahead of maintenance involving tiling their interiors. Prestige gave the order to ISS EastPoint, he said.

Law testified that he was aware he did not have the necessary licence to operate fire safety equipment. He said he raised this with Lok Sin-ying, an ISS EastPoint clerk who gave him the task, but Lok told him to just follow the order. Lok later testified that she did not recall Law telling her that.

Law still carried out the order, saying he feared there would be consequences if he did not.

Law said he did not know that turning off the main switches would also deactivate fire alarms, and had he known, he would not have done so.

Both fire safety contractors unaware main switches were off

Prestige had contracted two fire safety firms, Victory Fire Engineering and China Status Development and Engineering Company.

Victory Fire had been conducting annual fire safety inspections at Wang Fuk Court since 2016, while China Status was in charge of fire safety matters related to the estate’s renovation.

Following the annual inspection in March last year, Victory Fire carried out maintenance on fire safety equipment in October and November.

Chung Kit-man, a director and engineer at Victory Fire, said he found out on November 19 – a week before the blaze – that the main switches were off, meaning the fire alarm system was also disabled.

Testifying on March 31, Chung agreed with lawyer Richard Khaw – representing ISS EastPoint- that this was surprising. But when asked if he followed this up, Chung replied: “It didn’t have to do with our work.”

Leung Ping-kay, a director of China Status, testified the following week. He told the committee that, as ordered by Prestige, he had notified the FSD of the shutdown of the fire hydrant and hose reel system to carry out water tank maintenance.

But Leung said he was unaware that the main switches were off and fire alarms were disabled. And despite signing off on notices, neither he nor his colleagues went to the estate to check fire safety equipment.

Dawes asked whether Leung agreed that if his company had performed their duty to conduct checks, his colleagues would have turned the switches back on, and “a lot of lives would have been saved.”

After hesitating, Leung agreed that he bore some responsibility.

China Status did not perform due diligence

Leung also told the committee that Prestige asked China Status to submit shutdown notices to the FSD. The notices were intended to inform the department that the fire hydrant and hose reel system would be disabled.

Under FSD rules, fire safety contractors can suspend fire safety systems for repair work and must notify the department if the work is expected to be carried out overnight or continuously for more than 24 hours.

As a result of the prolonged shutdown of the fire hydrant and hose reel system, fire hoses did not work during the fire, exacerbating the difficulty of rescue efforts.

Since each shutdown could last a maximum of 14 days, China Status submitted 85 notices to renew the shutdowns across all eight blocks of Wang Fuk Court from April to September last year – without ever visiting the estate to inspect the fire safety installations.

Leung confirmed that neither he nor any other company personnel went to Wang Fuk Court to understand the maintenance work or assess the necessity of disabling the fire hydrant and hose reel system.

He said he had been told that the management company would not let them inside the estate, a claim that Dawes called “ridiculous,” as China Status was Wang Fuk Court’s fire safety contractor.

Fire dep’t inspection did not reveal deactivated alarms

The FSD’s assistant director of licensing and certification, Keung Sai-ming, told the hearing on Friday that he did not find it odd that the water tank maintenance had lasted seven months. No questions would be asked as long as the works were ongoing, Keung said.

Dawes cited records showing that the department conducted an inspection at Wang Fuk Court on the night of October 19 – about five weeks before the fire – dispatching a fire truck to check fire hydrants and for obstructions on the estate’s emergency vehicle access path.

The lawyer also cited a firefighter’s testimony saying that they did not enter pump rooms, did not inspect fire alarms or the hose reel system, and found nothing amiss.

Asked if this was a large-scale inspection, Keung said it was “standard procedure.”

Questionable proxy votes prevalent

ISS EastPoint clerk Lok also testified that unauthorised proxy votes were prevalent in voting procedures at meetings, during which homeowners cast ballots on estate-related matters such as renovations.

She said that at times, when she attempted to verify the authenticity of proxy votes, she found that the homeowner whose name appeared on a vote did not give permission for someone to vote on their behalf.

Asked by Chan Kin-por, a member of the committee, whether the proportion of proxies was typically more than half, Lok said, “Yes, you can put it this way.”

