Taipan Bakery, Inventor of Snowy Mooncakes Suddenly Shutters

Taipan Bread and Cakes invented snowy mooncakes in 1989

Taipan Bread and Cakes, most notable for inventing snowy mooncakes, has shuttered after 41 years in business.  

On its website 12 shops were listed across Hong Kong. 

12 shops shuttered, and 80 people are jobless

"Due to many unpredictable and irresistible shocks recently, our company regretfully announces that it will officially cease operations from [Tuesday]," a notice said on several chain branches.

"Thank you for your support and love for our company over the years. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may cause."

The sudden closure caught customers with memberships off guard, as some had coupons and could not use them.

"How could you have known? They all closed suddenly. Now, my coupons are nothing but out-of-print souvenirs," said a 68-year-old woman surnamed Lee, who had a Taipan membership.

Days before Taipan shuttered, the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions said on Facebook that the bakery owed salaries to its 80 staff, while landlords had taken the company to court for unpaid rent.  

The brand created chilled mochi mooncakes

The bakery was started by Kwok Hung-kwan in 1984 and became famous when it introduced snowy mooncakes, which were chilled, not baked, and covered with a mochi-like skin with various sweet fillings, like mango, red bean, and durian. At its peak, Taipan had 27 shops in Hong Kong.

Mainland Chinese media reported the son's owner supported the 2019 protests, which led to Taipan removing the snowy mooncakes from its stores across the border ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The brand was sold two years later to Vast Luck Group that was described by Wen Wei Po as "a Hong Kong brand that loves Hong Kong and the country." 

Unfortunately Hong Kong didn't love Taipan enough to keep it going...

High-Speed Rail Brings Tourists to Hong Kong

High-speed rail has led to a high volume of mainland tourists

A record 17 million passengers have used the cross-border high-speed railway this year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. 

The vast majority of the trips were between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, taken during the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays. 

But many of these tourists don't stay overnight

Since March, mainland tourists have accounted for more than half the high-speed rail passengers, surpassing 2019 levels since July.

Fanny Yeung Shuk-fan, executive director of the Travel Industry Council said the high-speed rail had made cross-border travel much more convenient and efficient, but that meant fewer tourists staying overnight in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile the Hong Kong Tourism Board reports 23 million people visited the city for the first nine months of the year, though 11.4 million of them were same-day tourists, of which 85.4 percent were from the mainland.

So while shops and restaurants may be benefitting, hotels are not...

Picture of the Day: Mid-Autumn Moon

The full moon peeking through the trees

Happy Mid Autumn! 中秋節快樂!

It really is a sign of fall when the Mid-Autumn Festival comes around. In Vancouver the leaves on some of the trees have begun changing colour to yellow, orange or red, and chestnut trees have released their prickly green round cases that break open and reveal the dark brown hard seed on the ground.

Tonight the moon is particularly full and after dinner around 8.30pm we snapped a picture of it as it began to rise in the sky.

After that we ate some slices of mooncakes. We got boxes of mooncakes this year from The Boss Bakery & Restaurant in Chinatown, where they make traditional ones with two salted egg yolks that are pretty darn good.

We also scored the famous Peninsula Hotel's egg custard mooncakes. They are not as heavy, and have a slight coconut taste.

My favourite is still the ones from the Kowloon Shangri-La, with red bean paste mixed with 25-year-old mandarin peel. The combination is so well balanced!

Chinatown Festival Ends with Stabbings

The stabbings occurred near this stage at Keefer and Columbia

"Light Up Chinatown" was meant to be an open invitation for people to come to the neighbourhood and patronise the shops and restaurants in the run up to the Mid-Autumn Festival at the end of this month.

However, just as the two-day event was wrapping up, before 6pm, a 64-year-old man suddenly stabbed three people near the stage at the intersection of Keefer and Columbia streets.

The victims, a couple in their 60s and a young woman in her 20s were given immediate care and sent to hospital, while the police -- who were providing security for the event -- interviewed witnesses for a description of the assailant and soon after arrested the man, Blair Evan Donnelly nearby in the Downtown Eastside.

Police arrested the attacker, no known motive

It turns out he was on a day pass from a local psychiatric facility. In 2006 he had killed his 16-year-old daughter in Kitimat. He was charged with second-degree murder, but was found not guilty in January 2008 because of a mental disorder and was sent to Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam.

Yesterday he was charged with three counts of aggravated assault.

It was shocking to hear the news and that the perpetrator has a mental illness. 

Carol Lee, the chair of the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation was around 20 feet away from where the attacks happened and was devastated by the horrific incident.

"I think if you were close by, it's a traumatic thing to see somebody at a community event, just an innocent bystander, getting stabbed," she said.

Lee broke down during the press conference, describing the attacks as feeling "very personal. We've worked very hard to put this festival and the community together to celebrate all the progress that we have made."

Lee in tears during press conference

Revitalising and making Chinatown safe has been a priority for Mayor Ken Sim, who said in a press release that the "senseless violence is heartbreaking."

"We will not allow this senseless act of violence to disrupt celebrations of all that makes our city great, and we will work each and every day to ensure Vancouver is a place where people can live, work, and thrive in a safe environment."

To that end it was a surprise to see a lot of police officers in Chinatown today. At lunchtime, four of them patronised the same cha chaan teng as us, with two police cars parked in front. Afterwards we saw two cops patrolling the streets.

It was reassuring to see them around to give a sense of security... though they need to be around more often to really give people peace of mind and feel safe in the area.

Picture of the Day: Expensive Mooncakes

Mid-Autumn Festival is fast approaching on September 10, and Asian supermarkets are selling mooncakes now.

The ones I saw at H-Mart are starting from CAD$64 for traditional lotus seed paste with salted duck yolks, to CAD$84 for ones with mixed nuts.

However probably the most luxe ones are The Peninsula Hong Kong's which have finally made their way across the Pacific.

But you have to pay the luxe prices for it if you're dying for those famous egg custard mooncakes with a western pastry.

At Holt Renfrew, the Barney's of Canada, they cost CAD$118 to $180, but now I see at T&T Supermarket they're starting at CAD$99...

In Hong Kong at the Peninsula Boutique, the eight-piece mooncake box is HK$448 (CAD$74).

Shipping, inflation... highway robbery... any other reasons?

It will be very interesting to see if they sell out with mainland Chinese residents snapping them up -- or not.