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Description

Black damask silk shirt (part a). The shirt has a standing collar, long sleeves, side slits and a side opening. The side opening has a frog closure with elaborate floral detailing, metal snap fasteners and a metal zipper. The damask is woven containing leafy sprays with oval hanging fruit and circular ornaments. The inner lining is black silk.

Narrative

Mrs. Yau Chan, Shek-ying had a very good understanding of the need to save traditional objects that were no longer being used so that they could be donated to the Museum of Anthropology, despite the fact that she was illiterate. She donated many from her household, and also introduced Elizabeth Johnson to various relatives and fellow residents of Kwan Mun Hau Village and persuaded them to do the same.
The fact that this suit is made of silk reflects Mrs. Yau’s family’s increased prosperity by 1959. She would have worn it on special occasions, such as wedding banquets. She said that she only wore it twice because it had to be dry cleaned, which meant that the frog closings had to be removed each time. The style is typical of that time, with the tunic much shorter and less flared than previously. Hakka people are one of the two original land-dwelling groups that settled the area that became the New Territories of Hong Kong. Their spoken language, and some customs, differed from those of the other original group, the Cantonese or Punti. The Cantonese arrived first and settled on the best rice-growing lands, while the Hakka began to arrive after the late 17th century and settled the more hilly lands.

History Of Use

Until the 1970s, Hakka women in Hong Kong wore very plain clothes, black, purple-black, brown, or dark blue. The only decoration was perhaps simple stitching around the neck of their tunics, or at the top of their aprons, and hand-woven colourful patterned bands worn on their head cloths, hats, or aprons. Their clothing consisted of tunics, pants, simple aprons, rectangular head cloths that hung down at the back, and flat hats, open at the top, with a curtain-like veil around the edge to protect them from the sun and dust while they were working outdoors.
After the mid-twentieth century the New Territories of Hong Kong began to undergo fundamental changes. The people who had been settled there before 1898, when the British colonizers claimed the area, began to give up rice agriculture and coastal fishing, turning instead to wage labour and increased employment overseas. By the end of the century, educational opportunities leading to the possibility of white-collar work also increased, together with western influences. Even before this time, those people who were able to obtain secure, skilled jobs began to move out of poverty. Twentieth-century changes meant that objects and clothing once useful and appropriate were no longer needed and generally were discarded. Some were saved by their owners, who sometimes were willing to donate them to museums, sharing, also, their knowledge of how they were made and used.