XC 15, Shanghai Street, Kowloon.

gw
oldernewer
XC 15, Shanghai Street, Kowloon.

Don't recognise any "place" in this photo and can't date it accurately.

Please see https://gwulo.com/node/62741 for full details.

Date picture taken
unknown
Tags
commercial slide
Hong Kong Color Slide Service
Shows place(s)
Shanghai Street [????- ]

Comments

All these slides came back horizontally flipped when they were scanned! I've since put them back the correct way, but this one automatically flips back again when uploaded. Tried again, but same problem. Working on it. Thanks again.

Hi There,

After flipping the photo and blowing it up, I spotted the following business signs and quite a few others:

永昌金舖 (Wing Cheong Gold Merchant)

興記涼茶蔗汁 (Hing Kee Herbal Tea Sugar Cane Juice)

雲來大荼樓 (Wan Loi Restantant).  Coloured blue, right in the middle of the photo, behind the scaffoldings.

Wan Loi was at the Junction of Shanghai Street & Soy Street till 1982, thus confirmed it was Shanghai Street.

T

 

Some findings after a quick search in the directories of the Hong Kong Year Books published by Wah Kiu Yat Po:

Kam Yuen Hong (金源行): The hardware store on bottom right, located at 468 Shanghai Street, has been listed in directories since the 1st issue in 1948. It was moved to 441-443 Reclamation Street in 1965 and has been in business ever since.

Wing Cheong Gold Merchant: Located at 473 Shanghai Street, it was listed from 1948 to 1971.

Kee Wah Bakery (奇華餅家): Located at 480 Shanghai Street (marked by the vertical red sign on the right). It was the bakery's first branch and was listed from 1948 to 1970.

Wan Loy Teahouse was closed in 1992. The opening scenes for John Woo's movie "Hard Boiled" (辣手神探), which was released that same year, were shot there shortly before its was demolished.

 

Btw, the red lorries featured a cab design similar to the Austin LD van (also sold as Morris LD) that was first launched in 1954. That design was commonly used for Hong Kong ambulances in the 1960s.

Talking about the Yun Lai Tea House (雲來大茶樓) right in the middle of the photo and behind the scaffoldings, the signboard was still displaying the original name (雲來大茶室). I have asked Gemini to find out when it was upgraded and renamed. I have also asked whether there was an official English name for the tea house. Both answers are listed below: 

Answer to Question 1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Based on historical photographs and local recollections from old Hong Kong community archives, the exact year of the official renaming is not recorded, but the transition occurred between the mid-1960s and the 1970s.

Here are the details surrounding its upgrade:
  • The 1961 Visual Evidence: In historical street photography of Mong Kok's Shanghai Street taken in 1961, the establishment's prominent exterior sign still clearly read Yun Lai Tea Room (雲來大茶室).
  • The 1970s Transition: By the 1970s, as the business expanded to occupy multiple floors of the building—eventually expanding its operational scale—the signage was formally updated to Yun Lai Tea House (雲來大茶樓). Local residents who frequented or moved into the Mong Kok area in the late 1967–1970s remember it evolving into the larger "Tea House" format around this period.
Historically in Hong Kong, a "Tea Room" (茶室) was often a smaller, more modest neighborhood spot, whereas upgrading to a "Tea House" (茶樓) signified a grander, multi-story establishment capable of hosting larger crowds and offering a wider selection of traditional dim sum.

Answer to Question 2 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
No, there was never an official English name registered for the establishment.
Like many grassroots, traditional Chinese eateries operating in Hong Kong prior to the 1990s, the venue functioned exclusively under its Chinese characters. Any English identifiers used historically were merely phonetic transliterations rather than a formally branded corporate English name.
The naming conventions typically follow these patterns:
  • The Local Transliteration: In official documents (like government lease records or old business registries), it was phonetically Romanized using the standard Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanization system. Under this system, it would appear as Wan Loi Tea House or Wan Loi Tai Chaa Lau.
  • The Cinematic Alias: Because it was immortalized globally in John Woo's 1992 action masterpiece Hard Boiled (《辣手神探》), international film critics, historians, and tourists overwhelmingly refer to it using the Mandarin Pinyin transliteration—Yun Lai Tea House—because Western prints of the film utilized Pinyin or basic Mandarin transliterations for the subtitles.
To English-speaking locals and expatriates living in Hong Kong during the 1970s and 1980s, it was simply known descriptively by its location, often referred to informally as "that old tea house on Shanghai Street" or "the bird tea house in Mong Kok."