NARRATOR:
Neon sign for Kai Kee Mahjong parlour, Kwun Tong branch was produced by Universal Neon Lights Company in 1976. The medium includes exhausted glass tubes, neon gas, tin, steel, and paint. The neon sign measures 127 centimetres high, 559 centimetres wide, and 51 centimetres deep.
The neon sign is a huge horizontal metal base plate with Chinese text. On the top of the base plate is a rooster sign, which looks as if a rooster is standing on the horizontal sign. This single-sided sign was mounted on the Kwun Tong branch of the mahjong parlour overhanging the pavement and road so that it could be seen from a distance.
The metal base plate is pale blue in colour and has a frame of pastel green. The huge base plate is made of smaller plates pieced together, and rust stains can be seen along the joints. On the pastel green frame are mounted thin glass tubes filled with neon gas. Craftsmen heated these tubes to make them malleable then bent them by hand. When the sign is illuminated, the neon tubes glow in a reddish orange colour.
On the base plate is the six-character Chinese name of Kai Kee Mahjong parlour. 'Kai' means chicken in Cantonese. The characters are die cut from white sheet metal and are read from right to left. On the sheet metal are mounted neon tubes that are bent to outline the characters. When lit, the yellowish-orange light is reflected by the white sheet metal and looks as if it’s filling the inside of each character with colour, which makes the strokes appear bolder.
Above the base plate, at the centre, is a rooster sign that’s also die-cut from sheet metal. The full-length profile of the rooster is painted in pale red, pale blue, and black. The rooster’s beak points to the right, looking brisk and vigorous with his chest puffed out and his tail raised. His size is one-and-a-half times that of the character ‘Kai’ on the sign. The rooster’s head, crest, and cheek are painted in red; the body is in brownish-red with touches of black; the raised tail is in pale blue with touches of green; and the feet are yellow. The rooster is also mounted with neon tubes that outline his shape. When lit, the outline glows in reddish orange; the wings glow in green; the tail and the claws glow in yellowish orange.
The neon sign is single-sided, with no neon tubes on the reverse of the sign.
