Hong Kong History Museum in Kowloon, fascinating..


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January 9th 2014
Published: January 10th 2014
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Today I went to the National Museum of History of Hong Kong. It was so fascinating I spent four hours there with a break in between to eat in a Vietnamese restaurant (which took me ages with chopsticks.)

The museum has seven sections. The three most interesting for me were The Folk Culture in Hong Kong, the Opium Wars and the Cession of Hong Kong; and Hong Kong under the Japanese Occupation and of course, it’s return to China from the British



The Folk Culture In Hong Kong



Most of the traditions stemmed from the fishing days, agriculture, and involved worshipping the Gods or killing off evil spirits. The most impressive Folk Tradition was that of The Seven Sisters Festival. On this day spinsters offer sacrifices to the Seven Sisters and pray for a good husband and to ask for the sisters to improve their embroidery skills. The Seven Sisters descend to earth to help women to improve their handicrafts and find them a good husband. The women offer up fruit, blusher, powder and handkerchiefs when the Seven Sisters come annually. Also, I found out about the traditional marriage ceremony. There were lots of documents detailing the astrological make-up of the girl, as well as her family background. Her astrology is considered to be as important as her family background, the husband and wife must be astrologically compatible. Also, there is a birth ritual in order to worship the birth of sons from the previous years. It includes offerings and lighting lanterns. All these ceremonies were crazy beyond the imagination.



The Opium Wars



I learned that the Portuguese were the first to start trading with China, and then the English and the Dutch came. The Portuguese sailed around the Cape Of Good Hope and began trading at the port of Macau. As the west was coming out of the middle ages and into the renaissance? Period, they began to explore for trade. Lots of westerners began arriving in the ports of China and the Chinese tried to ban them, apart from trading at port Macau. The British carried on trading silver for China’s tea, silk and pottery (this would explain why tea is such a big tradition in the UK) The value of the silver wasn’t enough compared to the amount of wealth Britain was getting so the British offered more goods. China said ‘no, we don’t need any goods from outside China, we are not interested, we have everything we need so no thank you.’ To make up the money, the British traders offered China opium which the British grew in British India. Opium had been used in Chinese medicine for years so the Chinese were more than happy. The British imported more and more opium to China and the Chinese people were getting more and more addicted. China tried to ban it but Britain carried on importing it. As a result the relationship between British traders and China soured (in about 1839) and the Chinese wanted the British out. Britain refused, hid its traders in Macau and surprised China by sending ships and launching a surprise attack on part of China (now Hong Kong). It invaded Hong Kong. In October 1939 the British parliament declared the Bill Of War. China had to pay out for military offences against the British, pay compensation for any deaths they caused and were left with a load of opium which they had to pay workers to get rid of (over a very long period of time.) In my opinion China should have just asked for wool from our sheep, instead of agreeing to Opium!

The Japanese Occupation

I didn't realise how much the Chinese suffered in WW2 under the Japanese Occupation. Until now I believed that Europe suffered the worse, but I didn't realise the problems Asia had. In school we learned about Germany's role in the war but very little about the Japanese and Pearl Harbour. Very interesting.



I also learned that Hong Kong suffers very badly from typhoons, droughts, fires and torrential rains. The people have suffered a lot here and yo can see it reflected on their faces. There is also a model (with some of the stock preserved) of a grocery store in Hong Kong during WW2. Inside it was full of rice, oil, salt and sauces. At the end of the exhibition you can watch a short film in a room full of preserved newspaper cuttings dated when the UK gave Hong Kong back to China after leasing it for 155 years. There are headlines from papers like The New York Times and headings such as '155 years of shame' on Chinese newspapers. In the video there is a speech from Prince Charles announcing the handing over of HK back to China and a picture of Blair standing side by side with P Charles handing HK back. Margaret Thatcher is also in the newspaper cuttings. Goodbye Hong Kong and in my opinion, good riddance! It's hard to believe that when the British landed Hong Kong was just a fishing port, now it is another world, plagued by skyscrapers and pollution.


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