Category Archives: Exhibitions

Studio Ghibli Layout Designs: Understanding the Secrets of Takahata and Miyazaki Animation @ Hong Kong Heritage Museum review

Hong Kong Heritage Museum Studio Ghibli

Of all the museums in the city, I seem to find myself back at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum the most often (somewhat annoying, given it's probably the one that's also the furthest away from me!), and the latest exhibition to entice me over to the Shing Mun River was Studio Ghibli Layout Designs: Understanding the Secrets of Takahata and Miyazaki Animation. I can't claim to be a devoted Hayao Miyazaki fan – but like everyone else, I love Spirited Away and think Totoro is really cute, so why not?!

Studio Ghibli Layout Designs Hong Kong Heritage Museum Spirited Away room, from news.gov.hk

The Studio Ghibli Layout Designs exhibition comprises over 1,300 drawings from the animation process behind the films of Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki – from their earliest works on television shows like Heidi: A Girl Of The Alps and Sherlock Hound, right through to the studio's latest film releases The Wind Rises (Miyazaki's last film) and The Tale of The Princess Kaguya.

Unlike many animation houses, Studio Ghibli continues to make all its films using traditional hand-drawn methods; rather than cute character studies, the works shown are more the backgrounds of scenes (layouts are regarded as blueprints for the film and are vital for its continuity), displaying the director's ideas on colour, perspective, motion and other camera effects – and these sketches are practically artworks in themselves.

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Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Film, Hong Kong

Tagged animation, best art exhibitions Hong Kong, best museums Hong Kong, drawings, film-making, Hayao Miyazaki, Heritage Museum HK, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Howl's Moving Castle, Isao Takahata, layout designs, My Neighbour Totoro, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, Princess Mononoke, review, Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli exhibition, Studio Ghibli exhibition HK, Studio Ghibli exhibition Hong Kong, Studio Ghibli Hong Kong, Studio Ghibli Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Studio Ghibli Layout Designs: Understanding the Secrets of Takahata and Miyazaki Animation, things to do in Hong Kong, things to do in New Territories, things to do in Sha Tin

Mid-Autumn Festival Hong Kong 2011, Moon Fun Playground lantern exhibition: Fairground attraction!

Mid-Autumn Festival is rolling round again (four day weekend, hollaaaa!), so what better time to bring you… a full year late… the gorgeous lanterns from last year's festivities?!

My advice is to bypass the crowds at Victoria Park and instead head to Tsim Sha Tsui's Cultural Centre Piazza, where every year they have an awesome thematic lantern exhibition. It stays on display for a full month (much longer than the ones at Victoria Park), is less crowded (especially if you hit it when everyone else is having their dinner or when they are otherwise occupied with the Symphony Of Lights show), provides almost an hour's worth of photo opportunities and intense study of all the amazing close-up details of each lantern, plus you can then get the Star Ferry home and admire HK's amazing skyline… its very own modern cityscape of a lantern show.

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Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Hong Kong, Pretty Things

Tagged 2011, HK, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza, lanterns, light installation, Mid-Autumn Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival Hong Kong, Moon Festival, Moon Fun Playground lantern exhibition, photos, pictures, thematic lantern exhibition, tourist spots, Tsim Sha Tsui

Atelier Versace Exhibition, Pacific Place: Gonna dress you up in my love!

I love beautiful dresses. I love seeing them, buying them, wearing them and, as this blog proves, writing about them too! Sadly, with the most beautiful designer dresses worn by the most beautiful celebrities, that's about as close as I get – seeing them on a computer screen and then detailing my lust in writing afterwards. But not anymore…

Kawai Wong, the lovely Shopping & Style Editor of Time Out Hong Kong, tipped off her followers on Twitter that there would be a mini Atelier Versace exhibition in Pacific Place shopping mall. I made a mental note and promptly forgot all about it but as chance would have it, I just happened to be in Pacific Place that weekend – and thank God I was. Because I got to see some of those beautiful dresses that I had previously only written about IN PERSON. And they were BREATH-TAKING.

Apologies for all the caps but as you can see from the photos, upper-case in this case is totally deserved!

I squealed with delight when I saw this stunning  gown that I adored on Charlize Theron at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party standing there in all its glory right in front of my eyes! This was my favourite gown of the lot simply because I remembered writing how much I loved it – and there it was!

Even on the mannequins, everything draped just so and looked utterly beautiful. This gown was worn by Eva Mendes at the Rome Film Festival last year. I didn't really like the dress in photos but up-close, all the detailing was just exquisite. What was missing was the gorgeous sense of movement that Eva managed to create but I think this proves just how much a million flash bulbs wash out a dress, as it was much more of a vibrant tan colour in person.

This cobalt beauty was worn by Jessica Alba at this year's Baftas and was another one I wrote about! She worn it sans feathers but this was every bit as vividly gorgeous in person. I love how effortlessly flowing it is.

This cascading grey ombre dress hasn't been worn by anyone famous – yet! Love the cut-out detail on the back too. Stunning. By now, I was nearly going into seizure at being close enough to touch these gowns. Waaaah… just one stroke!

Fan Bing Bing's ruffled purple gown (as worn at the Cannes Film Festival, which marked the beginning of many of our style crushes on The Bingster) was probably the true show-stopper of the collection. It was just so big, pouffy and spectacular in real-life. Again, the detail of all those flounces was just amazingly lush up-close. It was so delicate yet dramatic and that skirt looked like it was made up of crush flower petals. Divine.

There was lots of 'oh my God'-ing and longing sighing that my boyfriend didn't totally understand but ugh, I need more of these exhibitions in my life! Just five dresses isn't enough! Hurry up and get that Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty show on the road to Hong Kong please!