Resident Wong Suk-lan testified that many Wang Fuk Court residents chatted with her while shopping at her market stall, telling her that volunteers for Tai Po South District Councillor Peggy Wong asked flat owners to sign authorisation letters – documents allowing someone else to vote on their behalf.

Peggy Wong is a member of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), the city’s biggest pro-Beijing party. Between 2021 and 2024, she was a consultant to the management committee of Wang Fuk Court’s owners’ corporation, which approved the controversial renovation project.

Hong Kong introduced new national security rules in March that empower police to demand that national security suspects surrender passwords to their devices. Meanwhile, an independent bookshop owner and his employees were arrested for allegedly selling seditious books.

The national security trial of two Tiananmen vigil activists continued, and the city’s largest teachers’ union officially dissolved.

New national security amendments

The government introduced amendments to the “implementation rules” of the national security law that Beijing imposed in 2020.

Under the new rules, gazetted on March 23, police can require people under national security investigation to provide passwords or help decrypt their electronic devices.

Failure to do so can be punished by up to one year behind bars and a HK$100,000 fine. Providing a false or misleading statement is punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of HK$500,000.

The new rules also empowered customs officers to freeze or confiscate assets relating to national security crimes or to forfeit “articles that have seditious intention.”

Such powers were previously restricted to the secretary for justice, the secretary for security, and the police force.

In an attempt to quell public concerns, security chief Chris Tang described claims that police could stop people on the street and demand their phone passwords as “false and misleading.”

Tang said in the Legislative Council (LegCo) on March 26 that with the new requirements in place, there was public concern that police would randomly demand that citizens on the street hand over mobile phone passwords.

The minister said that police must apply for a court warrant providing “national security reasons” before requesting people suspected of endangering national security to hand over mobile phone passwords.

China summons top US diplomat

Beijing summoned the top US diplomat in Hong Kong after the US Consulate General issued an alert over a new rule in the financial hub empowering police to demand that national security suspects surrender their passwords.

In a statement on February 28, Beijing’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong said it had summoned Julie Eadeh, the US consul general in Hong Kong, for “solemn representations.”

The statement said the move was in response to the “so-called ‘security alert’” issued by the US Consulate General on February 26, days after the Hong Kong government introduced the new national security rule.

Bookshop owner, staff arrested

In late March, Hong Kong independent bookseller Pong Yat-ming and three of his staff members were reportedly arrested on suspicion of selling seditious titles, including a biography of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

Local media reported on March 24 that national security police arrested one man and three women for allegedly “knowingly selling a publication that has a seditious intention,” an offence under Hong Kong’s homegrown security law, the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, known locally as Article 23.

Citing anonymous sources, the reports said police also raided Book Punch – Pong’s Sham Shui Po bookstore – and seized allegedly seditious publications, including Lai’s 2024 biography – The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic.

The bookstore owner and the employees were released on bail on March 25, Book Punch said on Facebook. Pong confirmed with HKFP that he and his staff had been released on bail, but he could not say anything about the case.

Trial of Tiananmen vigil activists

The high-profile national security trial of Tiananmen vigil activists – barrister Chow Hang-tung and unionist Lee Cheuk-yan – continued in March.

The former leaders of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China are standing trial for “inciting subversion,” which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail. The third defendant, solicitor Albert Ho, pleaded guilty when the trial opened in January.

The case revolves around the Alliance’s key slogan calling for “an end to one-party rule” in China, which prosecutors allege amounts to a breach of China’s constitution and incitement to subversion.

On March 5, a panel of three national security judges ruled to bar a Taiwanese academic from testifying as the evidence he planned to give was deemed “irrelevant” to the case. Chow had initially applied to have Ho Ming-sho, a sociology professor at National Taiwan University, testify in the trial.

Both defendants had sought early acquittals from their charges, arguing that the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence.

Lee’s barrister, Erik Shum, argued that prosecutors had misinterpreted the Chinese constitution and erred in saying that there are no “lawful means” to call for an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule. The lawyer also told the court that calling for an end to the CCP’s rule does not mean “overthrowing” its government and state organs.

