Jimu news reporter Chen Qian
Photojournalist Liu Zhongcan
Intern Nong Jinyu
Painting the plates and cups of roosters, the traditional "Ten Elixirs" signboard, into Wei Wenjie's Hong Kong food tea stall, the strong Hong Kong flavor lingering in this small tea restaurant.
As the main Tea Restaurant of Hong Kong flavor, Wei Wenjie chose to be the background wallpaper, not the familiar night view of Victoria Harbour and Causeway Bay, but the Sham Shui Po that witnessed the rise of the "Pearl of the Orient".
"Sham Shui Po is somewhat similar to Hanzheng Street in Wuhan, and these two places embody the fighting spirit of the two cities." On the afternoon of June 29, Wei Wenjie, a Hong Konger who has worked in Wuhan for 12 years and started a business, said in an interview with Jimu News reporter that he should not only bring the taste of Hong Kong to Wuhan, but also bring the fighting spirit of generations of Hong Kong people.
Wei Wenjie
From real estate elites to teahouse owners
Ignition, hot pot, pouring pho, sprinkling seasoning, Wei Wenjie's action in one go, very Hong Kong drama "god eater" style. But in fact, he only started to enter the catering industry almost 5 years ago, and before that, the only time he intersected with the tea restaurant was as a customer.
When Wei Wenjie came to Wuhan in 2010, he was an employee of a Fortune 500 company in Hong Kong and was assigned to Wuhan to take charge of the construction of three residential projects. Just when he was busy, he suddenly had a heart attack, and after the treatment improved, he decided to change careers. After doing business planning in Wuhan for a while, he started his own business and chose the Hong Kong cuisine that he had been familiar with since childhood.
At first, Wei Wenjie made Hong Kong snacks such as egg trotters, and later, with the upgrading of the façade, he transformed the nanny room and garage on the first floor of his home into a small tea restaurant. "The first day was very miserable, no one came in the morning, and by the afternoon, some guests had received six or seven hundred."
Wei Wenjie, who was a chef himself, decided to learn from scratch. "I asked a lot of friends, a char siu, a roast goose, how to do it, learn it by hand." He told reporters with a smile that many dishes were already tired of tasting them by the time he felt he had learned to serve them to customers.
In this way, the noodles, sandwiches, fish eggs, to roasted goose, char siu, dry fried beef river, the familiar taste of childhood, by him the same restoration.
Wei Wenjie in the kitchen
Make Hong Kong-style pastry for anti-epidemic volunteers
During the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, Wei Wenjie stayed in Wuhan. Closed at home, he saw the flour and other raw materials still stored, so he made Hong Kong-style pastries such as egg tarts and pineapple buns. "You can't do anything else at home, so you don't let yourself be too idle." He gave a lot of pastry to the volunteers who were busy in the community.
Wei Wenjie needs to return to Hong Kong once every six months to check his heart and take his medicine. During the lockdown in Wuhan, his medicine was almost finished. With the help of the Economic and Trade Office of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government in Wuhan, he got the medicine sent from Hong Kong in time.
With the "unsealing" of Wuhan, Wei Wenjie also began to look for a new façade. The original restaurant was small, with only 4 tables indoors and two outdoors, which were obviously not very suitable in the middle of summer and winter in Wuhan. Half a year after the unsealing in Wuhan, he found his current storefront on Jinyinhu Road in Dongxihu Lake.
While learning to cook, he once asked an experienced chef how to make a delicious dish. The chef's answer is that in fact, everyone's taste is different, so the research and development is careful, so that customers can reminisce, "think about eating", in fact, it is more important than delicious.
After 5 years of hard work, he has also gained a lot of familiar customers. "Now when I arrive at the shop at noon, I know almost seven of the ten tables of guests." There is also a family of three, almost 5 years will come to the store, ordering most of the most classic "old three": ribs, steamed chicken claws, shrimp dumplings.
I hope more Hong Kong youth will come to Wuhan to see
Many of the furnishings in the tea restaurant are Wei Wenjie's efforts to restore his childhood memories. For example, the plates and cups painted with rooster motifs were the most familiar to him when he was a child. "This kind of cup, which looked dirty at that time, was the cheapest, but now it is more expensive than most tableware when bought online." Although disposable chopsticks replace the bamboo chopsticks and chopstick holders familiar with childhood for hygiene and convenience, many of his childhood memories are still left on the walls. Shi Ling Dan and Ho Chi Kung, the brands of proprietary Chinese medicine he ate when he was a child, are called "Ding Ding" trams by Hong Kong people, which is actually more contemporary than the subway. The night view of Victoria Harbour, which some tea restaurants like to use, was replaced by a large photograph of Nanchang Street in Sham Shui Po, which he also carefully selected.
"Sham Shui Po is equivalent to Hanzheng Street in Wuhan." Wei Wenjie, 52, clearly has a deeper memory of this place. It is this place that has witnessed the transformation of Hong Kong from a small fishing port to the "Pearl of the Orient", and also pinned on the fighting spirit of Hong Kong people. He also hopes that the people of Wuhan can not only feel the prosperity of Hong Kong, but also feel the fighting spirit that has created prosperity.
Wei Wenjie and his wife
After coming to Wuhan for 12 years, Wei Wenjie also felt the changes in the city. When I first arrived, driving from my home in Jiang'an District to the project site in Caidian took more than an hour on the road, and traffic jams were commonplace. Now, with the subway, travel is smoother. "The progress of the city's appearance, the span is very large, the greenery, the road, etc., and the gap with the first-tier cities is getting smaller and smaller." Wei Wenjie said that his restaurant partner is also from Wuhan, straight and atmospheric.
Wei Wenjie's tea restaurant will rest every Monday, so that he can have time to visit the city with his wife and learn new dishes.
He also hopes that more young people in Hong Kong can also come to Wuhan to see more. "Almost 20 years ago, the mainland was proud to study in Hong Kong, but today there are already good channels for young people in Hong Kong to take this step and visit the mainland more." He said that he hopes that today's Hong Kong youth can better inherit the fighting spirit of their parents, "love to fight to win", and Hong Kong's tomorrow will be better.
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