Atelier Versace Exhibition, Pacific Place mall, Admiralty

Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Hong Kong, Pretty Things, Style

Tagged Atelier Versace, beautiful, Charlize Theron, designer gowns, dresses, Eva Mendes, exhibition, Fan Bing Bing, Jessica Alba, Pacific Place, photos, Pretty Things, stunning, Style, Versace

Sweet like Chocolate Rain

I promised you more Chocolate Rain cuteness after my post on Hong Kong Creative Ecologies and whaddya know… it doesn't just rain here but it pours!

The mall in Olympian City (yes, named after the Olympics) had a super-kawaii installation dedicated to Chocolate Rain and I couldn't resist taking some photos, much to my boyfriend's annoyance ('You're so local').

I'm more used to shopping centres in the UK too depressing to even warrant a George A Romero-style zombie stampede but malls in HK are a totally different ball game. [Remember that awesome Lane Crawford installation in Pacific Place?]

What's more, there are so many malls here that it's a competitive game, especially during Christmas and other special occasions, where they all attempt to out-do each other with special decorations, performances, giveaways and exhibits – HK folk do love their photo opps, after all! Hence the Chocolate Rain one here, called Olympian City's Easter Dream Brûlée.

I just love artist Prudence Mak's distinctive patchwork style for Chocolate Rain – absolutely lovely and just that little bit quirky too – and I love that a locally-designed brand can challenge the cute character powerhouse that is Sanrio. But most of all, as you know, I just love pretty things! And this delivered pretty things in abundance.

The Fatina doll character was dressed in colourful costumes inspired by different ice-cream flavours whilst the centrepiece was a 30-foot banana boat. Overall, it felt like I'd wandered into a village straight from a fairytale!

Truly scrumptious!

Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Hong Kong, Pretty Things

Tagged art, Chocolate Rain, cute, Easter Dream Brûlée, HK, Hong Kong, kawaii, malls, Olympian City, Olympic, Olympic City, photos, Pretty Things, Prudence Mak, shopping centres

Hong Kong: Creative Ecologies @ HK Heritage Museum – Like peas in a pod!

During our trip to the Pixar: 25 Years Of Animation exhibition at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, we had a quick scoot round the rest of the place. Emphasis on quick – you'll have noticed my usual grumble about crappy café quality (see Museum of Coastal Defence, History Museum and Botanical Gardens posts for further moaning) was missing from the Pixar write-up… because this time there wasn't an eating facility at all!

Sadly, nothing was as awesome as the colourful display of Fei-Fei's plus-sized cheongsams we stumbled upon when we visited the Age Of Couture Exhibition (a greater aesthetic juxtaposition you could not imagine!). Yes, HK 'affectionately' nicknamed their much-beloved actress cum singer cum media personality Lydia Sum something that translates as 'Fatty'!

This time, we happened upon the Hong Kong: Creative Ecologies exhibition – or what of it had been placed in the foyer of the second floor. Dozens of identical 'Tin Tin' figurines, all decorated, styled and re-imagined in different ways by various home-grown artists and designers.

It was fascinating to see how so many people could take one identical thing and end up with something so different yet still recognisable. Designs ranged from the beautiful to the comical to the bizarre to the slightly macabre (I didn't take a photo of the one that had been mocked up to look like a see-through human body, with all the vital organs glowing inside, as it freaked me out too much), whilst many had a uniquely HK flavour – one had a map of our MTR system, another had silhouettes of our trademark bamboo scaffolding system with workers hanging out un-harnessed and causing heart attacks to Western Health & Safety bodies.

My favourites were the ones who thought 'outside the box' and mixed it up a little. I noticed that whilst many of the fashion and accessory designers decorated their models, the artistes chose to do more abstract things – like one completely encased in a steel box, with just that recognisable pointing finger sticking out, or the one that appears to be melting. I was engrossed by the one that seemed to have sprouted alarmingly naturalistic-looking roots and was even growing foliage up top!

The only HK artist whose work I recognised instantly was Prudence Mak. That distinctive bright patchwork style couldn't belong to anyone but the founder of cute quirky local brand, Chocolate Rain, who you will hear more of later…! Apologies for the picture quality – I haven't figured out how to minimise the reflections caused by the glass cases – so I've compared it with a nice HQ photo from the Heritage Museum's website so you can see it in all its detailed technicolour glory!

Hopefully these will be kept together as a display once the exhibition has ended and housed somewhere else, as they're far more powerful and dynamic as a collection rather than if they were split up. It's certainly nothing to warrant a special visit to the Heritage Museum (though apparently there was a Creative Ecologies gallery that I was too hungry to visit), but it's a cool little diversion nonetheless! Enjoy!

Hong Kong: Creative Ecologies, 5 Feburary-11 May 2011, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, 1 Man Lam Road, Sha Tin, 2180 8188. See Hong Kong: Creative Ecologies Website for further details.

$10 admission, free on Weds. Opening hours: 10am-6pm, 7pm on Sunday and public holidays. Closed Tuesdays.

Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Hong Kong, Pretty Things

Tagged art, artists, artwork, Chocolate Rain, designers, exhibition, gallery, HK, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Hong Kong: Creative Ecologies, museum, photos, Pretty Things, Prudence Mak, quirky stuff, review, things to do in Hong Kong

Pixar: 25 Years Of Animation exhibition @ Hong Kong Heritage Museum review

Every so often, I do try and escape the confines of my nail polish packed bedroom and see the real world. Previous escapes have included seeing a waterfall, a load of beautiful qipao, a load of quirky lanterns, a silent Hitchcock film and most recently, a stunning array of Spring flowers. My latest venture – a trip to Hong Kong Heritage Museum's special exhibition, Pixar: 25 Years Of Animation.

