Hong Kong Museum of History, Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon

Sunday, January 12, 2025 - we heard the 11:30 AM mass at Saint Anthony's Church in Pok Fu Lam then lunch at Bayi Restaurant, one of our favorite dining places known for its Xinjiang (Central Asian region) cuisine that consists mostly of lamb dishes with flavorful spices.

Lovely weather to head over to the Kowloon side of HK and explore a museum. After a long bus ride from Water Street, we headed on foot towards the HK Museum of History (established in 1975) in TST East.

Free Entrance!

The National Security Exhibition Gallery which we breezed through quickly.

The main hall displays the Multifaceted Hong Kong exhibition series. 

The Kowloon Canton Railway started operations in 1910, running from TST to Wu Lo
It connected Kowloon to the New Territories.

During the mid 19th century, Hong Kong was the main entry point for Chinese emigrants to California where they worked as laborers under harsh conditions for meager wages. It also became the hub linking goods, people and cultural networks across the Pacific Ocean. Between 1850 and 1939, more than 6.3 million Chinese emigrated through Hong Kong to foreign destinations and 7.7 million Chinese returned via Hong Kong.

In 1852, the clipper Challenge sailed from HK to San Francisco in just
33 days. A new record for trans Pacific travel as sailing boats often 

overloaded took 50 - 60 days for a one way voyage on treacherous waters

I also discovered the substantial contributions of the Hong Kong Portuguese community in the development of modern day Hong Kong. Their ancestors arrived in the East during the15th century and majority settled in Macao in the 16th century onwards. 

Coming from Macao, they formed one of the earliest foreign communities in Hong Kong. They were Eurasians so they could communicate well in Cantonese and were culturally attuned to Chinese society. Mostly merchants, clerks and employees of trading companies, they played leading roles in different fields of endeavour like governance, legal sector as well as in the recreational and leisure industries.

In the second half of the 19th century, just a few Americans and Europeans worked in Hong Kong and this led to a shortage of clerical workers. This prompted the British Hong Kong government and other foreign firms to hire Macanese because they were proficient in English and Chinese, playing the middlemen roles as clerks, bookkeepers and interpreters.