Historic Hong Kong hotel that was host to Bruce Lee warns it could close amid pandemic losses and changing tastes
- The Lung Wah Hotel in Sha Tin may be forced to shut after its income was slashed by pandemic and younger people look elsewhere to dine out
- Owner Chung Ma Lao says government should do more to support the business and warns site could be sold to developers
The 84-year-old Lung Wah Hotel, with gardens, a children’s playground and a mini zoo, was the grandest hostelry in Hong Kong’s eastern New Territories in its 1950s heyday.
But the historic hotel, now reduced to just its restaurant operation, signalled last Friday it might shut its doors for good in the next six months because of trading conditions.
The hotel, in Ha Wo Che Tsuen, a village in Sha Tin, once played host to writers and film stars, including the martial arts novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung, who rented one of its 12 rooms to write his first novel, The Book and the Sword, about 70 years ago.
Kung fu film star Bruce Lee was also one of the guests and taught his younger brother Robert Lee Wing martial arts on the hotel rooftop in the 1960s.
“It was like the New Territories’ version of the Hong Kong Peninsula hotel,” the 60-year-old owner Chung Ma Lao said.
But, despite its fame, the hotel side was shut in 1985 after it failed to comply with the latest fire safety regulations, so the Chung family focused on the restaurant operation.