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In its heyday in the 1950s and \u201960s, the Lung Wah Hotel, a converted, Spanish revival villa, offered a leafy refuge from the bustle of city life, near a cove and surrounded by parks in Hong Kong\u2019s northern New Territories.<\/p>\n
Winding stairs, flanked by red lanterns, led to a sprawling Chinese-style garden. On summer weekends, people gathered for games of mahjong under a pavilion as children played nearby in sandboxes and swings. Movies were once shot there and Bruce Lee, its most famous patron, practiced martial arts on its roof.<\/p>\n
In the decades since, the hotel stopped renting out rooms because new fire codes would require them to be upgraded. The surrounding rice fields were developed into middle-class housing. The restaurant is still turning out its famed roast pigeon, but it has struggled to fill its wood-trimmed dining rooms since its 500-spot parking lot was requisitioned for a new police station in the 1970s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Now, the operation has been given a chance for a new lease on life \u2014 by leaning into the past. An unused teahouse on the property has been remade into Hong Kong Radiance, a hands-on museum that seeks to recreate slices of the vibrant life in the city as it transitioned from a postwar factory town producing clothes, electronics and plastics into a glittering financial center connecting East and West.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
John Wu, a graphic designer and well-known local collector who curated the space, said he wanted it to resemble a film set, where each corner had a cohesive color palette.<\/p>\n
His goal, he said, was to revive memories for older visitors while also inspiring younger generations. When giving tours, he often calls attention to unique details, encouraging visitors to feel the sturdiness of the wood, for example. \u201cOnly then can these objects get a second life,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Dusty antique shops have long been a fixture in the city, but a new crop of businesses \u2014 photo studios, restaurants and vintage-inspired shops, many run by Gen-Z and millennial proprietors \u2014 are trying to hold fast to the aesthetics and everyday objects from a more recent past, before the British returned the former colony to Chinese control in 1997.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Many residents regard the 1980s as a golden era for Hong Kong culture, when locally-made movies, television shows and music known as Cantopop, sung in Cantonese, were hugely popular both at home and abroad. The success of its entertainment scene was a point of pride, tied to the city\u2019s identity as cosmopolitan and a place of opportunity for those with dreams, as well as the guts and wits to pursue them. But imports from mainland China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan led to the fading of Hong Kong\u2019s pop culture in the decades since.<\/p>\n
The wave of nostalgia has coincided with efforts by the Chinese government to redefine Hong Kong\u2019s identity in the wake of protracted antigovernment protests, which led to a crackdown by Beijing<\/a> in 2020 and the imposition of a national security law. Since then, the authorities have revamped history museums<\/a> and rewritten textbooks<\/a> to adhere to Beijing\u2019s official narrative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOur generation has fantasies about the past,\u201d said Connie Li, a 30-year-old interior designer who visited the museum on a recent afternoon. \u201cThings are changing too quickly, but in these spaces, we can find an escape in the so-called glory days and search for our roots.\u201d<\/p>\n To tap into public interest in the recent past, the city\u2019s tourism board organized an exhibit tied to last year\u2019s hit \u201cTwilight of the Warriors: Walled In<\/a>,\u201d a martial-arts action movie set in 1980s Hong Kong. Visitors immersed themselves<\/a> in the film\u2019s \u201caesthetic vibe,\u201d including a barbershop, tea stall and bone-setting clinic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At Hong Kong Radiance, guests are free to rummage through dressers full of knickknacks, games and family photo albums. It includes an herbalist\u2019s office flanked by antique scrolls, and a convenience store with a retro jukebox, crates full of soda bottles and vintage ice cream tubs. One room recreates a cluttered working-class home with a mahjong table, a Singer sewing machine and a bunk bed piled with suitcases.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Wu, 55, began collecting Japanese and Western objects when he was young but has in recent years focused on Hong Kong designs because he believed they reflected the city\u2019s unique history and character. He is known for his collection of designs by Henry Steiner<\/a>, an Austrian whose work defined some of Hong Kong\u2019s best-known brands, like the HSBC logo.<\/p>\n In 2023, Mr. Wu teamed up with two other enthusiasts he had met online \u2014 Pan Tse, a maintenance worker, and Tiger Ng, a logistics worker with a passion for scavenging abandoned lots \u2014 to help elderly residents move out of an old housing estate that was slated to be torn down. <\/p>\n The men were allowed to keep furniture and mementos from about 30 households in their own storage units, promising to one day show them to the public. They tried to find space in an industrial building to set up a mini-museum, but rents were high.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n News of their volunteer work spread and, in 2024, the owner of the hotel, Mary Chung, reached out for help sorting through the bulky recording equipment, instruments and books that had piled up at the property.<\/p>\n