The Hong Kong Heritage Museum is quite a trek away, up in Sha Tin near the Shing Mun river (get off at Che Kung Temple Station on the brown KCR line for a shorter walk), so any exhibition that has me making the long slog up there had better be a good one! The last time I visited was for the Golden Age Of Couture dress exhibition, held in conjunction with London's V&A Museum, which was utterly spectacular (and which I will get around to writing about some time, promise!). Meanwhile, the fact that I am a Disney/Pixar geek of the highest order – prone to parroting facts learnt from audio commentaries whilst my boyfriend tries to watch and breaking into Under The Sea on public transport are specialities – meant the omens seemed good.

The Pixar: 25 Years Of Animation exhibition showcases various types of conceptual and character art done by the studio's artists for all of Pixar's work, giving some artistic insight into the painstaking process that goes into making their much-loved CGI films. Taking in over 400 items, from early pencil sketches to storyboards, maquettes (small scale models) and exclusive specially-designed media installations, it features some never-before-seen-outside-the-studio artwork, with Hong Kong's Heritage Museum the first stop on a global tour. A similar exhibition toured five years ago (including a stop in Singapore) but it has been refreshed and reinvigorated with the addition of new items, such as a large and extremely popular section dedicated to Toy Story 3. There's also the amazing Toy Story Zoetrope (which you can also see at Hong Kong Disneyland), featuring rotating sculptures of characters that seem to magically come to life before your eyes.

We arrived early afternoon on a non-school holiday weekday and the queue was the biggest I have ever seen for a museum in HK. Having seen some photos taken by people who went on Easter Holiday weekend showing 300-strong queues, thank God we went when we did! Much of the artwork shown was obviously never intended to be displayed in a gallery and as such, there's a limit on how huge a crowd can cluster around an A4 sized drawing and get much out of the experience.

Picture from Pixar artist Lou Romano's blog, where you can also see his entire colour script for Up

There are two galleries devoted to the exhibition, the first dealing with character and the second with environment and scene-setting. The huge number of children visiting will obviously enjoy the Woody, Buzz, Sully and Mike models that greet you at the museum's entrance, yet whether they have much appreciation for conceptual artwork of, say, Parisian landscapes in Ratatouille remains to be seen. Sure enough, the first exhibition gallery, which boasts the large Toy Story 3 section, a fairly big selection of Monsters Inc stuff (poor old Wall-E, one of my favourite Pixar films, sadly only gets about a quarter of a wall!) and lots of maquettes of characters, is the more family-friendly and consequently, much busier and noisier. Meanwhile, the second gallery is a much more tranquil and sedate experience!

As a full-blown Disney geek who exhaustively watches all the making-of features on her DVDs (or did before they started moving them to Blu-Ray only), some of the artwork was familiar to me already, especially for the earlier films, and I'm not entirely sure you garner that much more from looking at the originals rather than digital copies. Some art (particularly storyboards and colour scripts) have even been enlarged to suit the gallery experience more, in which case you're looking at reprints anyway!

[By the way, you're not meant to take photos inside the exhibition galleries. Not that this stops many HK folk. But I play fair, meaning the photos in this post are either taken outside or by scouring the net to find the pictures I'm referring to! (Further proof, incidentally, that lots of it may already be familiar to us geeks.)]

Pictures from Hong Kong Heritage Museum and Oakland Museum Of California

Nevertheless, the artwork itself is brilliant. What part of the exhibition you enjoy the most is strictly down to taste but my favourites were the wistful colourful designs for Up and its dreamy South American landscapes (you get to see a life-size version of the Paradise Falls mural that Ellie and Carl paint above their fireplace in the film) and the spiky dynamic work by Lou Romano for The Incredibles (the style seen in the film's credits) – looking at the art, I could practically hear that exhilarating thrilling score pumping into my head!

A few interesting titbits to note: some character studies are annotated with comprehensive notes seemingly from John Lasseter himself ('Dot is not so cute with 4 arms!', 'No antenna here'), with some Finding Nemo sketches stamped with a fish bearing John Lasseter's head saying 'I guess it's alright', whilst others are marked as checked by the man himself with a doodle-like representation of Lasseter's face!

I'm also in awe of the fact that so much life comes out of these pencil sketches alone. Just a few lines manage to create a sense of motion and vitality even before the mammoth digitalisation process begins. I love this one of Russell, above, which totally captures his bustling sense of movement – Disney geek-dom ahoy, the character's original name was changed to the onomatopoeic Russell to reflect his inquisitive nature. There's also two maquettes of Russell where each and every Explorer Badge has been sculpted, with different designs on every single one!

The Up storyboards and colour scripts are also fascinating. There's one storyboard just of that first 10-minute dialogue-free segment 'Married Life' and, in just a few small still-life pictures, it still managed to make me well up! Truly powerful stuff.

The second 'environment' gallery feels a lot more abstract in comparison to the 'character' one. You enter a room where the walls are covered with animations of the doors from Monsters Inc and the effect is quite hypnotic. I really loved some of the (at times, surprisingly dark) concept art for the settings of Monsters Inc, whilst all the pictures involving those huge cascades of doors are just wildly imaginative and wonderful. This gallery also contains, for me, the absolute highlight: Artscape.

Artscape is a highly-immersive, richly-detailed wide-screen projection that takes you inside the artists' sketchbooks and experience environments from all the films in first-person. Frankly, it's more 3D than most 3D movies. It's indescribable and something you just have to experience for yourself. You feel like you're swooping through the jungle and dashing across water in the chase sequence from The Incredibles, that you're ant-size amongst the blades of grass, leaves and army of workers in A Bug's Life or that you're hurtling through the galaxies in Wall-E (oh ok, that one did feel a little like a Windows 95 screensaver!). I particularly fell for the Parisian scenes from Ratatouille – one of my least favourite Pixars – which felt like you were flying above the rooftops, looking down and around the city in all its romantic glory. This is all done by some trademark Pixar magic that manages to turn 2D drawings and paintings into a 3D visceral experience. Stunning.

