Situated on the bank of the Shing Mun River in a wooded area of Sha Tin in the New Territories of Hong Kong, the Heritage Museum may well be Hong Kong's best - certainly the best situated. It's modern (opened in the year 2000) with 12 exhibition galleries covering the history, culture and arts of early Hong Kong and south China.
Unfortunately, photography was not permitted in the main hall. The range of wedding exhibits from the emperors and empresses of the Qing period (1644-1912) was truly impressive; imperial robes, tapestries, pictures, calligraphy, furniture, utensils, jewellery, clothing, hairpieces, saddles, object d'art, silk, precious stones, bowls, armour...etc.
The illustrations of the bridal processions certainly suggested the richness of an imperial wedding with hundreds of retainers, gifts galore, specially-prepared artifacts, jewels, silver and gilt galore, extensive rituals and a complex hierarchical system.
Photographs were permitted in the second hall which displayed local wedding customs over the last 100 years or so.
What bride wouldn't enjoy being carried to her husband-to-be in this bridal sedan, a special chair that was used in the New Territories of Hong Kong by the Hakka people about 100 years ago?
And even the 'recent' wedding gowns of 50-70 years ago with their colourful silk, their gold and silver thread embroidery, would surely turn any woman into an empress...
In complete contrast, we also visited the museum's exhibition on the life of Hong Kong's most famous son, Bruce Lee.
There were about 600 pieces of memorabilia on display in several large rooms. There were photographs from every period of his life, his parents, his school records, his clothing - including flared trousers from the 1960s, gymnastic equipment, books, film scripts and notes, letters to his wife and friends, his parents' US immigration forms, kung fu weapons, items from his films...everything you could think of.
We also attended (in a theatre with 200 incredibly comfortable seats) a film on his life, featuring interviews with his sibling, spouse, daughter, acting colleagues, film producer and director. It was very moving, rarely have I enjoyed 'talking heads' so much, the 60 minutes flew past.
There was one poignant exhibit that struck me. Here was a man who had honed his body into a killing machine, with lightning-fast reflexes and a punch that would destroy opponents, blasting them several yards away...yet he had very poor eyesight.
On the way back to the MTR station we visited Che Kung Temple, a Daoist temple that honours General Che Kung of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279).
Apparently he made a great reputation for himself by suppressing uprisings and plagues, so much so that he was deified in the popular imagination. The belief is that his miraculous powers live on. The story goes that 300 years ago there was a nasty epidemic spreading across Sha Tin so the desperate locals prayed to Che Kung and built a temple to him. On the very day that they completed it, the epidemic began to subside...
There is a huge statue of General Che Kung in the temple (you can see its scale when you compare it to the humans in the picture below):
This temple is one of two favoured by local senior politicians every Chinese New Year, CNY; the other is Wong Tai Sin Temple. It's traditional for them to come here to pray, bang the drum three times, twirl the fan-bladed wheel of fortune three times and then consult the fortune telling sticks. In fact there is a huge queue to enter the temple on the second day of CNY.
Today, even through it was rather late in the day, there was a steady stream of supplicants at the two side altars.
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