Chow, who represents herself, said the prosecution had adopted a broad reading of the Chinese constitution and had erred in alleging that she had directly breached it. The Alliance’s slogans fell within a Chinese citizen’s legitimate demand for choosing the country’s leadership, she also told the court.

However, the court ruled on March 13 that the prosecution established a prima facie case against Chow, Lee, and the Alliance, and the trial would go on.

Taking the stand on March 17, Lee denied that his demand for an end to one-party rule in China amounted to a call to overthrow the CCP. “I have no enmity in my heart, only love. Based on my love for the people, I hoped the Communist Party would reform, to let people have the rights and happiness they deserve,” he said the following day. 

Later, on March 20, Chow told the court that the Tiananmen vigils had “always promoted love and responsibility” rather than “hatred and despair.”

She also said writings published by the Alliance were not meant to be subversive, but to expose Hongkongers to democratic movements in mainland China. Her articles were intended to “tell stories” about Chinese activists facing oppression, including the late dissident Liu Xiaobo and his widow Liu Xia, she added.

On March 25, she played a video of the 2018 vigil in the courtroom, as well as a clip of Di Mengqi, a member of the Tiananmen Mothers, recounting the death of her son during the 1989 crackdown. “The most important session of the vigils was the speeches by the Tiananmen Mothers. They are the most directly affected parties and victims of the crackdown,” she said.

The following day, Chow told the court that the Alliance held internal discussions to address “concerns that the national security law would be used as a tool for political suppression,” weeks before its implementation in late June 2020.

Chow called three defence witnesses to testify in court. Former Alliance volunteer Choi Shuk-fong, 66, said she witnessed the Tiananmen crackdown when she was working as a journalist for Sing Tao Daily.

However, the judges barred a photo of injured, bloodied protesters at Tiananmen Square, which was taken by Choi, from being shown in court. “At the moment, I don’t see how this can help the court,” Judge Alex Lee said. Instead, Judge Johnny Chan verbally described the image.

A second defence witness, former vigil attendee Shum Lai-fong, 69, told the court she believed the Alliance’s call for an end to one-party rule was not directed at any specific party.

Kwan Chun-pong, 54, a former standing committee member and volunteer of the Alliance, also testified as a defence witness for Chow. Judge Lee instructed Chow to ask Kwan only questions about matters from 2018 onwards.

At one point, the judge reprimanded Chow when she referred to the crackdown as the “June 4 massacre.” “If you use phrases like this, I will need to consider whether to allow you to continue asking questions,” he said, correcting the term to “June 4 incident.”

Judge Lee adjourned the case to May 18 for the prosecution and the defence to present their closing submissions.

Appeals in Apple Daily case

Pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai decided not to appeal against his national security conviction and jail term, his lawyer said on March 6, nearly one month after the sentencing of the Apple Daily founder. The lawyer did not elaborate on the reason for not appealing.

Lai, 78, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars on February 9 – the longest jail term handed down so far under the Beijing-imposed national security law.

Two of his eight co-defendants filed an appeal against their 10-year sentences.

Fung Wai-kong, former editorial writer and editor-in-chief of Apple Daily’s English news section, and Lam Man-chung, former executive editor-in-chief at the tabloid, filed their appeals on March 2 and March 10, respectively, according to local media and High Court documents.

Eight co-defendants – including Fung, Lam and four other former Apple Daily executives – pleaded guilty and were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison alongside Lai.

Dissolution of the city’s largest teachers’ union

The pro-democracy Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union (HKPTU) officially dissolved last month – nearly five years after it announced steps to disband.

The Registry of Trade Unions gazetted on March 27 that the HKPTU – the city’s largest teachers’ union – was dissolved, marking the end of the group’s half-century of history.

Once a prominent force in Hong Kong’s civil society and democratic movement, the 53-year-old union had over 95,000 members before its dissolution, representing 90 per cent of the profession.

The HKPTU announced it would disband in August 2021, days after attacks by Chinese state media and the Education Bureau’s decision to cut ties with the union.