Pictures from The Art Of Ratatouille book, featured on Pixar Talk

Despite the cutesy Pixar characters, Pixar: 25 Years Of Animation was definitely not designed with small children, nor I suspect the HK hoards, in mind (for example, there are kiosks where you can watch interviews with animators that can only be used one person at a time, whilst I struggled to see the small screens showing early Pixar shorts in just the small crowd that day). Whilst I enjoyed it, if I'd have seen queues of hundreds, I'd have definitely turned back round – I just don't think you can give the artwork the attention it deserves if you're having to elbow your way in or become absorbed in the detail if you can barely hear yourself think.

Pixar: 25 Years Of Animation is a largely captivating exhibition, although one which requires you to appreciate the animators' work as art rather than pure entertainment. It makes you recognise the scale of Pixar's achievements and value the dedication and talent of their artists even more. This is stuff that deserves to be on walls rather than hidden away in dusty backrooms and I would love to see a similar exhibition for Disney films (some of the concept art for their older films, as seen on DVDs, is just stunning). So, yes, worth the trek to Sha Tin. Make it on a week day, though!

Check out some more fun Pixar artwork here

Pixar: 25 Years Of Animation, 28 March-11 July 2011, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, 1 Man Lam Road, Sha Tin, 2180 8188

$20 admission, $10 on Weds, including free memo gift pad containing money-off vouchers. Opening hours: 10am-6pm, 7pm on Sunday and public holidays. Closed Tuesdays.

Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Hong Kong, Pretty Things

Tagged art, artists, Disney, drawings, exhibition, gallery, HK, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, museum, paintings, photos, Pixar, Pixar: 25 Years of Animation, Ratatouille, review, Sha Tin, sightseeing, sketches, storyboards, The Incredibles, things to do in Hong Kong, Toy Story, Up

You're history! (Like a beat-up car!): Hong Kong Museum Of History review

'The History Museum perpetuates the myth that Hong Kong has no culture by providing a sterile and clinical retelling of Hong Kong's rich past.'

History geek boyfriend (shown above) on Hong Kong's History Museum

This review of Hong Kong's Museum Of History was a long time coming. You may have seen my review of their special exhibition The Evergreen Classic: Transformation Of The Qipao but I actually managed to check out their main exhibition, The Hong Kong Story, twice in the space of two weeks. Not through scholarly enthusiasm but on a trip with my kindergarten class and again, when my boyfriend and I showed up a month early for aforementioned qipao exhibition – and I'm afraid that I wasn't too impressed.

The Hong Kong Story contains a lot of what I brand 'fake history' – lots of replicas and not many authentic artefacts. It traces Hong Kong from its beginnings as a barely-populated jungle filled with tigers (apparently) through its time as a British colony via displays about traditional Chinese folk culture before reaching modern-day HK. But given it opts for building replicas of trams, boats, fishermen, puppets, a tower of buns, schools, banks and practically everything else you can think of, the true authentic visceral sense of history is forsaken. Most of your information is gleaned from reading the placards beside each replica (or listening to your audio guide!) and looking at blown-up reprinted old photographs, meaning that you're not really getting that much of a different experience from reading a history textbook, except you're getting to stretch your legs and battle snap-happy visitors in the process.

In my opinion, the most riveting part of Hong Kong's history is wartime and the Japanese occupation – parts which are dealt with much more effectively and movingly in the Museum Of Coastal Defence, which at least has some genuine bullet-strewn walls, cannons, caponniers and torpedoes to make for a more well-rounded experience (plus there's currently the amazing Escape To Wai Chow exhibition – check out the full review here).

Elsewhere, it's only interesting to those who have absolutely no working knowledge of Hong Kong's history and given the plastic-ness of most of the exhibits, it doesn't really reward repeated visits – although obviously I overdid it a bit! It's certainly not an essential tourist stop nor, speaking from experience, is it much fun for very young visitors.

My photos illustrate the few parts that, not being too bothered by models of Neanderthals making fire in prehistoric HK, I actually did find interesting. And oh dear, déjà vu, it includes some vintage calendar prints of girls wearing qi pao. Moving on…

This is the interior of one of HK's oldest traditional Chinese medicine shops. A REAL interior, not a fake replica. When it closed its doors for the last time, the LCSD managed to procure its décor and stick it in the history museum. There's also an audio recording from the shop's owner (plus English translation!). It's interesting because it feels real and what with Hong Kong's record in demolishing sites of historical interest, the sort of thing the government should be doing much more of. You'll find it in a street filled with less interesting replicas of other early Hong Kong shops.

Social history inevitably has a lot more to offer than a plastic model. The section on Hong Kong's early schooling system has glass cases filled with old exercise books and report cards. and, if you can decipher the spidery handwriting, being basically quite nosy is always absorbing!

I know it might sound like my bugbear, having gone on about it at other tourist destinations (like the Museum Of Coastal Defence and the Botanical Gardens), but the eating facilities here would be the laughing stock of any Western cultural hotspot. The Museum Of History's school cafeteria may be cheap, clean and offer an abundance of chicken wings, but it could be so much more. Flogging a mix of instant noodles and junk food (not in one dish… although I wouldn't put it past them), it mostly serves as a last resort or for people looking for somewhere quiet where they can crab free Wifi for as long as possible. It did, however, have beautiful lamps made to look like birdcages.

