NARRATOR:
This is a neon sign for Sammy's Kitchen, designed by the restaurant’s owner Sammy Yip and produced around 1978 by Fu Wah Neon Engineering Company. The sign measures approximately 3.6 metres high, 4.5 metres wide, and 40 centimetres deep. Its materials include exhausted glass tubes, neon gas, argon gas, zinc, steel, and paint.
This extremely large cow-shaped neon sign was originally hung at a right-angle outside the restaurant. It was overhanging Hong Kong’s Queen’s Road West so that it could be seen from a distance. The sign shows a side view of an angus cow on both sides and is coated with a dark brown paint. Some of the paint has cracked, curled, or even flaked off, revealing the original silvery colour of the metal sign. The contour of the cow is clearly visible with thin white neon light outlining the cow’s body, limbs, and facial features.
The words ‘Sammy’s Kitchen LTD.’ are centred inside the body of the cow. The letters are green in colour and traced by neon light. The words are lined up in two rows and occupy two thirds of the cow’s body. Under these words are four Chinese characters in reddish orange with neon light overlaying on top, showing the Chinese name of the restaurant.
The cow's eye and eyeball are outlined in neon light. The nose is represented by an upward crescent-like shape, formed by two curved lines of neon light. One line stacks on top of the other, and they’re about a hand's breadth apart. Another line follows, outlining the cow’s jawline.
