In the heyday of the 1950s and 1960s, the Lung Wah Hotel, a converted Spanish revival villa, was located near the cove and provided a lush shelter from the bustle of urban life surrounded by parks in Hong Kong's new territory.
The winding stairs sandwiched between red lanterns led to a vast Chinese-style garden. On summer weekends, people gathered for Majong's game under the pavilion while the kids were playing nearby with sandboxes and swings. The film was once filmed there, and its most famous patron, Bruce Lee, practiced martial arts on the roof.
In the decades since then, the hotel stopped renting its rooms as it needed to upgrade new fire codes. The surrounding rice fields have evolved into middle class housing. The restaurant still serves the famous roasted pigeons, but has struggled to fill the wooden trimmed dining room since 500 spot parking was requested for the new police station in the 1970s.
Now, this operation is given the opportunity to lease new life by leaning against the past. The unused tea house on the premises has been remused in Radiance, Hong Kong. Hong Kong's Radiance has remused into a practical museum that seeks to recreate slices of the city's vibrant life as it transitions from a postwar factory town that produces garments, electronics and plastics in a sparkling financial centre that connects East, West and West.
John Wu, a local collector known for his graphic designer who curated the space, said he hopes each corner resembles a movie set with a cohesive colour palette.
His goal, he said, was to inspire the younger generations while reviving memories for older visitors. When he tours, he often draws attention to unique details and encourages visitors to feel the sturdyness of the wood. “Only then these objects can get a second life,” he said in an interview.
Dusty antique shops have long been a fixture in the town, but new crops, such as photo studios, restaurants and vintage-inspired shops run by many business owners and millennial owners, are trying to quickly retain aesthetics and everyday objects from the recent past before returning to their former colonies in 1997.
Many residents view the 1980s as the golden age of Hong Kong culture. Locally made films, television shows and music known as cantropop was sung in Cantonese and was extremely popular both domestically and internationally. The success of that entertainment scene was a place of urban identity as a cosmopolitan and opportunities for people with dreams, a point of pride that was linked to the courage and wisdom to pursue them. However, imports from mainland China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan have led to the decline of Hong Kong's pop culture in decades since.
The wave of nostalgia coincided with efforts by the Chinese government to redefine Hong Kong's identity in the wake of prolonged anti-government protests, leading to Beijing's crackdown and the imposition of national security law in 2020. Since then, authorities have revamped the history museum and rewritten textbooks to adhere to the official Beijing story.
“Our generations have fantasies about the past,” said Connie Lee, a 30-year-old interior designer who visited the museum on a recent afternoon. “Things are changing too quickly, but in these spaces, you can find the escape on the so-called glory day, looking for roots.”
To harness the public interest in recent past, the city's tourism committee held an exhibition related to last year's hit “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled in,” set in Hong Kong in the 1980s. Visitors were immersed in the film's “aesthetic atmosphere” including barber shops, tea stalls and bone setting clinics.
At Hong Kong's brilliance, customers can freely riot through dressers filled with nicknacks, games and family photo albums. It includes a herbalist office sandwiched between antique scrolls and a convenience store with a crate filled with retro jukeboxes, soda bottles and a tub of vintage ice cream. One room recreates a messy working-class home with Majong's tables, singer sewing machines and bunk beds stacked with suitcases.
At a young age, Wu began gathering Japanese and Western objects, but in recent years he has focused on Hong Kong design, believing it to reflect the city's unique history and character. He is known for his collection of designs by Austrian Henry Steiner, who defined some of Hong Kong's most famous brands, such as the HSBC logo.
In 2023, WU worked with two other enthusiasts he met online, maintenance worker Pan Tse, and Tiger Ng, a logistics worker passionate about cleaning abandoned lots, to help elderly residents get out of their old home real estate scheduled to be torn apart.
The man was allowed to store furniture and memorabilia for around 30 households in his storage unit, and promised to make it public one day. They tried to find space in industrial buildings to establish a mini-Mussyme, but the rent was high.
News of their volunteer work spread, and in 2024 hotel owner Mary Chung helped reorder bulky recording devices, musical instruments and books stacked on the premises.
Built in the 1930s, it was her family's villa until the Japanese forces demanded it during World War II. Chans was converted into a small hotel in 1951, with 12 rooms. As it is a short drive from the academic facility that became Hong Kong's China University, people, including martial arts writer Jin Yong, often have sublet rooms for those who teach there.
There was poetry recitations and live music, and there was also a recording studio used by Cantonese opera singers. The crew of the film was allowed to film there – the condition that the actors also checked in.
However, business declined as the area developed into a populated suburb and lost its rural character. Access became more difficult after the government took over adjacent land for the electric railway.
The hotel stopped operating in 1985, but the restaurant was primarily local customers, and the dining room decorated with star and white photos and business posters. During Covid Pandemic, it almost folded, and Mrs Chung was forced to reduce its 200 employees to just a handful.
Last year she signed a deal with Mr Wu's group, clearing the tea house for several months, moving the clutter to other rooms in the hotel. The car couldn't stop outside the hotel, so they helped by enclosing friends and family, crossing the footbridge and up the trenched stairs and packing boxes.
Since opening last fall, Hong Kong's Radiance has become a popular field trip destination for both schools and advanced groups.
On a recent day, dozens of silver-haired visitors took turns at Majong's tables, happily slamming the tiles of the hardwood table. Some people recall visiting adolescences and walked around the property when the restaurant only charged $4 (about 50 cents) for its typical pigeon plate (now $12). Some people invaded the opera in Guangdong, reminiscing about the live performance.
Mrs. Chong has always been looking for new ways to attract visitors, but is considering displaying more of the hotel's old items in the garden teahouse near the cage holding three peacocks.
“The lungs are part of Hong Kong's collective memory,” she said in an interview.
