Baseball caps became standard wear in post-war Hong Kong, but it wasn’t the Americans’ doing
- Hats in Hong Kong were historically chosen for practical reasons, but fashion took over when the baseball cap was adopted to mimic the post-war Japanese
- Sedan chair bearers wore a woven bamboo hat of a particular pattern to indicate the dialect they spoke; Hakka women’s fringed hats proved a hit with Nepalis
Hats – for both sexes – have enjoyed a variegated history in Hong Kong. Straw hats have always been popular; light and comfortable, they kept their wearer in the shade and didn’t heat the head unduly.
Mainly used as parade dress for certain British Army regiments, and the Hong Kong Police, these were sometimes labelled “coal scuttle” helmets for their scoop-like shape.
Forms of cultural hybridity came into play in the interwar years, when many Chinese men continued to don the male cheongsam as everyday wear, paired with narrow-brimmed felt fedora hats. As a fedora helped keep the head (and thus, the rest of the body) warm, they were more commonplace winter wear in Hong Kong. In north China, where cool conditions prevailed for longer, they were worn year-round.
By the 1960s, in tandem with the widespread decline of the male cheongsam, felt hats also gradually disappeared.
How hats historically helped boys become men in China
Baseball caps became fashionable among young men in the post-war era, with the exponential growth in American popular culture and in particular, the game’s popularity in Japan. Sartorial mimicry came into play; though in this instance, it was less a case of Hong Kong Chinese trying to look like Americans, as Hong Kong Chinese imitating Japanese dressed as Americans.
Whatever the transcultural origins, these caps remain the most commonly worn headgear in contemporary Hong Kong, for both sexes.
Chinese woven bamboo hats helped indicate the wearer’s language or dialect group. Old photographs or newsreel footage of sedan chair depots in urban areas show chair bearers lined up awaiting passengers, often in different patterns of hat. Individual choice played a role, but, as ever, practical considerations were paramount.
Until standard language modelling through mass education and exposure to radio, films and television gradually eliminated differences, Cantonese had significant regional variation, and could be almost incomprehensible between those from different areas.
Ethnic marker headgear has crossed ethnic boundaries; flat, woven bamboo, crownless Hakka farmer’s hats, with a black cloth fringe around the brim, were once worn exclusively by agricultural workers in the New Territories.
In mid-1930s Japan (and Thailand), ultra-right wing governments mandated “civilised” dress codes; hats for women when wearing “Western” dress were among them. In China, the Nationalist government’s New Life Movement attempted the same, but with limited success. Ultimately, the idea was to keep insidious – and possibly corrosive – aspects of foreign popular culture under control; dance bands were also a target of suppression.
Like many similar campaigns against “foreign influence”, ultimately these drives were responses of insecure, increasingly paranoid governments whose leaders thought that as far as Westernisation was concerned, they could have modernity’s omelette and keep their own cultural eggs intact; no political power has yet managed to achieve that feat indefinitely, whatever strongman was in charge.