Perhaps I've been spoilt by having "real history" in practically every back garden in the UK, but I found the Hong Kong Museum Of History's Hong Kong Story exhibition rather uninspiring. I'd rather pick up a history book from Page One and hop across the way to the Science Museum, which is a LOT more fun. And hopefully you'll believe me when I say that I'll review that museum very soon – i.e. sometime before 2012, fingers crossed!

The Hong Kong Story, Hong Kong Museum of History, 100 Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon, 2724 9042.

Opening hours: Monday, Wednesday- Saturday, 10am-6pm, Sunday and Public Holiday 10am-7pm, closed Tuesdays. Admission $10 (free on Wednesdays). For further details, visit their website here.

Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Hong Kong

Tagged Asia, Culture, exhibition, history, history museum, HK, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Museum of History, Kowloon, LCSD, photographs, review, The Hong Kong Story, tourist destinations, Tsim Sha Tsui

Mid-Autumn Festival Hong Kong: It's a marvellous night for a mooncake

Mid-Autumn Festival may just be one of my favourite festivals in Hong Kong because just about everywhere makes the effort to look pretty. Admittedly, all it takes is a few paper lanterns scattered about, but at night time especially, it looks charming and uniquely Chinese.

Also know as Moon Festival, it's held on the 15th day of the 8th month (of the lunar calendar, so roughly late September) when the moon is supposed to be at its brightest. There are many variants of the legend behind the festival, but I'll tell you (in the best Chinese tradition!) the one that my mum told me.

A long long time ago, there used to be ten suns in the sky, which burnt away terribly at the Earth. The emperor commanded the most skilled archer in all the land, Hou Yi, to shoot down all but one of the suns – which he did, leaving us with the one sun we have today. As a reward, he was given a magic potion that would grant him eternal life and he hid it away at home. According to my mum's version, Hou Yi became a tyrant, corrupted by power and ambition; on seeing this, his beautiful wife, Seung Orr, decided to eat the pill herself to prevent him from living forever (other versions have the wife finding and eating the pill accidentally). Upon eating the pill, she found herself becoming lighter and lighter and she began to float. Eventually, she floated out of the window, up into the sky and onto the moon where she lives today. She also has her rabbit with her, who you can sometimes see outlined on the moon.

If you're a virgin to Moon Festival, there are only two things you need to know – lanterns and mooncake! Seung Orr adorns many a mooncake box and the traditional cakes are made with a yellow duck egg inside, representing the moon. Nowadays, there are all kinds of modern takes on the mooncake, including chocolate, mango, green tea or even 'snowy' ice-cream ones. We bought one that was shaped like a pig! It came in a miniature version of the traditional basket that real pigs used to be carried to market in the olden days and I love how he even has a little curly tail. Alas, he had to be decapitated and eaten – the filling was green bean paste – and my auntie said he looked a lot nicer than he tasted!

Lanterns are lit to accentuate the brightness of the moon and on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival itself, paper ones are lit and floated off to the moon. This year, one managed to land on an MTR train, sparking a small fire, panic, evacuations, delays and talk of regulating lanterns more closely next year. As with mooncakes, lanterns have evolved with the times and you can get them in practically any shape, size or colour you desire, with inflatable musical cartoon character versions proving particularly popular with youngsters (so if it's late September and you're hearing a tinny tune in the dim and distant, it's probably a toddler holding a blow-up Doaremon).

We went to the special market in Tsing Yi's Maritime Square Mall, which is basically your one-stop Mid-Autumn shop. As you can see, the lantern stall was a riot of colour! We bought two ($35 each) – a pretty lotus flower and a gorgeous goldfish. You can see them in action in our flat below!

However, these are mere small fry compared to the lanterns that the government has built to mark the occasion. For all of Mid-Autumn weekend, Victoria Park in Causeway Bay is transformed into a luminous lantern extravaganza. It costs a small fortune but hey, who cares when it looks this spectacular?!

Check out my posts on more beautiful Mid-Autumn lanterns in Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong here and here

Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Hong Kong, Pretty Things

Tagged Causeway Bay, celebration, Food, HK, Hong Kong, lanterns, legend, lights, Maritime Square, market, Mid-Autumn Festival, Moon Festival, mooncake, night, photography, photos, pictures, Pretty Things, Tsing Yi, Victoria Park

The Evergreen Classic: Transformation of the Qipao @ HK Museum of History review

Warning: picture-heavy post!

So eager was I to see Hong Kong Museum of History's exhibition about the qipao (also known as cheongsam), my boyfriend and I showed up a month early and trotted along to the special exhibition hall on the ground floor – only to discover a display about some ancient Chinese tribe instead. Yawn. Whilst my history geek boyfriend was delighted that we got to spend a lazy day in the regular exhibition (The Hong Kong Story – review of that here), it gave us a chance to scope out the space that the qipao would be shown in – and we weren't impressed. It seemed small, cramped and my boyfriend predicted that we'd be in and out within an hour. How wrong he was!

Having managed to turn up in the right month, The Evergreen Classic: The Transformation of the Qipao proved to be a stunning surprise. I had worried that it would pale in comparison with the wonderful couture exhibition (loaned from The V&A) at The Heritage Museum last year; in some ways, it managed to be better. Some 280 qipao, of all shapes, sizes, colours and textures were displayed (apparently, some with waists so tiny that custom-made mannequins had to be ordered in!), with the exhibition flowing along nicely as it detailed the evolution of the qipao from its origins in the 17th century to the modern designs we're now more familiar with – and, despite the amount of dresses, as well as information boards, 400 pictures and videos, it didn't feel cluttered, cramped or messy. The best part – you could really get up close to the dresses (only the oldest were displayed behind glass), marvel at the exquisite detailing and take lots and lots and lots of photos! All things you couldn't do at the couture exhibition, in case you're wondering.

Look but don't touch!

