Original: modern middle class source official account: modern middle class wechat id:modernstory
Hong Kong is heartbroken.
one
On June 18, in the sea area near the the Xisha Islands, a huge building ship encountered a storm and fell into the huge waves.
The cold sea water rushed into the Dragon Tower and the Fengge, rolled up the dark gold powder and sawdust, and poured them into the deepest part of the old ship.
The sinking ran through the night. On June 19, the building ship sank to a depth of KM. Twenty eight Zhang Qionglou, forty-six years of prosperity, all sink in the raging waves.
The news was sent back to Hong Kong thousands of miles away, and endless memories came back, just like a giant beast spitting out its last mirage before it died.
The building ship, named treasure seafood boat, is 72 meters long, 28 meters high and has a drainage capacity of 3300 tons. It has been berthed at Aberdeen South typhoon shelter for 46 years. It is the world’s largest sea restaurant.
It rippled in the long time, the lights kept on, and celebrities gathered.
Queen Elizabeth boarded the boat and peered across the railing. Tom Cruise and Chow Yun Fat went on board to have a drink. McGrady of the Rockets ate his first shark fin here. Stanley Ho, the gambling king, set up his birthday party here for more than 10 years.
Over the past 40 years, more than 30 million guests have visited the ship, and all encounters begin with awe: the brightly lit floating city on the sea.
It just stops at the junction of reality and imagination.
007 was running on the boat. Godzilla ran by the boat. WuZhenYu in Infernal Affairs 2 held his neck high before getting on the boat and said, “I can look up and be a man in the Ni family.” shortly after getting off the boat, he said, “come out and get mixed up, and pay it back sooner or later.”.
The most famous one is the night of nine stars’ continuous bead. Zhou Xingchi, who came back from Shaolin, lightly touched the water, crossed the sea in white, made a bowl of ecstatic rice, and became a god overnight.
Xuejiayan, the judge, sat on the Dragon chair in the boat with tears in her eyes. “What can I do if I can’t eat such delicious barbecued rice?”
Beyond the building ship, the 1990s is at its peak. The Hong Kong building looks forward and the water is beautiful. Every wave of light hides endless stories.
In those years, people who did not come to Hong Kong had an imaginary Hong Kong in their hearts.
So many years later, when they first arrived in Hong Kong, they always had the illusion that old friends were reunited.
They saw chenhaonan’s back in Causeway Bay, heard the roar of motorcycles in the temple street night market, looked for senior sister Tuo gun in Yau Ma Tei police station, and listened to the ethereal gunfire in the dark in Mong Kok or Kowloon ice room.
They passed through Kowloon, central and lower south bay until they saw treasure boat, where imagination and reality finally overlapped.
The boat had bright lights and confused music. Green snakes and white snakes were entangled in the turbid current under the boat. Scholars and Xiaoqian flashed through the corridor on the boat. Hong Xingzheng was in full swing in the hall. He pushed open the door of the VIP room. Qiushuzhen sat down at the gambling table with jade legs, and playing cards roared in.
It confuses the vision, satisfies the taste buds and soaks the desire. Many years ago, the travel guide wrote: as a totem, treasure boat satisfies all people’s imagination of Hong Kong.
It records the extreme prosperity of the market, carries the wanton ocean of imagination, solidifies the unique style of Hong Kong and Kowloon, and has been integrated into the soul of Hong Kong for more than 40 years.
Hong Kong people never thought it would leave. When the departure came suddenly, it was as sad as the bowl of barbecued rice.
On June 14, Zhenbao Seafood Restaurant went to sea and traveled to Southeast Asia.
Since then, the epidemic has been cloudy, the economy has been turbulent, the news of changes is endless, and the treasure boat has been temporarily forgotten.
No one thought that five days later, the news of its sinking came back.
two
The legend of the treasure boat began in the water, light and fire.
In the 1950s, Wanglaoji, a Hong Kong businessman, ran a Taibai seafood restaurant in the typhoon shelter. He could give Ivory chopsticks for dinner. At that time, there were a large number of rich and powerful guests.
The playing method of the building boat is derived from the “Song Tang pontoon” in Minyue area. When the guests get on the boat, they are now fishing for seafood, supplemented by singing and dancing, and have a unique row of noodles.
After Taibai Seafood Restaurant grew, Wanglaoji ambitious to build a new boat, named “treasure seafood restaurant”.
However, on October 30, 1971, six days before its opening, zhenbaofang caused a fire due to careless decoration, which affected nearby fishing boats, resulting in 32 deaths and 13 missing.
Wanglaoji was unable to carry on and gave up shipbuilding.
Stanley Ho, the gambling king, and zhengyutong, the tycoon, took over the offer and spent HK $32million to rebuild the treasure boat.
The new boat was designed by the gambling king and fully imitated the palace of the Ming Dynasty. It has carved beams and painted buildings, green tiles and red bricks. Because it is planned to open in the year of the dragon, a large number of dragon elements are added to the boat. The most famous Dragon chair took two years to make.
In October, 1976, zhenbaofang opened for free on the opening day, which caused a sensation in Hong Kong and Kowloon.
Since then, zhenbaofang has become a new landmark of Hong Kong. Newspapers listed Lion Rock, Causeway Bay and treasure boat as the must see routes in Hong Kong. The gifts for boarding the boat were also changed from ivory chopsticks to Winston cigarettes.
At that time, on the left side of the treasure boat was Wanglaoji’s Taibai seafood restaurant, and on the right side was another Haijiao palace. Later, the gambling king invested in the purchase, and the three ships were unified, which was named treasure kingdom.
