You might have trouble finding a traditional human-powered rickshaw in Hong Kong, but it seems this is not the case in a remote burgh of Scotland, UK. We were rather charmed today when we came across a story in the Deeside Piper about how a former Hong Kong resident was offering rides on his genuine Hong Kong rickshaw as part of a local festival.
Duncan MacRae, a retired naval architect, withdrew his rickshaw from its home in the Grampian Transport Museum especially for the Ballater Victoria Week, a local charity drive first started in 1987 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s accession to the thrown.
As part of the celebrations, residents have been offered rides around the Church Square for just GBP2 (HKD26), with the option of stopping outside the local Chinese takeaway for pictures. Quaint just isn’t the word!
No doubt largely ignorant to the history of this exotic mode of transport, Ballater residents are given a brief timeline by the Deeside Piper. The reporter explains that rickshaws first appeared in Hong Kong soon after their Japanese invention, and reached their peak in the mid-1920s when more than 3,000 were in use in the territory, shipping around everyone from wealthy families to prostitutes.
When Mr MacRae got his in 1975, it was one of only 100 left in the country and one of the last to be issued with a road licence.
MacRae said: “There were less than 20 left when I last visited Hong Kong in the early 1990s. By 1997 they were truly an endangered species, just eight rickshaws remaining, all parked at the Star Ferry Terminal on either side of the Fragrant Harbour.”
Photo: Deeside Piper