Film competition with nat. security terms

The Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC) revived an Asian film competition in early March after a 17-month hiatus, adding new terms requiring participants to ensure their work complies with the city’s national security legislation.

The HKAC’s Incubator for Film and Visual Media in Asia (ifva) Awards opened for applications on March 1.

According to the awards’ rules and regulations, “entrants must acknowledge and agree [that] the submitted entry… does not violate any provisions of the National Security Law, including these pertaining to secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with foreign entities.”

Prosecution and arrests figures

As of April 1, a total of 394 people have been arrested for “cases involving suspected acts or activities that endanger national security” since Beijing’s national security law came into effect, according to the Security Bureau. That figure includes those arrested under Article 23 and for other offences.

Of the 208 people and five companies that have so far been charged, 180 people and four companies have been convicted or are awaiting sentencing.

In total, 100 people and four companies have been charged under Beijing’s national security law, with 79 persons and three companies convicted. Thirteen people have been charged under Article 23, 10 of whom have been convicted.

Passing through the winding paths of Lamma Island’s main village of Yung Shue Wan, which translates as Banyan Bay, day-trippers will arrive at a junction and then a small bridge arching over a stream.

There, as they leave the island’s bustling village toward the direction of its serene hills and beaches, is an unmissable tarp-roofed shack selling sweetened silken tofu pudding under the shade of a sprawling banyan tree. 

At weekends and on holidays, dozens of people line up in front of the stand for a bowl of tofu fa, a traditional Chinese dessert made from soya beans.

With cameras at the ready, tourists and vloggers perch over the metal worktop as a small, slender old lady scoops the pudding from a metal pot with a shallow ladle.

She fills a bowl to the brim, layer by layer. Then she picks up a large kettle and drenches the tofu pudding in caramel-coloured sweet ginger syrup.

Grandma Ching, or “Ching Por Por” in Cantonese, runs the dessert stand – officially called “Kin Hing Ah Por Tofu Fa” but also known as “Tofu Garden.”

The shack, fitted with assorted plastic tables and stools as well as a large round mahogany table, has been a fixture on Lamma Island for almost half a century.

Grandma Ching reckons she is 92 years old, but she is not entirely sure. “I don’t know which year I was born,” she told HKFP, speaking in a Cantonese dialect spoken in Lufeng, a town in southeastern Guangdong province, where she hailed from.

Grandma Ching’s story follows the trajectory of many Hongkongers. She was among the waves of migrants who arrived in the city in the 1960s and 1970s – both legally and illegally – fleeing poverty and the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution in mainland China in search of a better life in the British colony.

Before coming to Hong Kong, she – like millions of others – worked and lived in farming communes, where every aspect of life was dictated by the Chinese Communist Party. Grandma Ching received little formal education and remains illiterate today.

“There was work to do, but nothing to eat,” she said, recalling her life in her native village. She grew sweet potatoes on a commune farm, but all produce had to be surrendered, after which nothing was left for the farmers to eat. 

Together with her husband and their son, Grandma Ching – then around 33 – arrived on the shores of Pok Fu Lam in 1966 after an overnight journey in the hold of a fishing boat. They started a new life on Lamma, joining her uncle, who was already living on the island.

On Lamma, she found work as a farmhand, doing odd jobs in a field in almost exactly the same spot as her tofu stand today, just a few hundred metres from the power station. She earned a salary of HK$7 a day.

Grandma Ching said she opened her tofu dessert stand around the time Hong Kong Electric, one of the city’s utility giants, began constructing a power station on Lamma Island. That would have been in 1978, but she can no longer remember the exact year.

At that time, Hong Kong’s urban areas were hungry for more power to fuel the city’s rapid industrialisation.

The construction of the Lamma power station, which brought many workers to the quiet island, along with the island’s growing population, provided a new opportunity to make more money. 

Grandma Ching’s older brother, who also moved to Hong Kong, taught her how to make tofu fa, which means “beancurd flower” in English. The recipe was simple and required only a few cheap ingredients: water, soya beans, cornflour, and gypsum powder – the common name for calcium sulphate.

