The “Star Ferry” was founded in 1880 by a foreign businessman to provide the ferry service plying between either side of Victoria Harbour between Tsim Sha Tsui and Central. Most of the passengers then were businessmen and government officials. The general public would take the ferry across the harbour only under really emergent situations. Until 1923 when business activities grew frequent, a group of local Chinese merchants founded a new ferry company providing ferry services. Since its first service was from Yau Ma Tei, the ferry company was named “The Hongkong and Yaumati Ferry Company Limited” (HYF). Before the war, major trading and wholesale companies of Hong Kong were located on Hong Kong Island, especially around Sheung Wan, but since many Chinese still lived in Kowloon, a lot of buyers for businesses took the HYF ferry across the harbour for procuring goods.

Before power tools become popular, there were a number of manually operated tools among ferry equipment. One of them was a “blast”, namely a siren, also known as an “air horn”. Inside an air horn is a very thin copper piece that vibrates to produce sound when an air current, created by stirring, flows past it. In the past whenever Victoria Harbour was blanketed in fog, sailors on ferries sailing across the harbour would take an air horn to the front of the ship and stir it hard to give blasts. This would alert the ships nearby of their position to avoid accidents from happening.

After a hectic day, exhausted passengers should well space out and enjoy the 10-odd minutes of their ferry trip leisurely. Yet, there is a professional photographer who cannot help but capture the fast-changing cityscape when taking the ferry across Victoria Harbour if he / she has a camera with him / her. Whether it be a sunset, a nostalgic pier design, or people on the ferry, he / she keeps clicking the shutter. Compared to spacing out, this is another form of enjoyment.

A classic ferry food, a bowl of instant noodles with luncheon meat and egg, turns out to provide the motivation to enhance the ferry service quality.

When Hong Kong’s economy took off in the 1970s, people had heavy demand for vehicular ferry services. Nonetheless, in light of the commissioning of the harbour crossings and the West Kowloon Reclamation for new airport projects, the Jordon Road Ferry Pier service was cancelled and vehicular ferry services declined. Today, the ferries have turned into “dangerous goods vehicular ferries”, providing 24-hour vehicular services for dangerous goods vehicles between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.

The pawn industry is an old industry with a history of more than a thousand years. Today, there are still about 180 pawnshops in Hong Kong, although the operating mode has not changed much, the market environment and operations details have changed a lot.

TSUI Chun-pong is a teacher who studied history, and he is very interested in pawn culture. In order to collect information, not only has he visited all the pawnshops in Hong Kong, but he also pawned things at all of them, so that he could talk with the pawners and learn more about the things in the pawn industry.

Alvin and James are two post-90s pawnshop keepers. Like other current pawnshops, after they took over, many electronic technologies were introduced to assist in the operation. For instance, they use computers to record all the transactions, and the calligraphy of “pawn shop characters” on pawn tickets are replaced by the clear characters printed by printers. Although those are “new style” pawn shops, some old designs, such as the concealing board and the six-foot-high solid wood counter are still used today for practical purposes.

“Pawn fans in winter, pawn blankets in summer”, in the past, pawnshops would accept many different kinds of items, so a lot of room had to be reserved for storage, and certain amount of manpower was required to operate the business. Most modern pawnshops, however, only accept gold accessories, diamonds and expensive watches, such that two or three safes are enough to store all the pawned items, and the manpower required can also be greatly reduced. Barry is Ray’s mentor, and they are the pawners of another pawn shop. As they are both in charge of the pawnshop, Barry is trying his best to pass on his knowledge to meet the actual operational needs. This is completely different from the master-student relationship in the past, reflecting that there are more opportunities for promotion in the industry than before, and promotion is also faster.

During the past century, the pawn industry has been changing silently, adapting to the challenges brought about by changes in the social environment.

Hong Kong is a city where East meets West. The making of western clothing has a long history. Western clothing was called “fan yi” (foreign clothing) in the 19th century and later took its current name, “suit”. Over the last century, the world’s fashion trends have changed in several eras. A century later, what actually is the value of suits? Have people changed their perception on the value of suits?

In the past, it cost employees a month’s salary to get a tailor-made suit for dressing up for the Chinese New Year. There were tailor shops all around in the 1950’s and tailors could feed their whole family by working day and night.

Nowadays, suit shop owners have to cater to fashion trends and preferences of buyers, as well as focusing on interaction with customers. Meanwhile, some young suit designers see that suits are still a symbol of professional identity, and so they invest in technology in the hope of tailor-making a perfect suit for customers with a more accurate tape measure.

