Historic Hong Kong

History & Heritage
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Throughout its history, Hong Kong has been a place of ever-changing contours and skylines as well as home to a great variety of people. Here we present columns, photo galleries and stories about people who've lived in and helped shape Hong Kong, buildings preserved and long vanished, historical events, the city's changing culture and how the past shapes the present.

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No, he isn’t told what to write about, says Wordie, in answer to the most common question he gets, as he looks back on a quarter century documenting the region’s huge changes
As mainlanders flocked to Hong Kong after 1949, they brought with them Shanghai-style bathhouses and their many personal grooming services – and the term ‘Shanghai’ become a byword for quality
How Hong Kong’s shadowy triad-dominated underworld of paid female companions has evolved over the decades
Once upon a time, liveried guards were stationed at most high-end establishments and affluent homes around Hong Kong – now, they’re a rare throwback to a bygone era
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Men with a certain bearing – often former military – were paid to walk round department stores like Lane Crawford and Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co keeping an eye out
Hong Kong supermarkets have gone from places with dress codes and English-speaking staff that served the wealthy elite to the ubiquitous neighbourhood stores of today.
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Mosquitoes have long been a feature of life in Hong Kong and various methods have been devised to thwart the bloodthirsty pests, from kerosene in the drinking water to now-nostalgic nets.
Eduardo Brazão encouraged Hong Kong’s Portuguese community to better appreciate themselves, but his enthusiasm was not widely shared.
Racial terms historically directed at Europeans and Eurasians in Asia ran the gamut from ghosts and devils to cow stink and ‘three-quarters of a rupee’.
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As the political climate in Hong Kong restricts the scope of topics for academic research, the centres of serious ‘Hong Kong Studies’ are now to be found far from the city’s shores.
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Writer-lawyer Henrique de Senna Fernandes’ works paint a Macau as seen through the eyes of a nostalgic local who truly loved his hometown.
Amateur dramatics helped alleviate the boredom of prisoners of war during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, and creating the costumes involved every inch of innovation the inmates could muster.
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