London holds events to explore Hong Kong’s culture and history

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The culture and traditions of Hong Kong are on display at the Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition in London.

Alongside it, a film festival is celebrating Hong Kong’s rich film industry. The event provides a chance for Londoners to touch Hong Kong's particular style of east-meets-west culture.

Why is the traditional Hong Kong milk tea also called "stocking tea"? How can you make a paper lantern bigger than a dinner table? How do Cantonese Opera singers manage to perform with such elaborate costumes and make-ups? And how can you make delicious Hong Kong-style Dim Sum at home?

You can find out answers to these questions at the ongoing Hong Kong Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition.

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The exhibition is a journey of discovery in Hong Kong’s rich folk culture, including performing arts, social practices, rituals, food and traditional crafts, some of which date back to the time when Hong Kong was a fishing village. Many are not widely known, such as the art of paper crafting.

Paper crafting is a Chinese folk handicraft with a long history. Today, Hong Kong still retains the tradition of using crafted paper models for festival celebrations and rituals. People were amazed at seeing such big yet delicate paper-crafted products.

“I am always interested in dragons, the papermaking. When you see someone doing it, you realize the amount of energy and effort goes into it,” said a visitor Matthew.

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Paper-crafting master Kenneth Mo has been in this field for 25 years. He expressed his thought, ”No matter what you do – head of a dragon, head of a lion, Fa Pau or lanterns – the basic principle is the same. What is more important is that you put your emotions into it when you make it.”

This exhibition also offers workshops open to the public, providing a fascinating insight into some of the lesser known elements of Hong Kong's east-meets-west culture.

“It is awesome. It is marvelous. I think it goes a very long way to cement the relationship between Chinese culture and English culture to show how they can be integrated and what can be done to promote further,” said a visitor Louise.

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Hong Kong’s films are the most brilliant part of its culture. On the sideline of the ongoing intangible cultural heritage exhibition, a special film festival has been curated in London to bring classic Hong Kong films produced during the past 20 years to British audiences.

Nine classics, ranging from 1997 to this year, are being screened during this weekend, opening with Wilson Yip's "Paradox", the latest installment of the S.P.L. (Sha Po Lang) crime thriller series.

Hong Kong actor Lam Ka-tung, who played the main villain in the film, was invited to join this European premiere, and said “I came here not only to promote this film (Paradox) but also to promote the development of Hong Kong films in the past 20 years, such as the different types of films and new directors.”

Both the exhibition and the film festival are supported by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London as part of events to mark the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China in 1997.

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As director general of Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, Priscilla To insisted that under “One country, two systems”, Hong Kong continues to thrive as an international city and as world’s Asia city.

“So it is a place where the east blends very well with the west. So these cultural items are actually very traditional, very Chinese. But when you talk about Hong Kong, it is very metropolitan and very international. So it is really interesting we bring forward these things showcasing to the world how we blend east and west together,” said Priscilla To.

The exhibition will continue to run till next week.