Soon, she began offering the popular dessert to island workers and residents in need of refreshment, charging a dollar a bowl. For a while, she even took her dessert in buckets to the power station, selling it to workers on their tea breaks. 

“It’s very easy. There’s no secret, no trick,” she said, as if stating the obvious.

“The only thing is to soak the soya beans for long enough. When the weather is warm, I start soaking them at 2am, and when the weather is cold, I start soaking them the night before, at 9pm,” she said.

“Then, around 5 in the morning, I start grinding the beans,” she said. She doesn’t watch the clock or use a thermometer; everything goes by feeling.

The cooking process takes place in the makeshift outdoor kitchen next to Grandma Ching’s house, across the path from the stand.

The soaked soya beans are first ground into a paste by a machine. The paste is passed through a large sheet of cotton fabric hung over a wooden cross suspended from the ceiling.

The extracted raw soya milk is then boiled in a gigantic wok sitting atop a traditional clay stove, formerly fuelled by a wood fire, but now connected to a kerosene burner.

Once boiled, the liquid has to be poured rapidly into a pot, where it mixes with cornflour and gypsum powder. The impact will help gelatinise the mixture, and within a few minutes, the pudding forms. The process takes no more than an hour.

Over five decades, a bowl of tofu pudding went from costing a dollar to HK$18 today, the latest price written directly over the previous “$17” on a signboard by the side of the path.

The giant banyan tree growing over the tarp roof still stands despite several super typhoons in recent years.

Grandma Ching planted the tree herself.

“The tree was this tall when I stuck it into the ground,” Grandma Ching said, gesturing and pointing to her waist. “I didn’t need to water or fertilise it. Now its roots have broken through the cement on the ground.”

Grandma Ching’s tofu fa is popular among tourists looking for an authentic island experience, although reviews of its taste are mixed.

The proprietor said the stand’s heyday is long over. “I used to sell 20 or 30 buckets a day, now only three or four buckets,” she said.

Today, Grandma Ching’s daughter-in-law is in charge of most of the business.

The stand will move for the first time, from under the banyan tree to a spot next to her house – though Grandma Ching does not know exactly when.

Their landlord is taking the land back, she said. Workers were laying a new slab of cement on the ground when HKFP visited.

“I sold as much as I made, that’s all. I’ve got no feelings about it. Just look at my hands,” Grandma Ching said. She showed HKFP her ageing hands, the joints more visibly deformed on the right than on the left, caused by arthritis and years of labour.

As the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Gulf states were targeted by Iranian airstrikes, Hongkonger Oi Chau joined a chorus of other expats saying it was “business as usual” in Dubai.

She was convinced after seeing images of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who also serves as defence minister, strolling around Dubai Mall on March 2 – two days after the US-Israeli attacks on Iran triggered a military conflict in the Middle East.

Four weeks later, on Monday, the crown prince, Sheikh Hamdan, made another visit to the same mall – this time with Finance Minister Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

It was “as if nothing happened, as if it was business as usual,” Chau told HKFP.

The UAE, a regional economic superpower that hosts US military assets, seems to bear the brunt of Iranian strikes.

As of Wednesday, UAE air defences had intercepted 438 ballistic missiles, 19 cruise missiles, and 2,012 drones launched by Tehran. The Ministry of Defence said 12 people – nine of whom were foreign nationals – had been killed and 190 others injured.

Last month, the Hong Kong government raised travel alerts for countries in the Middle East, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia. It said that as of March 23, about 590 of the 830 Hong Kong residents who sent enquiries to the Immigration Department had left the region, while 240 remained behind in the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Despite growing uncertainty over the war in the Middle East, Chau was among Hongkongers – long accustomed to their home city’s insularity from armed conflicts – who have chosen to stay put.

Hong Kong to Dubai

Chau recalled hearing the initial strikes on February 28 from her flat at the Dubai Marina district.

She lives a 30-minute drive away from the Port of Jebel Ali, where one of the berths caught fire from missile debris when Iran’s airstrikes were intercepted in early March.

