The beauty of handmade products is all about their uniqueness as well as the enormous effort embodied inside. The manufactured product seems a fool when comparing to them. In order to let our students learn more about the effort behind traditional handicrafts, the college collaborated with student hostel resident associations to organise two workshops on 17 and 24 April 2021. It created an art journey for students to have a taste on the production of traditional Chinese mahjong hand-carved tiles and enjoy the fun to colour the hand-carved mahjong tiles. It was a relaxing time for students to escape from the tension of examinations.

The workshop was demonstrated by an artisan mahjong craftsman Ricky Cheung with over 40-year experiences of making mahjong. Master Cheung’s father ran a mahjong making factory and this created an environment for him to acquire the mahjong craving skills when he was young. He then succeeded the factory but the whole industry began to die-off because of the rise of a substitute – machine making tiles. Master Chueng faded out in making tiles until her daughter Karen wanted to use a new presentation to promote this traditional craftmanship. Karen draws illustration, and Master Cheung craved them onto a tile using his proficient craving technique. They created a new form of mahjong craftmanship. Each tile is an art piece with personal character and has its own story behind. Traditional Mahjong tile has reformed to an artistic piece.