Sha Chen Department Store - Honey · Flower Note · Telephone Henley Collar Sweatshirt

Sha Chen Department Store - Honey · Flower Note · Telephone Henley Collar Sweatshirt Hong Kong opened its port in 1842. By 1851, foreign madams were placing small advertisements in the *China Mail*: "Mrs. Langdale has a small quantity of fine honey for sale. Also available: gin, brandy, sherry wine... Location: No. X, Floor X, Johnston Road, Victoria City." The double meaning of "honey" in English is likely familiar to many. This advertisement was a veiled reference to "fine honey" – high-class foreign courtesans awaiting patrons on Gage Street. It's said that foreigners would present flowers to win favour, leading to the flower stalls that gathered on the street, eventually giving Gage Street its Chinese name. Those in the know would arrive swiftly with newspapers and fresh blooms. - As commerce flourished, the first telephone company was established in Hong Kong in 1881, gradually placing advertisements in newspapers seeking installers. The term "telephone" was unfamiliar to the public (some say it was a transliteration from Shanghainese dialect; others note its appearance in the "Tong Sing," a Cantonese-English dictionary published in Hong Kong in the latter half of the 20th century, which recorded "德律風" as a phonetic transcription for English). Its more widely known name, however, was the Japanese-introduced translation, "電話" (diànhuà). From the 1900s, Hong Kong's red-light district shifted from Water Street to the grand restaurants and dance halls of Shek Tong Tsui. Alongside "foreign flowers" (foreign courtesans), there were also "local delicacies" – many renowned courtesans from the area. Following the ancient tradition of courtesans being skilled in song and dance, the famous courtesans of塘西 (Tong Chai) were graceful and refined, never vulgar. Skills like "guessing games" (猜), "drinking" (飲), "singing" (唱), and "beauty" (靚) were considered standard. Starting with the fee of "one dollar chicken" (a practice where patrons paid one dollar to write a "flower note" summoning a courtesan to pour wine, keep them company, or perform a song), the young masters entered a period of extravagant spending. How many "filial sons" of that era spent fortunes and devised countless tricks to win a smile from their beloved, not only burning money on desserts or folding banknotes into flower arrangements, but even installing the fashionable new "telephone" – a luxury previously reserved for high-ranking officials and nobles – in their rooms, all in an effort to capture the lady's heart. As the saying goes, poverty limits imagination. If not for witnessing Ruyi and the Twelve Young Masters in *Rouge*, it would be difficult for us ordinary folk to even conceive of such a Gatsby-esque life of decadent pleasure. - Subsequently, telephones became increasingly common, while 塘西 (Tong Chai) declined for various reasons. In the early 1930s, the British government legislated against prostitution, a ban that extended to colonial Hong Kong. Alas, desire is human nature. After the complete ban on prostitution in 1935, "tour guide girls" emerged as a more discreet form of transactional intimacy. Tour agencies became the "liver-soothing gardens" (疏肝園地) for eager men (疏肝, originally a traditional Chinese medicine term, is used in Cantonese to describe an experience that brings great joy and relief). Hotels would introduce guests, who then only needed to "dial the wheel" (撥個輪 – a Cantonese phrase meaning to make a phone call; old rotary phones had a dial with holes numbered 1 to 9 and 0, into which a finger would be inserted and rotated clockwise to dial). The "tour guide girl" would then arrive on call. Fate is unpredictable; the red-light industry, driven underground, unexpectedly intertwined with the telephone. The ebb and flow of human affairs, the myriad facets of life, weave together the hundred years of romantic change in Hong Kong. - This very real (and grand) history, interwoven with our own imagination, has become our pattern. The decadent glamour of old Hong Kong, in which the telephone played an extraordinary role. Therefore, we have taken inspiration from a corner of the telephone booths at the former Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park in Hong Kong, which once hosted burlesque shows, to create "Honey · Flower Note · Telephone."