In the 1990s, it became fashionable to go to treasure kingdom. Hong Kong people should take the shuttle boat first, and then board the big boat.
After boarding, you can see six halls including Dragon Tower, Fengge and Taihe hall, as well as Western-style bars and terraces. The side of the building ship is equipped with a kitchen boat, which is equipped with the most advanced ultraviolet seawater disinfection system.
The most authentic Hong Kong is the combination of ancient customs and the west, tradition and modernity.
Hong Kong people like to board the ship in the afternoon, read newspapers at the teahouse and spend a long time. At night, the treasure kingdom held a series of banquets and enjoyed cheers under the cornices.
In the 1998 financial crisis, the treasure Kingdom suffered heavy losses. It was forced to cut off the Cape palace and send it to the Philippines. Due to poor management, it later gave it to Qingdao.
After surviving the financial crisis, in 2001, Stanley Ho handed over the treasure kingdom to 25-year-old Lawrence Ho, becoming the first family business that his youngest son took over.
He was determined to innovate, redecorate and set up rabbit girl performances. However, SARS came one after another. The turnover of treasure kingdom fell by three quarters.
At the critical moment of life and death, mainland tourists saved zhenbaofang. In 2003, Hong Kong officially opened free travel, and the release of Infernal Affairs 2 in the same year triggered a rush to punch in.
At its peak, the boatman near the wharf can earn HK $20000 a month by taking tourists around the boat.
Stanley Ho, the gambling king, prefers this boat. Many Lunar birthday parties are held in treasure boats.
In the late autumn of 2013, Stanley Ho, 92, celebrated his birthday on the ship for the last time. It was a cold and windy night.
three
When filming God of food, Stephen Chow’s white hair was dyed. When he promoted the film in 2013, he was really covered with silver.
Zhenbaofang is as old as the God of food. The gambling king has not boarded the boat since that second day. Since 2013, the treasure Kingdom has been unable to make ends meet.
It has fallen behind the times, the facilities are old, the decoration is in disrepair, and the dishes are expensive. The older generation of Hong Kong people have been too lazy to change boats for tea. Tourists always come and shout. The Dragon chair takes photos and then roars away.
The salt of time is corroding the muscles and bones of the building ship, and the arrival of the epidemic is a fatal blow.
At the beginning of 2020, the number of tourists in Hong Kong dropped sharply, the catering industry was closed, 90% of banquets were cancelled, and more than 1000 restaurants were closed. The industry president said that the winter had come.
In january2020, zhenbaofang cut its staff by half, and its business hours were also significantly shortened. It was said that “the new business model will help to retain this unique Hong Kong landmark”.
However, two months later, zhenbaofang announced its closure and dismissed all its employees. According to the disclosed information, since 2013, treasure Kingdom has accumulated a loss of more than HK $100million.
When the floor dance stopped and the lights went out, xuejiayan, who was sitting on the Dragon chair, sighed, “how gloomy!”
After the closure, the gambling king family tried every means to change hands.
In 2020, zhenbaofang was donated to Hong Kong Ocean Park and was once included in the plan of “leaping the south of Hong Kong Island”. However, because the ocean park itself was dying, zhenbaofang was finally abandoned.
The group to which zhenbaofang belongs said that in the past year, the group had discussed with more than 10 enterprises and institutions to donate zhenbaofang free of charge, but they were all rejected due to high operating costs.
In May this year, the group released a rumor that it would let zhenbaofang go to sea to find a way out. One reason is that the Special Maritime license held by zhenbaofang will expire in June and will not be able to stop after June.
However, some media questioned that zhenbaofang’s license is easy to renew, and the cost of stopping for one month is only HK $70000, which is not too high.
Under the cloud of doubt, zhenbaofang still chose to travel far away. The group said that the destination of the trip was a place in Southeast Asia, and it could not disclose the destination because it did not want the maintenance and normal business to be affected.
On May 31, before departure, the kitchen boat of zhenbaofang had an accident and capsized. It was like an ominous omen.
On the morning of June 14, it rained in Hong Kong, and many citizens braved the rain to see off the treasure boat. Watching, two tugboats pulled the treasure boat and disappeared into the vast ocean.
In the live news room, someone left a sentence, “all the feasts in the world have come to an end. Take care.”
Hechaoyi, the youngest daughter of the gambling king, did not dare to see her off at the scene. She said on INS, “goodbye, treasure, my childhood memories. I hope to see you again.”
Zhenbaofang was born on the sea and began its first voyage 46 years later. Those legendary past events, too late to aftertaste, will follow it as far as the sea.
On June 18, the Hong Kong Observatory announced that there were showers and thunderstorms in some areas south of Hong Kong. The sea has moderate to heavy waves. The treasure boat sank in the big waves.
When the news came back to Hong Kong, Hong Kong’s heart was broken. It was not a news of great sorrow, but on reflection, it was always disappointed.
God of food director Li Lizhi said: full of experience, very regrettable, forever goodbye, only memories.
Its scenery ended in the waves, along with those days of free travel and drinking before the outbreak, and the era of Hong Kong flavor. There are no tombstones on the sea, so there is no way to sacrifice.
On social media, some people regretted that they had not taken photos before the outbreak, and some Hong Kong people left messages of relief. When the outbreak dispersed, a new ship would arrive and everything would restart.
It has been raining in Hong Kong these days. In the Aberdeen South typhoon shelter, there is still a Taibai Seafood Restaurant berthing alone.
Everyone is waiting for the rain to stop.