“I saw a crater in the side of a building from the intercepted missiles. That was when I thought my life could be in danger,” Chau told HKFP in a video call in late March.

A month into the strikes, she thought the worst of the conflict was over.

“When we were able to hear the missiles overhead, I was conflicted whether I should leave the UAE. But the strikes calmed down after the third week, so I don’t think I have to leave just yet,” she said.

Chau, who works for a regional office of a Japanese car manufacturer, said she chose to stay largely because her employer does not allow remote work.

Meanwhile, by her own estimates, some 80 per cent of her expat social circle have left. Dubai Marina, an affluent tourism and residential district where Chau lives, has fallen silent since the war broke out, with tourists gone and residents mostly staying home.

Chau transferred to Dubai two years ago for a change of scenery after getting fed up with the restrictive work culture at the automobile company in Tokyo.

What drew her to Dubai was the diverse expat crowd and the low-tax regime, which she said was reminiscent of Hong Kong’s.

Having visited twice before moving to Dubai for work, Chau had already formed an impression of the UAE as an “oasis” for political stability.

“I never had concerns that this place would be dragged into a conflict,” she said, adding that she believed the UAE would be well-protected even in the case that it did get involved.

Safe haven

However, the war has shattered the UAE’s image as a safe, low-tax haven that attracts affluent foreigners.

There are signs that the conflict may escalate even further, as Gulf nations, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have led calls for the US to turn up the heat on Tehran. The unpredictable nature of US President Donald Trump, which has veered from threatening to hit Iran’s civilian and energy infrastructure to announcing a pause to his threats, does not help either.

Meanwhile, the automaker Chau works for has been experiencing supply issues since Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the US-Israeli strikes.

Other companies have slashed salaries and placed employees on unpaid leave, but so far, Chau’s workplace has said it will not impose pay cuts. “But if the situation continues, nobody knows,” she said.

For Chau, choosing to stay during the first fortnight of the conflict was something of a gamble. But some factors convinced her about the city’s safety, including assurances from her Lebanese boss, who witnessed armed conflicts in his country of origin, and a friend who grew up in Dubai, as well as the crown prince’s mall visits.

“It was as if to say, the UAE isn’t affected by this war, we aren’t affected, and our development will continue,” she said of the Dubai rulers’ mall stroll.

Across the border in Saudi Arabia, Chloe Wong has also decided to stay, although the country, which hosts several US military bases, has been targeted by Iranian strikes.

“As of now, life is still normal here in Riyadh,” said the Hongkonger who moved to the Saudi capital after a stint in the UAE. “It’s almost like the war isn’t even happening.”

She added: “I believe we are still in safe hands. There were some missiles here in Riyadh, and I think it has already become… our new normal.”

Wong said she would consider leaving only if Saudi Arabia “actively participates” in the conflict. “The Gulf countries haven’t joined the war.”

‘Like propaganda’

Another Hongkonger in Dubai has a more critical view of the crown prince’s public appearance.

Kristi, who uses a pseudonym for fear of reprisals, said she believed the grandstanding was meant to reassure the UAE populace of the “Dubai dream” amid missile and drone strikes.

“The government cares a lot about its image. I’ve known this since I came here,” said Kristi, who now works as a marketer after moving to the city.

“They don’t want to let public sentiment be affected. At the end of the day, 90 per cent of the workforce are expats. If they leave, who’s left to work?”

Airstrikes are not the only worry. The UAE’s National Media Authority warned on March 2 that sharing false or unverified content was an imprisonable offence.

In mid-March, the UAE attorney general arrested 35 people from nine countries for sharing photos and videos related to the Iranian strikes on social media, from real to misleading and AI-generated content. Days later, on March 20, Abu Dhabi police announced the arrests of 109 people on suspicion of filming or posting about the Iranian attacks.

Following the arrest reports, Kristi witnessed members of a WhatsApp group consisting of hundreds of Hongkongers in Dubai deleting images from the chat. They now only resort to text descriptions of what they have seen.

Meanwhile, government-licensed influencers on TikTok and Instagram in Dubai continue to produce a steady stream of content praising the ruling royal family for ensuring their safety.

