Description

Shepherd Entertainment takes you on a tour of Hong Kong, where travelers are met in the harbor by Harbor City, a huge American style mall where the products of the Hong Kong light industry are fully represented. The most striking are the huge amounts of textile and electronic products and watches on sale. But malls are not the only places for shopping as there are also lots of markets.

Transcript

On the waters of the Far East, everybody wants to see the typical junks but there are less and less of these today. Mainly gigantic ferries and modern tourist boats fill the coastal waters of Hong Kong. Travelers are met in the harbor by Harbor City, a huge American style mall where the products of the Hong Kong light industry are fully represented. The most striking are the huge amounts of textile and electronic products and watches on sale. But malls are not the only places for shopping as there are also lots of markets. You can buy singing birds in cages at the bird market, gold fishes at the gold fish market but contrary to its name, the cat market is a place to buy antiques and not cats. The exotic jade market lies west of Kings Park. Jade is a prized semiprecious stone that plays an important role in Chinese applied arts. This name covers two precious stones, nephrite and jadeite. Both minerals can be found in several different colors and it’s hard to tell them apart. Nephrite is generally green but can also be found in a grayish color or in case of higher iron content, it can take on a brownish or reddish color as well. For carving, they usually use the stone from riverbeds. The most sought after jadeite is white with green splashes. Confucius considered jade to be the symbol of virtue and ancient sacrificial chalices and cultic objects were also made from it. The emperor’s ceremony jewelry was always made from the appropriate color of jade. The book of ceremonies written during the Chow Dynasty considers jade to be the most valuable thing in the world. People also started using this mineral to decorate ornaments and jewelry in this era. A separate office was set up in the emperor’s court to guard jade objects. In 1176, during the Sung Dynasty, the jade treasures of the emperor’s treasury were catalogued in 100 volumes with 700 illustrations. In the 8th century, it was mainly used to make jewelry and ornaments. The ancient sculpting techniques have prevailed through the ages and today’s artists use the same technique to make ornaments as the ancient masters living some 3000 years earlier.