Exhibition of photos documents life in Hong Kong in the '60s and '70s
It's hard to imagine today the sleepy fishing villages and rice paddies of the New Territories and the bustling open-air markets of Kowloon that existed half a century ago.
But an exhibition by photographer Dr Leo Wong Kwai-kuen, 83, will give visitors the chance to step back in time. The photos from the 1960s and '70s will go on show at the new Times Square Living Room Museum from today until February 1.
The 41 black-and-white photos show a rural and less developed city, at a time when Sha Tin was still a fishing village.
"I would go to Sha Tin at 6.30am to capture the morning mists there, which were very beautiful," Wong said. "I also saw fishermen catching fish and selling them, but you can't see that any more."
"When I look at these pictures, I can still remember what the people in them were doing. They lived a different life and they might be poor compared to these days. But they were happy," Wong, a retired doctor, said.
He added that none of the places pictured in the collection were recognisable from the photos. He said he missed the atmosphere of the old neighbourhoods.
"It's hard to put those feelings into words. Feelings are abstract … But people lived in a big community and that made me feel good," he said.
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The photos are arranged into six themes: fishing villages, housing estates, labour, sunsets, street scenes, and religion and customs. Wong said the housing estate snapshots showed how children spent their time back then.
"Children played together in the recreational areas on the Shep Kip Mei estate in Kowloon. You can see they were playing, jumping and laughing," Wong said. "Today's children don't play those games. They play video games and have iPhones and other electronic gadgets."
Most of the photos in the collection were taken in Kowloon and the New Territories. Wong said that was because it was more inconvenient to travel to Hong Kong Island at the time.
"People who lived on the other side of Victoria Harbour rarely went to Hong Kong Island," Wong said. "There was still no train service in Kowloon and we had to travel for an hour to get to the harbour, then wait in line for another half an hour to get on a ferry to the island."
