Merry Christmas, Hong Kong style
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We've got several old Hong Kong Christmas cards in the photo galleries. Here's the oldest, from the early 1900s:
The setting is a familiar scene for a Christmas card, but it was likely a new experience for the children. The card is titled "Unterm Weihnachtsbaum im Blindenheim in Hongkong (China)", or "Under the Christmas tree at the home for the blind in Hongkong (China)" [1].
Several of the other cards were sent by members of the armed forces stationed in Hong Kong. Here's one from "The Withycombes", sent in 1912:
The photos inside the card capture a big change these Yorkshiremen had seen during their stay in Hong Kong, the disappearance of the queue after the revolution in China [2]:
This was a typical card design for the time: choose a picture that would show some foreign aspect of life in Hong Kong to the mothers, wives and girlfriends reading the cards back home in the UK.
Fourty years later, this Christmas card card still followed a similar approach. It was printed "H Q Land Forces" and sent to Pauline by her late husband in 1954:
But the RAF's 28 Squadron at Kai Tak took a different artistic direction. Contributor IDJ says they had "a tradition of decorating their Christmas cards with young ladies working as BOAC ground hostesses." Here's the photo on their 1957 Christmas card:
You have to hope they also had a plainer card to send home to wives and girlfriends, otherwise their chances of a Happy New Year were slim!
Merry Christmas to you and your family,
Regards, David
PS Thanks to Christoph, Pauline and IDJ for the cards shown above. If you have any old Hong Kong Christmas cards, we'd love to see them. Here's how to upload a photo to the website.
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