So what did we learn? The qipao originated amongst the Manchu nobility of the Qing Dynasty in China, where they were long, wide and loose. Looking oddly unisex in appearance, with only fingers and the tips of the toes visible, it wasn't exactly flattering to the female form! Even so, the detailing, embroidery and vivid colours and patterns are beautiful today, hundreds of years later.

Gradually, the form moved with the times – the dress became shorter, the fit became tighter, the famous Mandarin-style collars got higher, short bell sleeves became popular and slits were introduced to make walking easier (and show off some skin!).

Between the 1920s and 1960s, various elements came and went according to fashion – long or short skirts, plain or patterned, revealing slits, one or two pieces (like a tailored suit), being worn with Western-style fur capes or cardigans – all these trends came and went depending on whatever was "in" at the time. As with everything great and good in the world, the Chinese communists attempted to ban it – it's figure-hugging form doubtlessly decreed too sexy for their austere tastes.

As women entered the workforce and discovered the need for more practical clothing, the tight-fitting qipao fell out of favour, making way for comfortable outfits from the West, although it survived as everyday dress in Hong Kong for a little longer, until the 1970s. Nowadays, the cheongsam is mostly famous as a national dress, worn by Asian beauty contestants, waitresses in Chinese restaurants, students at old-fashioned schools and Oriental stereotypes in movies. However, elements of design still live on in many modern garments and contemporary designers constantly play about with the form to create new, inventive takes on the qipao – with the Museum of History commissioning Hong Kong Polytechnic's Institute of Textiles and Clothing to create some pieces for the show.

As you can see, I have dealt with the history of the qipao in a few short paragraphs and although the information boards provide a running commentary, the dresses practically speak for themselves. Because there is such little relevant information, reading these boards quickly becomes repetitive and boring, especially towards the end where there's only so much you can write about a waitress' uniform or a Miss Hong Kong costume. But skip these at your peril – they often include fascinating photographs, whether of the strange Manchu people with their hair piled high in some precursor to Princess Leia or more contemporary images, showing glamorous Chinese women in qipao with film-starlet hair and art-deco styling.

I was also disappointed that the exhibition failed to make much of the qipao's strong showing in films. In the 1960s, The World of Suzie Wong and its qipao-clad star Nancy Kwan made a strong cultural impact, making the cheongsam fashionable amongst Westerners – the name Suzie Wong is still a cultural checkpoint today. More recently, in Wong Kar-Wai's multi award-winning In The Mood For Love, Maggie Cheung wears a different custom-made cheongsam in each scene (46 in total). It's not just for beauty's sake either – the outfits deliberately play into Kar-Wai's sensual evocation of mood and time, whilst the constricting nature of the cheongsam is symbolic of the theme of the moral and social restrictions placed upon the characters. It would have been nice if The Evergreen Classic had acknowledged the impact of these films on the qipao and its place in the Western mindset, with stills and video clips even if they couldn't get hold of the costumes themselves.

But these are minor quibbles – seeing the qipao up close, in all their glorious intricate detail, is just breathtaking. You can see the fragility of the fabrics, how the striking embroidered buttons often mirror an element of the pattern, the individual stitches on the sleeves. Amazing stuff. I guess the average person, owing to their exposure to the cheongsam in its more traditional forms, views the qipao as a timeless classic yet it's fun to see how it adopted the fads and trends of the time – especially in the 60s and 70s, where some of the garish patterns are just as headachingly horrid as they are on Western clothes!

I also loved the modern constructions near the end (like the one shown earlier being fingered by a visitor), although some of these felt like advertorials for their designers.  The ones above were some of those designed by PolyU – the one on the left reminds me of something Vivienne Westwood would design (cutesy gingham print combined with the rock edge given by the back detail) whilst the ones on the right, entitled 'Deconstruction of the Qipao', look fit for Xena: Warrior Princess! I love how the designer has taken elements of the qipao, like the collar or the typical floral embroidery, and transformed into something totally new and modern. It would be amazing to see these kind of dresses on the red carpet, whether on Chinese or Western stars, or as stage outfits for some of the more outlandish performers out there (need I mention Gaga?!) – the quality, workmanship and sheer show-stopping quality of these outfits had needs to be seen to be believed.

Only one question remains – why oh why hasn't a catalogue been produced? And, since it ends on 13 September, why oh why haven't you been there yet?! [Although a lot of the pieces are on loan from real people, I'm hoping a more permanent form of this exhibition eventually makes it to The Heritage Museum – you'd best be reading LCSD!] For just $10 (and that includes the main exhibition as well), it's a must for anyone who basically appreciates nice stuff. My boyfriend's not into fashion at all (as his wardrobe attests, ho ho) but even he seemed to enjoy it. Go forth and qipao! And if it's too late… here's a few dozen of my best photos to make up for it (click for enlargements).

P.S. My favourites were from the 1950s and 60s, so there may be a slight bias. Apologies, fans of ye olde qipao.

Collar detail on some of the older qipao

Love how glam these Shangainese girls look – traditional clothes but hair and make-up that would make any 1930s Hollywood starlet proud. And check out those cheeky side-slits!

Both red (it's our lucky colour after all) but look at the contrast between old and new – from loose to fitted,via tailored business suit and seemingly Art-Deco print.

These were my favourite qipao of the exhibition; they belonged to 1950s' HK film star, Lin Dai. The photo does not do the black cheongsam in the first picture justice – up close, you can see the lace embroidery overlay and its a subtly elegantly sexy effect. The design and prints of these are so clean and simple that they still look amazing today.

Put your sunglasses on! As I mentioned, some of the prints are very 'of their time' i.e. hideous now (ok, the blue florals aren't too bad – they just look like china and give me a bit of a headache). But the detail is still gorgeous up-close.

