Advertisement
Lantern maker for Mid-Autumn Festival in Hong Kong loves the job, but doubts it has a future with city’s cultural heritage under threat
- Ha Chung-kin has made lanterns the traditional way for 34 years, and takes inspiration for designs from events, such as a Chinese rocket launch, and daily life
- Despite his enthusiasm for the centuries-old Chinese craft, Ha sees a grim future for the art form in Hong Kong, where he is one of the few lantern makers left
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Ha Chung-kin, 60, who calls himself the King of Lanterns, loves his job as one of the few traditional Chinese lantern-makers left in Hong Kong. “Art cannot make money, so I turned it into a business by making lanterns,” he says.
Advertisement
In one corner of his busy workshop, tucked away in a small alleyway in Sai Ying Pun on Hong Kong Island, hangs a Guinness World Records plaque he received in 2017. “I got this for making the largest hanging lantern in the world. It was 9.39 metres (30 foot 8 inches) tall and 5.33 metres wide.”
Despite his enthusiasm for the centuries-old Chinese craft, Ha predicts a grim future for the art form in Hong Kong, Asia’s biggest financial hub.
“When I look ahead 30 to 40 years, I expect that the local lantern-making industry in Hong Kong will be dead,” he says. Still, it’s work he has enjoyed for decades.
Ha’s first job, in the 1980s, was in finance. It didn’t go well. “I absolutely hated working in the financial sector,” he says. “I was so stressed during the two to three years when I had the job that I would wake up in the middle of the night.”
Advertisement
Advertisement