Shrink to Fit

It’s the little things that count. Especially in a city like Hong Kong, where scant living space and tiny apartments have created a need for scaled-down living accessories of all sorts. We checked out some of the coolest small things in town, and talked to some of their biggest fans.

You Don’t Need Small Hands to Use These

1. Mini Multi-Cooker $398

Measurement: 21cm in diameter
Eating alone has never been more fun. Just 21cm in diameter, this multi-purpose electric cooker is capable of braising, steaming and shabu-shabu for one.

2. Mini Multi-Grill $338

Measurement: 32cm x 20cm x 12cm
If you crave yakitori at the same time, enjoy it with this mini grill that’s
guaranteed not to set off your smoke detector.

3. Mini Mahjong $495

Measurement: 14cm x 25cm
A favorite pastime among Hong Kong adults is now available baby-sized. With tiles slightly larger than your thumbnail, this mini mahjong set can be played wherever your fortuitous fung shui angle happens to lie. The tiny tiles also make it easier to cheat.

4. Mini Rice Cooker $338

Measurement: 14cm x 19cm
Your mother will never have to worry about you living alone anymore. With this mini rice cooker (14cm wide x 19cm high), one pot is enough for up to two people and it can cook rice within 25 minutes. This multi-functional cooker also allows you to steam, braise and bake your dishes.

5. Mini Cooler and Warmer $498

Measurement: 19cm x 25cm x 26cm
With a top handle that makes it easy to carry around, this mini cooler-cum-
warmer means you can stop worrying about your colleagues nicking your food from the shared office fridge. It has a capacity of up to six 355ml cans.

GOD, Leighton Centre, Sharp Street, East Entrance, Causeway Bay, 2890-5555.

6. Mini Bible $10 (minimum 100 per order)

Measurement: 3.2cm x 1.3cm x 4cm
Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...Now I can carry your words everywhere with me and read them in a book smaller than my palm.
www.weddingwithjesus.com, 9685-3483 (Zoe Suen)

7. Mini TV $498

Measurement: 12cm x 6cm x 10cm
Okay, so it’s not really a TV. But it does combine a digital photo frame, slide player, MP3, MP4, FM radio, calendar and alarm clock all in one, and makes for a cute home decoration on its own. Just 200 grams, the multi-functional box comes in four colors (black, white, lime and pink).
Let’s Go Computer, Shop 220, 2/F Wan Chi Computer Centre, 130 Hennessy Rd., Wan Chai, 3427-9212.

8. Mini Alarm Clock $68

Measurement: 6cm x 4cm x 2cm
If you already have trouble getting out of bed with a regular alarm clock, a tiny one might seem a bad idea. But this bedside gadget has a ringer disproportionate to its size. Nonetheless, you may end up rummaging through your bed for 10 minutes every morning just to find the bleeping thing.
City Super, Times Square Basement One, Causeway Bay, 2506-2888.

Shops With Barely a Shop Space

Staircase Shop

Shop space: 150 square feet
Tucked under a Hung Hom staircase for more than 40 years, Hung Yip Fashion Accessories has been through all the ups and downs of Hong Kong’s economic transformation. Selling small accessories from buttons to zippers, ribbons to belt locks, it used to be a popular supplier for the local garment industry. When local factories relocated to the mainland, owner Yeung Hung-yip’s business suffered greatly. But 77-year-old Yeung shares the same flexibility as most Hong Kong entrepreneurs and continues his business in his 150-square-foot shop space. A great destination for vintage lovers, it carries a range of rare and out-of-production deadstock buttons from the 40s, all at a retro price. Neighborhood locals know where to go if they find a button missing. And let’s hope Heung’s and other old staircase shops never end up like missing buttons—noticed only when they’re gone.
Hung Yip Fashion Accessories, 6-8 Bulkeley St., Hung Hom. Mon-Sat 9:30am-7pm.

Back Alley Shop

Shop space: Next to nothing
They say knowledge is found in the most unlikely places. If so, it’s fitting that Mrs. Lee’s Sum Kee Bookshop sits along a back alley. With less than 100 square feet, the shop features up to 3000 books on sci-fi, romance and wu xia (Chinese martial art), stacked on six aging bookshelves. Perched on her old chair by the alleyway, Mrs. Lee rents out as well as sells books for the main part of her business, which seems harder to survive than ever. Recently, two of the bookshelves were replaced by fridges for cold drinks to support business. But Mrs. Lee won’t be discouraged; she carries on the business in tribute to her late neighbor who started it back in 1973.
Sum Kee Bookshop, 160 Ngau Tau Kok Rd., Ngau Tau Kok. Daily 10am-9pm.

Mini Hong Kong

Li Loi-yau’s miniature street-scene models are small enough to stay under the radar of the URA’s ruthless “redevelopment” plans. “I love Hong Kong’s nostalgic scenes and my models strike a chord with many local people,” says Li, who founded the Hong Kong Miniature Society in 2003 to promote her craft.

“They are small but rich in meaning,” Li says of her models, adding that making them forced her to pay attention to the people and things around her. And indeed, every minute item of her work is stunningly realistic. Many of them are made of authentic material to add to the realism. Little wonder then, that it takes Li at least two months to complete each stall model.

If Li’s models are exercises in realism, Teresa Yu’s miniatures are the exact opposite. “I call my collection room a carefree haven,” she says. “Whenever I step into it, my worries in real life are all gone.” It would be no exaggeration to describe her collection room as a musuem. Now available online, there are over 1,600 dolls, made on a scale with humans of 1:12.

Yu was fascinated with mini dolls as a girl, but didn’t begin her miniature craft until she became a mother. What triggered Yu’s obsession was an unhappy childhood experience: after her mother helped her to make a doll for an art assignment, the doll turned out to be so finely crafted that it was selected to be a display item and never returned. Now a mother of three sons, Yu has extended her passion beyond dolls to fashion accessories, food and kitchenware.