No such prints on the school uniforms! Apparently, a lot of students who have these uniforms complain vociferously about it – and once you've had a tight Mandarin collar round your neck in a typical HK summer, you'll understand why!

Close-ups of the button clasps used at the collar.

I love these photos. They 'capture a moment' – a time when the cheongsam was everyday wear in HK.

I guess these are the simpler kind of qipao you could imagine for everyday wear – but even then, the lace embroidery is still so beautiful and complex up close. I'd be constantly worried about damaging them at work!

I'm a big fan of fashion sketches and found these fascinating – they've been drawn in that typical 50s' style and show how the Chinese woman could Western up her outfit with a cardigan, fur wrap or jacket. It's really unusual to see obviously Asian women being drawn in fashion sketches as well, rather than just a generic silhouette.

From just looking at these, you'd say 1970s right?! The frilly sleeves on the left are a new detail and the one on the right reminds of the classic Missoni print and colours, matched with the green contour lines, which are reminiscent of the whole Christopher Kane body-con thing that is happening now.

I imagine the ones on the left are more for evening wear – the midnight blue one with the sprig of glittery embellishment just looks so sleek and modern, it's unbelievable it was made decades ago! I liked the one on the right just because the print was so subtle (squint hard to see it!) yet really lovely, fresh and youthful.

I'm also a fan of these retro drawings of stylish qipao-clad ladies that were often used in advertising in the 1930s (famous now for featuring on the Two Girls line of toiletries and cosmetics products). It's something that the HK Museum of History has capitalised on with this very clever series of adverts, showing these traditional drawings alongside modern qipao, which look very like the ones in the pictures, that are part of the exhibit.

The dress on the left was worn by Michelle Yeoh at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival – a beautiful, fluid, elegant take on the qipao (love how the lines of colours emphasise the shape of the body). The middle one was worn by HK film star Josephine Siao in the 1970s – the traditional embroidered borders were taken from her mother's collection from the 1930s! And I just liked the watercolour-style print of the one on the right, ok?!

Occasion-wear qipao! The one on the right was worn by hostesses at the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony (red and gold, classic combination!). I believe the one on the left was Siao's wedding dress – it's interesting that the typical qipao details are not on the dress itself but on the cape thing over it – and the cute flower appliques on the (bridesmaid's?) dress are so pretty!

The qipao worn by Miss Hong Kong 1977, Loletta Chu. Beautiful unusual colour and floral design – definitely a stand-out at the exhibition.

This is where it gets fun, as modern designers try and put contemporary twists on the qipao whilst remaining true to the design. I think these were stage costumes for one of HK pop queen, Anita Mui's, concerts. That cape design on the far left is so gorgeous and wintry feeling, the floral design of the second one is composed of thousands of beads (probably pain-stakingly sewn on by hand!) and the leaf detail on the other one is actually rather risque – it's see-through! The one on the far right, again with some transparent details, is designed by Blanc de Chine and the rest may well be too but I can't remember.

More modern qipaos, with some close-ups of the stunning details (far right is of the train of one of the dresses). I think these would make amazing wedding dresses.

And after all those photos, I hope your brower's still working!

The Evergreen Classic: The Transformation of the Qipao is on at the Special Exhibition Gallery (on the ground floor), Hong Kong Museum of History, 23 June-13 September, 2010, $10 per person. 100 Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, 2724 9402.

Exhibition pamphlet available here.

All photos taken by me or from the museum's website.

After the exhibition has finished, you may be able to find some of the qipao either in the museum's regular exhibition or at The Heritage Museum in Shatin.

Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Hong Kong, Pretty Things

Tagged cheongsam, dresses, exhibition, fashion, history, history museum, history of qipao, HK, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Museum of History, Josephine Siao, Lin Dai, Loletta Chu, Michelle Yeoh, museum, photos, Pretty Things, qipao, qipao exhibition, review, The Evergreen Classic: Transformation of the Qipao

Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence – Escape to Waichow Exhibition: I'm talking bout a whole lotta history…

Boys will be boys…

One of the downsides of having a boyfriend with a history degree is that he is prone to parroting "interesting" history facts whenever we're out and about town (to be fair, I do the same with Disney trivia and Girls Aloud lyrics, so I shouldn't complain). Having put off a trip to the dryly-named Museum of Coastal Defence for practically as long as we've been going out, I finally capitulated last week.

Someone in HK's marketing department is clearly missing a trick, as the place would much better (if not entirely politically correctly) be named Hong Kong's Wartime museum, hence instantly snagging an instant demographic of 7-14 year old boys (or just boys in general… the two twentysomethings I went with loved it). Built around Lei Yue Mun fortifications, the museum details how Hong Kong has defended itself from various attacks, invaders and general baddies over the years. It's a little short on actual exhibits because the exhibition is the place itself; get your walking boots on if you plan on exploring every caponier, ditch, underground magazine, battery, gun, jeep, cannon and ruined wall with visible bullet holes in. (The torpedo station is well worth a look though and the views, as seen below, over Lei Yue Mun and across the harbour are stunning).

What did strike me is that, despite HK's frequent attempts to make itself ever newer and shinier (as evidenced by the many front page stories of the government trying to tear down historical buildings), history really is all around. The museum details the remains and ruins of all the other fortifications around Hong Kong that are around if you care to look. OK, it's not the palaces, country houses and spectacular cathedrals that Britain excels at and exist even in some of the sleepiest of villages but seeing and touching the bullet holes in that wall still sent a shiver down my spine. A 19th century hand-drawn map of Hong Kong is also startling in revealing how history exists in what's not there – coastlines in today's HK have been entirely redrawn as land has been reclaimed.

