January 27 2007 - Yuet Tung China Works

I’ve actually made a New Year’s resolution to TRY to write in my blog at least once a week. Now that I’m more used to living in Hong Kong, it’s easy to start to take the experiences that I’m having for granted and get lazy about writing about them. But then someday when I’ve returned to a normal American existence, I won’t remember that once upon a time I lived in an apartment halfway up a mountainside, in an amazing Asian city of 7 million people. And I don’t want that to happen.

So….this week I went on a tour of a small factory where they hand-paint china and porcelain. Factory is really a misnomer; it was more of a craft studio and storage facility. The place is called Yung Tung China Works. It was in Kowloon Bay, an area of Hong Kong that I haven’t been to before. I actually got to try out a new line on the MTR! We kind of went the “back way”, instead of taking the mainline….lets see if I can describe this. Hong Kong’s subway consists mainly of one line that goes along the north end of Hong Kong Island, along Victoria Harbor, plus two other lines that go off from the middle of this line (Admiralty Station), into the New Territories. One of the lines in the New Territories goes north and then turns west, toward the airport and Hong Kong Disneyland. The other line goes north and then turns east. There are a few, smaller lines as well. The place we were going, Kowloon Bay, was pretty far away on the line that goes northeast into the New Territories. But it was also possible to get there by going east on the Hong Kong Island line, and then taking a smaller line north and then west a little bit. We had to change trains twice, but overall it was less crowded and involved fewer stops. It was fun to go a different way!

The china factory consisted of about 4 large rooms. One room was the “office”, one room was the “workshop”, but ALL of the rooms were stacked to the CEILING with all kinds of china and pottery. There were dishes, bowls, serving platters, urns of all sizes, statues, you name it. We were free to “carefully” wander around and hunt for the pottery pieces of our dreams. It was lots of fun. I ended up buying a serving platter, 4 bowls, and something called a “mustard platter” that will work just fine as a candy or cookie dish. The prices were very reasonable, and they delivered for no extra charge.

One of the things we’ve been looking for are Chinese urns that could be turned into lamp stands. Another thing we want is one of the large square vases that could be used as an umbrella stand. They had a lot of things like that, but I need to bring Lee with me to look for that sort of stuff. I also would like one of the exotic Chinese dragon statues. They are crazy and ornate, but they really say “I lived in China!” so I want one!

I LOVE the delivery services in Hong Kong. They really show up when they say they will, for one thing. For another, you can have just about anything delivered. I have my groceries (big stuff) delivered on a regular basis. I had my Shenzhen purchases delivered this time. I knew it was possible, but I hadn’t tried it before. There’s a delivery charge from Shenzhen, but that makes sense, since they really prefer it if you come back to pick up your stuff, since when you do that you always end up buying something else (at least I do!) I’m going to TRY to start going to Shenzhen “only” every other week. If I have the stuff from the tailors delivered then I don’t feel like I have to return each week. Because of course, I never just go and get my stuff from the tailors; I have to go visit the purse lady, etc. etc. etc. It’s a vicious cycle!