How Hong Kong’s red, white and blue bags and striped fabrics are giving people recovering from mental illness a sense of pride and hope

At a sheltered workshop in Hong Kong’s Sham Shui Po district, Wong Pui-wan skilfully steers a sewing machine over a piece of striped fabric. The 66-year-old is putting the finishing touches on a bag, one of the many items made at the workshop run by the New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, a non-profit that helps people recovering from mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression. “We provide a holistic approach so people can achieve self-reliance and become integrated into society,” workshop manager Carmen Au says. Social connections – vital for people in recovery – are also made here, Au adds. Without the workshop, Wong says she would probably be sitting at home in silence. “For a long time I was too scared to talk.” Next to Wong is 62-year-old Connie Ku, who was lonely and depressed before the workshop gave her hope. “I cried a lot,” she says. “But I’ve made friends here and now feel happy and satisfied.” 11 of the best Hong Kong neon signs – catch them while you still can The workers also achieve a sense of accomplishment. Items made are sold at tourist businesses citywide and online via New Life’s concept shop, Rwb330. Rwb stands for “red, white, blue”, which refers to the three colours of a classic striped material that is literally part of the city’s fabric. During Hong Kong’s economic boom of the 1960s and ’70s, nylon canvas tarpaulin in red, white and blue was commonly used on the construction sites of high-rise buildings, where it was wrapped around structures to stop debris from falling. Hawker stalls and outdoor markets later used it for protective canopies. Bags made from the material featuring a checkered pattern were a must-have for carrying essential goods across the mainland China border to Shenzhen when immigrant families went back to visit relatives, earning them the nickname “homecoming bag”. Woven plastic fabric in the same colours is now used to make them. “Hong Kong people are very familiar with this pattern. Everyone knows it – it’s as recognisable as the LV logo,” Ku says, referring to the brown monogram pattern of French luxury brand Louis Vuitton. It’s an interesting observation considering a number of luxury brands, such as Celine and Comme Des Garçons, have incorporated the red, white and blue print into their products. Balenciaga has, too: the Cabas shopper, part of the French luxury house’s 2016 collection, was priced at an eye-watering US$2,000 in lamb grain leather, or US$10,000 if one fancied it in snakeskin. An item known for being cheap, durable and utilitarian had been transformed into a high-end fashion accessory. But what the big brands lack, and what money can’t buy, is the sense of pride and sentiment that is heavily stitched into the Rwb330 products. “We were on the Star Ferry recently for a day out drawing when some group members spotted their handmade items for sale in a shop,” Au says. “They were overjoyed … it gives them so much pride.” It’s a warm Wednesday in June and the second floor of the New Life building is a hive of activity as people toil away to the hum of sewing machines. The sunny space is brightened further by huge rolls of red, white and blue material that are spread out on tables. Ku is proud of her handiwork and offers to demonstrate the intricate hand-stitching needed to make handles for the bags. Occasionally she uses a modified tool for speed and precision: the pursuit of quality is, after all, one of the core values at New Life. “Plus Stanley has high standards,” Au adds with a laugh, referring to Stanley Wong Ping-pui, the Hong Kong contemporary artist and driving force behind the Rwb330 project. During my travels I would see the bag everywhere, mostly at airports in Africa. The bag is very distinctive – you can spot it from a mile away Nigerian artist Obinna Obioma Wong, who goes by the moniker anothermountainman, has been incorporating the pattern into artworks for more than 2o years. At a cafe in Hong Kong’s Sheung Wan district, Wong pulls out a laptop and flicks through a slide show of his impressive body of art inspired by the red, white and blue. His tricoloured fascination started in the late 1980s when he spotted a striped Hong Kong bag at a boutique in London with a shockingly high price tag. “I can’t remember exactly how much it was, but it was a lot,” he says. It got him thinking about his home city and its identity struggles, but mostly it made him think just how barren Hong Kong’s home-grown design culture was. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Anothermountainman Stanley Wong (@anothermountainmanstanleywong) In 2000, he launched Redwhiteblue, a series of posters, sculptural objects and installations that became Hong Kong’s exhibition at the 2005 Venice Biennale. He hasn’t stopped. At Art Basel Hong Kong in 2022, he unveiled a collaboration with Tai Ping Carpets. The project comprises two three-by-six-metre (10-by-20-foot) handmade silk and wool rugs. The first, titled “Hong kong walk on / one”, gives a rippled illusion. “It looks crumpled and was a very complex design taking six months to complete,” Wong says. The other, “Hong kong walk on / two” features geometric lines that trace the city’s skyline. Weighing almost 100kg (220lb) each, the rugs were crafted in Tai Ping Carpets’ workshop in China’s southeastern city of Xiamen, in Fujian province. Wong has also used the material to make a statement about migration, with some of his photos focusing on bags moving across the border to Shenzhen. Nigerian artist Obinna Obioma also used the checkered variety of the material as a metaphor for migration in his photography project “Anyi N’Aga”, which means “We Are Going” in Igbo, one of his country’s native languages. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Óbínnà Óbíomà 🇳🇬 (@mrobinnaobioma) “I was born in West Africa and went to school in England and then moved to the US,” says Obioma over Zoom from London, where he is now based. “During my travels I would see the bag everywhere, mostly at airports in Africa. The bag is very distinctive – you can spot it from a mile away.” In the African continent, the checkered bag has various names, the backstories often shaped by stories of forced migration. “In Nigeria it’s called the ‘Ghana Must Go’ bag because in the 1980s, millions of undocumented Ghanaian nationals were expelled from Nigeria,” Obioma says. In Hong Kong they were once referred to as amah bags; the term amah used to mean a Chinese domestic helper. Today they are commonly used by foreign domestic helpers – there are more than 340,000 in Hong Kong, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines. They use the bags to hold goods such as make-up and clothes that they sell on Sundays, their one day off a week and a time when many congregate in pedestrianised parts of Hong Kong. But while the bags are a common sight in the city, the material’s origin is not Hong Kong or China but Japan, where it was first produced then exported to Taiwan. Hong Kong glorified it and it was here that the iconic bags were created by Lee Wah, whose Wah Ngai Canvas shop was established on Sham Shui Po’s Yen Chow Street in 1954. At the time, Sham Shui Po was the beating heart of Hong Kong’s once thriving textile industry. In the 1950s, the city was among Asia’s biggest textile exporters and, by the ’60s and ’70s, more of the working population was employed in the garment industry than any other. Lee passed away a decade ago, says his daughter Heidi Lee, 59, and son Kong Lee, 67, who now operate the business from the same location. But times are tough, Heidi Lee says. Most people today want the cheap, mass-produced version and not the handmade bags that they make. “Our bags are better quality but take longer to make and people don’t want to wait,” she says, adding that high rent also makes life difficult. “Monthly rent is HK$10,000 [US$1,280] just for this 100 square feet [nine square metres] – it’s very small.” She’s right, it’s a slither of a space with barely enough room to swing a bag. “It’s so small that we can’t even store stock here,” she says. Much of the square footage is taken up with two shiny black antique Singer sewing machines. “These old machines have lasted for many years and are better than the modern ones.” A few doors down on the same street is another shop that makes and sells the red, white and blue bags. The 12 movies that defined Hong Kong cinema in the past 25 years The elderly man there does not want to give his name or age but says he’s been selling his wares from the same corner for more than 50 years. In his small shop, a big black Singer sewing machine also takes pride of place. A customer asks for seven bags. The elderly man walks up the wooden stairs and returns with the order. “I’m moving to a new flat so I need a lot of these bags,” he says. “They are very strong.”