Photo Copyright © Marion Udall

After a couple of less-interesting rooms about how Hong Kong defended itself from pirates in ye olden days (with an exhibit of embroidered armour made from silk and reinforced with ummm… cotton – looked beautiful, can't imagine it keeping the arrows out), you hit the good stuff – World War II and the Japanese occupation (if by good stuff, you mean rivettingly horrifying). Connected to this is a special exhibition called Escape to Waichow, a truly amazing story that I knew nothing about and which more than justified the visit.

It's a story that's itching for a Band of Brothers television mini-series at least, if not a big screen epic. It's a tale of the kind of unparalleled courage, bravery, fighting spirit, doggedness and sheer good luck that just doesn't seem to happen these days. The actual exhibits are by-the-by (newspaper clippings, uniforms, medals) but it's a story so remarkable that it could be written in Morse code and still remain enthralling. Time for some details (excuse factual inaccuracies, I'm working largely on memory)…

Escape to Waichow – HMS Cornflower survivors

As the Japs were attacking and the surrender of Hong Kong looked inevitable at the end of 1941, an escape plan was put together to smuggle out some senior officers. Even before this party got on the boats, the route was fraught – their car was stopped by Japanese soldiers several times and they were only able to proceed thanks to one Henry Hsu, whom you'll hear more of later, shouting 'Banzai! Long live the Emperor!' in Japanese. On reaching the harbour, they were told the MTBs they were supposed to have taken had left so they then had to rush to get sixteen gallons of petrol to power the ship that they could find (HMS Cornflower). I remember reading that some officers has been told to leave without the Chinese contingent but refused. Once they finally took to the sea, the barrage began – rifles, machine guns, shells.

They had to bail out. One was shot in both legs, another killed outright, another shot and drowned – Admiral Chan Chak only had one leg to start off with! As he handed someone else a lifejacket, he was shot in the wrist. As Henry Hsu removed his artificial leg (where he had HKD$40 000 stashed away) so Chan wouldn't be weighed down for the swim, Chan shouted, 'What should we do?!' Hsu's answer was 'Pray to God!'; Buddhist Chan replied, 'If we make it out of here, I'll convert to be a Christian!'. Needless to say, one-legged Chan (with the help of Hsu, who was conveniently a champion swimmer too) made it ashore, became known as the Nelson of the East, was awarded a KBE and duly converted. My friend would also like to point out: 'One leg, one arm = auto badass'. No prizes for spotting him in the photo above.

David MacDougall, of the Ministry of Information, was shot in the shoulder. He practically bellyflopped in, was unable to swim for long on his front, kicked his shoes off after nearly going under twice and managed to reach the shore – fully clothed, with a pistol strapped to his waist – on his back. Another of his colleagues swimming to shore heard one of their colleagues drown noisily behind him. All this while still subjected to ceaseless gunfire from the Japanese. [Another crew member who couldn't swim and remained drifting on the boat even managed to get rescued – talk about lucky!]

Upon reaching China, they still had an arduous journey aided by guerrilla Chinese – through the jungle, some not wearing shoes, many suffering from injuries and illness, freezing at night. When they reached Waichow, they were treated to a hero's welcome although it would be four years and many thousands of miles until some of the British finally made it home. The famous photo of the 68 escapees from all the boats (shown below), invaluable in tracking down descendants and piecing together the story of this 'great escape', was taken with the photographer's last glass plate – luck again!

I've not even done this incredible story justice. Many of the survivors went onto great things in high office – mayors, governors, Hsu in the International Olympics Committee. Another became arguably the most famous Coastal Forces Commanding Officer of WWII. The majority of the Cornflower party led long lives, with many only dying in the last few years, in their late eighties and early nineties (Hsu in 2009). I'm not a great believer in faith, as can be evidenced by my reluctance in joining in my school's prayer meetings (they occur in Chinese, I was once told we were praying the air conditioning got fixed – excuse me if I think God has bigger things to worry about) but you can say that someone out there wanted these men to survive. Wonderfully for us, they survived long enough to leave detailed accounts of their amazing lives – some in diaries and letters, others in audios that you can listen to in the museum and others simply by living long enough to procreate and produce sons, daughters and grandchildren who can also share their memories and are keeping their ancestors' legacy alive (they retraced the journey last Christmas).

I couldn't help but wonder what would be left of our generation now the paper trail has dried up. Seems unlikely a Google cache of my blog will still be about – will all that's left of me be the worksheets I've made for kindergarten?! Then again, do we have anything worthy enough to write about that could warrant an exhibition?

Anyway, the Museum of Coastal Defence is well worth a visit, especially whilst Escape to Waichow is on (hopefully they will make it permanent). It's a story too incredible to not learn about. Entry is just $10 (free on Wednesdays) and the whole shebang will take a good 2-3 hours if you read thoroughly and intend on exploring the fortifications (so a nice day would help). The charmingly amateur café would make England's cultural bods shriek – hand-written signs on scraps of paper, plastic garden chairs, one bloke hand-cooking everything in the kitchen – but everything else is informative, professional and well… not as boring as expected. And at least I can now pre-empt some of boyfriend's history trivia with a few sneaky facts of my own!

Museum of Coastal Defence, 175 Tung Hei Road, Shau Kei Wan, +852 2569 1500. Open 10am-5pm. Entry $10, free on Wednesdays, closed on Thursdays.

Check out this website, run by one of the survivors' son and from where I got the pictures of the escapees, for more about the incredible (yes, I feel I haven't used that word enough) Escape to Waichow.

Posted in Culture, Exhibitions, Hong Kong

Tagged Admiral Chan Chak, Escape from Hong Kong, Escape to Waichow, Henry Hsu, HK, Hong Kong, Japanese occupation, museum exhibition, Museum of Coastal Defence, museums in Hong Kong, old vs new, Shau Kei Wan, sightseeing, things to do in Hong Kong, World War II, WWII