“Spreading fear doesn’t do them any favours; it actually hurts them. We understand why they have to do that, but we know it feels like propaganda,” she said, referring to the Dubai rulers.

Kristi pointed out that, as a Hongkonger, she had never experienced geopolitical conflict first-hand.

“We Hongkongers haven’t witnessed natural disasters or war,” she said, adding that one of the deciding factors for her move was that she felt Dubai was as safe as Hong Kong. However, she acknowledges that the narrative is being challenged.

While Dubai’s missile interception systems have provided a degree of reassurance, “nobody knows if they’re going to run out,” Kristi said, referring to the UAE’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system, developed by US defence giant Lockheed Martin.

“Drones also don’t care where they fall after their GPS systems are jammed,” she added.

Kristi moved to Dubai on a whim about half a decade ago. “I didn’t even know what the Middle East was back then,” she said.

“When the fighting began in Iran and with Gaza, my friends back in Hong Kong messaged me telling me to take care of myself. But in Dubai, you really couldn’t feel any of that. It was really when the missiles were intercepted that I could feel the impact of war.”

Despite the shock, Kristi has decided to stay, at least for the time being.

Her boyfriend, who is also based in Dubai, is one major reason why she is staying put. “I have a stable partner here, and we’re planning to get married. I’m not going to just leave and do this long-distance,” she said.

Even before the war, she had realised that life in Dubai “is good for a short time,” and the couple had plans to leave. For now, they want to stay, at least for a short or medium term.

“Even if they announce a ceasefire, things won’t return to normal overnight,” Kristi said. “I don’t think it’s going to stop any time soon. Iran and Trump are both stubborn… and the UAE is stuck in the middle.”

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.”

The Hong Kong Museum of History has reopened its permanent exhibition with a new theme on the city’s shared “roots” with mainland China, nearly six years after it was closed for a revamp.

The government announced the reopening of “Hong Kong Story” in a statement on Wednesday.

“While telling the local story, the revamped exhibition also places greater emphasis on Hong Kong’s role as a ‘hub’, highlighting its shared roots with the motherland in historical development and its connections with the world as an international metropolis,” it said.

The exhibition at the museum in Tsim Sha Tsui used to be presented in chronological order, covering the city’s pre-historical period up to the handover in 1997.

It now revolves around four major themes, spread across 13 galleries.

The first theme, “Roots of Culture,” features artefacts that demonstrate Hong Kong “has long been rooted in the fertile soil of Chinese civilisation, sharing a cultural lineage with the motherland since ancient times.”

The “East Meets West” exhibits present Chinese and Western exchanges, “while still grounded in Chinese cultural traditions.”

Whereas the old exhibition said that Hong Kong Island was “ceded” to the British in 1841 following the Opium War, the revamped display describes the event as a “forcible seizure.”

It features a statue of Lin Zexu, a Qing dynasty official known for his role in the First Opium War from 1839 to 1842. The museum describes him as representing a “critical historical turning point when modern China confronted the incursions of Western powers.”

The third theme is dedicated to the “Coalition Against Japanese Aggression,” focusing on the role of Hong Kong communists in fighting the Japanese occupation during World War II.

“Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis” – the fourth theme – includes re-creations of cafes and cinemas as well as “Made in Hong Kong” products symbolising the city’s economic boom.

The final gallery, “Walking with the Motherland,“ showcases “Hong Kong’s return to the motherland, the implementation of ‘one country, two systems’, and a new chapter in its integration into the nation’s overall development.”

In October 2020, hundreds of visitors flocked to the museum on the last day of the old permanent exhibition, with some expressing concerns over potential political censorship.

While the old exhibition displayed photos of Hongkongers marching in support of student protesters in May 1989, before the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the revamp does not mention the bloody event on June 4, only referring to “political turmoil in the spring and summer of 1989.”

The reopened exhibition no longer shows portraits of the city’s British colonial governors or a natural history section.

As part of the revamp, the museum opened the National Security Exhibition Gallery in August 2024, occupying 1,100 square metres of space.