The handmade suit tailoring industry is a craft industry and also one that involves working with people. It can maintain its foothold for a century all because suit tailors, sellers and wearers have played their parts at different times. Just as sewing a suit, everyone adds a stitch to keep the industry going.

Tram, commonly known as “Ding Ding”, is one of the oldest means of transportation in Hong Kong, and has been serving the public since 1904. A ticket machine, which has been around for more than a century, will take us on a journey through time: Uncle Kin, who joined Hong Kong Tramways in the 60’s, has worked as a conductor and a tram driver. He has experienced the development of tram in different eras, and witnessed how tram, as the most important means of transportation at that time, was inseparable from public life and urban development.

With the rapid development of the city, efficiency is emphasised in everything. When tram, the fastest means of transportation on land becomes the slowest, its function gradually becomes questionable, causing a dispute over whether we should still keep it. Some people think that trams should be eliminated by time, while some use their own methods to retain them, which are of little value or interest in other people’s eyes. Joseph TSE, a “tram fanatic”, has been fond of tram culture since he was a child. He founded the Hong Kong Trams Culture Preservation Society, hoping to promote people from different levels of society to understand and get in touch with trams. Even if trams will eventually disappear, he is keen to preserve this treasure. From the perspective of environmental protection, a student from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology reckons that tram is a low-carbon means of transportation. If we want to keep them, changes have to be made. We have to design more humanised trams to provide urbanites with a comfortable riding experience and enough space to relax. Architect Alvin WONG grew up in North Point Estate, and trams bring him a lot of interesting childhood memories. He often organises his fellow “tram fanatics” to draw sketches on the sides of the tramway, to retain the unique scenery of the city from different perspectives, and at the same time, to introduce tram culture to more foreign people.

Trams shuttle between Kennedy Town and Shau Kei Wan on the 13-km winding tram tracks day and night. For more than a century, the “ding-ding” sound of trams has been accompanying the growth of Hong Kong people and society. Apart from being a means of transportation, it is also a cultural symbol and collective memory. Its story is the Hong Kong story. Is it “Change is eternal” or is it “Counter changes with consistency”? We shall let time give the answer.

It has been more than a century since bone-setting clinics rooted in Hong Kong. In the days when Western medicine was not yet popular, people could only go to martial arts schools to ask the “masters” for help whenever they suffered any bone injuries. “Bone-setting”, which was popular among commoners, is in fact a practice of Chinese medicine in martial arts. Master AU Chiu-wing came to Hong Kong with his parents in 1948 when he was 7. He then became a student of the South Eagle Paw master HO Fuk-loi in Tai Po, and at the same time he also learnt herbal and medical knowledge. In the past century, Chinese medicine practitioners have been using the old iron grinder to make herbal extracts to produce ointments and medicines, and treat their patients.

In the 1980s, institutions in Hong Kong began to offer courses in physiotherapy. Eric LAW, one of the first batch of graduates of physiotherapy, retired and left the frontline of the Hospital Authority a few years ago. LAW is also a martial arts master. He has even modified a set of Tai Chi routine, which has become a basic training exercise in physiotherapy for patients in hospital. To combine Chinese and Western medicine is for the well-being of patients after all.

LEUNG Tin-chu follows his father’s footsteps and opens a bone-setting clinic in Sham Shui Po, but he embarks on a path of innovation. As he wants to change peoples’ impression that “a Chinese medicine clinic is equivalent to a martial arts school”, LEUNG does not adopt the traditional serious layout in his clinic, but fills the clinic with his collections – bone accessories, toys and ornaments, and even toy capsule vending machines and claw machines, as well as the humorous slogans he designed – with a wish that patients can receive their treatment in a relaxing environment. In addition, LEUNG himself has been pursuing new knowledge. Despite being a Chinese medicine practitioner inheriting ancestral knowledge, he still furthers his studies and becomes a doctor in Chinese medicine. From the certificate of degree to diplomas and other certificates, LEUNG displayed more than 200 certificates in his clinic. Although he is a “new style” Chinese medicine practitioner, his tireless and rigorous attitude has already won the trust from the elderly in the neighbourhood.

Bone-setting has become less related to martial arts, but it has become more relevant to sports science. Leanne WU is a physiotherapist, but she is more well-known as a key opinion leader (KOL) in personal training. Apart from healing bone and muscle injuries, working-out also improves one’s body shape and functional capacity. Leanne believes that physiotherapy should evolve from rehabilitation to prehabilitation, that is, to improve one’s body condition continuously for the prevention of sickness, rather than to treat one’s pains and strain injuries only after they appear.

In the past century, there have been many changes in our society, economy and culture. And people’s pursuit to a quality life has also changed greatly.