Dying art: Hong Kong bamboo master, 93, steams ahead to keep alive intricate decades-old craft that drives city’s dim sum love affair
- Nonagenarian Lui Ming works hard to produce the complex bamboo homeware products that city diners could not do without
- At 93, Lui is still striving for perfection in a business that gets tougher each year due to modern production methods and rising labour costs
Lui Ming has worked with bamboo since his early teens. Now aged 93, he still uses the natural material and his focus today is on handcrafting steamers used in Cantonese cuisine.
As to how many of the ubiquitous dim sum bamboo containers he has created?
“The number is endless, there must be more than 10,000,” he told the Post.
Born in Heshan, a Chinese city in the southeastern province of Guangdong, Lui entered the world of bamboo by teaching himself how to craft strips of the material used to make household items such as cages and baskets.
He established his brand after moving to Hong Kong in the 1970s and began supplying steamers to local restaurants.
Today he still operates the Ming Sang Steel Bamboo Receptacle in the Yau Ma Tei district of the city’s Kowloon peninsula.
