Fine cabinetmakers turn out highly polished teak and rosewood chests trimmed with brass and lined with silk. Each one is a masterpiece of workmanship, but there’s one catch—if the wood has not been carefully kiln-dried, the chest may split when it is shipped home. This is a point on which a customer will want to quiz the dealer, then decide whether his answers are satisfactory. Carved and lacquered screens can be an artistic delight, but don’t forget to include the shipping costs when figuring their price. Carved and full-rigged Chinese junks are sold in a wide range of sizes. The shopper can forget about the give-no-quarter type of bargaining when he enters one of the stores operated by Hong Kong welfare organizations for the benefit of physically handicapped refugees. These are strictly nonprofit operations, with all but basic overhead costs being turned over to the needy people who make the handicrafts. The quality of their products is high and their prices are reasonable. Two of these shops are the Welfare Handicrafts on Salisbury Road, opposite the Kowloon Post Office, and The Rice Bowl, on Minden Row. To find The Rice Bowl, turn east off Nathan Road at Mody Road; Minden Row is the first street south off Mody. Both stores have Comprehensive Certificates of Origin. The Tsim Sha Shui section of Kowloon is developing so rapidly that it will probably have a dozen shopping arcades by the end of 1963. The Central District of Hong Kong Island is also planning new arcades. Tourists may wind up a day’s shopping by attending one of the 72 movie theaters in the colony. Of these, 16 show English-language films and 13 are first-run houses. Foreign films reach Hong Kong as soon as they appear in the world market. In Kowloon, Nathan Road is the main movie avenue; in Hong Kong, they are spotted along the principal streets from Kennedy Town to Shau Kei Wan. All seats are reserved, and selected from a seating-chart at the box office; daily show-times are carried in the local press. Chinese films have a big following, but many colony Chinese prefer American movies with plenty of action and spectacle. English films strike them as stodgy and slow, European art films bore them, and sexy importations from Italy and France offend their sensibilities. English-language films usually carry Chinese subtitles which look like embroidery to Western viewers. If it’s night clubs the tourist is looking for, there’s nothing to get wildly excited about. Floor shows run to jugglers, acrobats and pony chorus lines, with an occasional comedian as a star attraction. Vaudeville isn’t dead; it simply shuffled off to Hong Kong. Prices are steeper than the entertainment warrants. Most of the musicians are Filipinos; individually able, but their band arrangements follow the blast-off traditions of American stage bands in the 1930s.