^Traditional Chinese pastries with a pigmented Chinese character on top, "double happiness".
The single biggest factor fascinating me about Hong Kong is the mixtures of all sorts. You just see mixtures everywhere in Hong Kong.
The Chinese community in Hong Kong is like not any other you may find around the world. The Chinese people here (excluding, for the moment, the wallet-fattened Mainland Chinese holding overseas passports and migrating to Hong Kong as investment migrants) are individually a mixture of liberal and conservative minds. Most of them treasure the old Chinese values while having a fairly westernised minds about fairness, openness and democracy.
The cityscape is a real mix of advancement and ancientry. I like the way the city is haphazardly developed with a naturally occurring tidiness. Disorder and order, old and new. This is the major factor giving Hong Kong its vibrancy.
^It says Takyun Restaurant.
Here I ran into an old restaurant in the heart of the city. Its name is Takyue , short of a meaning as a word. As two single characters, however, Tak means "possess" and Yue means "as wished". Auspiciousness is the idea behind naming in the Chinese culture.
^The manager sitting at the sales desk situated on the ground floor of the restaurant.
Takyue Restaurant is the same age of grandpas. It used to be a popular place for meetings between parents to make blind marriages for their adult children, which means it was a restaurant with a highly regarded status at that time.
^This is a typical board in old restaurants displaying the names of the function rooms under which the name of the patron with the booking is painted with white paint on the day of the feast.
«The characters mean "Tidying Up. Business at 6"
It was a shame that the restaurant was at recess in the afternoon when I visited. Although I was unable to take pictures inside, I went inside for a yumcha some years ago. Besides other old traditional fittings, spittoons are still provided under each table for the patrons to, well, spit. Spitting is an ungraceful Chinese national skill in the old days, which has almost extinct in Hong Kong save among the octogenarians... and the Mainland Chinese visitors.
I should write another post about the alarming acts of the Mainland Chinese visitors.
At present, Takyue Restaurant is a popular meeting place among the self-employed construction workers and coolies. There is a reason for it. In the morning, they have yumchas in the restaurant. This is not because of the food or cheap prices but the opportunity to get a job.
^Decorations can be dated back to the 1960s. The totem sort of decoration on the right mimics the ancient currency, jade. Money-related auspiciousness.
Works contractors, when they need workers, knows where to go. It is Takyue for sure as it is the foothold of the workers.
^A really old scale found in the restaurant.
An interesting old way of how business is run and jobs are found in this Asia financial hub. This is Hong Kong.
^The plaques on a shop-front column displaying the title of the holding company of the restaurant and of the restaurant itself, which was an old way to flaunt one's wealth.
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