I’ m never keen on playing mahjong. My friends know me well. But the first time I started painting on mahjong tiles was 11 years old. It was taught by my mom. Unfortunately the factory was forced to close in 2009. “What should I do?”, “How can I help to preserve my grandfather’s unique mahjong making story in Hong Kong?”, I kept asking myself this question for the last 10 years.
One day, I suddenly made up my mind and drew two artworks related to ‘How to make mahjong’ theme: one is to sketch the district where the mahjong factory built at Kowloon City. The second artwork is to draw the tools and describe the whole manufacturing process of making mahjong. It is a very interesting idea indeed to tell people the old production processes and the tools in a modern way.
Surprisingly, the story attracted some people’s attention. They love this fashion design. Since then, I devote much more time on the Hong Kong mahjong craftsmanship story.
I keep drawing something in a more modern style, while keeping the traditional elements of Mahjong culture. After sketching and painting hand, all the design focus on preserving Hong Kong story with the hand-drawn illustration.
My family story attracted HKTDC’s attention and was invited to be featured at DesignInspire 2017 – Design Without Boundaries zone.