The neon signs that once illuminated Hong Kong have mostly gone dark. The lights were once synonymous with the city, but in recent years, the government has tightened regulations over safety concerns about unwieldy signs, and many have been removed.
But inside a workspace in the Wong Chuk Hang neighborhood, neon lights are shining bright.
Jive Lau founded the Kowloneon studio in 2021, with the hopes of preserving the craft of neon making.
He had long been interested in neon when, in 2019, he took a week off from his job as a graphic designer to fly to Taiwan for a neon-making course. When Lau, now 42, was laid off during the Covid-19 pandemic, he took it as a sign to devote himself to neon full-time. Now he’s achieving commercial success with his designs — including an elaborate neon popup shop façade for the US fashion brand Coach, a sign for a Louis Vuitton event, and light installations for the Hong Kong Ballet.
Through his work, Lau hopes he can help reverse neon’s decline in the city. “Neon is not replaceable,” he tells CNN from his workshop, illuminated by a neon cow shaking maracas mounted on the wall behind him. “It’s magical.”
Fading lights
Neon signs were first introduced in Hong Kong in the 1920s. As the city’s economy flourished from the 1950s to the 1980s, neon did also, according to Brian Kwok, an associate professor of design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and author of “Fading Neon Lights, an Archive of Hong Kong’s Visual Culture.”
The lights were once used to advertise everything from tailor shops and bars to seafood restaurants, but in recent decades, the neon industry has been in decline.
In 2011, the city’s Buildings Department found there were about 120,000 signboards in the city, including neon, many of them unauthorized. Stricter regulation has led to the removal of many signs, like a well-known neon cow measuring three meters (10 feet) hanging above Sammy’s Kitchen, a steakhouse, which was taken down in 2015 after being deemed an illegal structure.
