Guling – Kuliang

These are some advertisements from periodicals and the local handbook for members of the Kuliang Association from about 100 years ago.  They tell the story of what people could purchase up on the mountain and what was popular.

General Stores sold fresh meats, groceries, canned food, wine and alcohol from both America and Europe, and if you wanted to order something that was not in the shops on the mountain, you could have it hand carried the next morning from the shop in town.  The shopkeepers were both foreign and Chinese, and all sorts of canned and imported foodstuffs were available.

In 2018, I had the honor of meeting with Len Billing, who was 98 years old at the time.   His father and mother worked at Union High School, and Len spent his childhood summers on the mountain.  Besides playing tennis and swimming, he loved to take photographs, and he took one very precious photo of his favorite store – the Jackson Store, where he went to buy things boys liked to buy, tennis balls, stationary, and where he got his film developed.

There were others, but we don’t have photos of them.

Nestle’s Evaporated milk was a popular food eaten by many on the mountain and used in puddings, served with fruits, and with oatmeal in the morning for breakfast.   Nestle’s chocolates were a popular candy, and no doubt very welcome by children who rarely had sugary things in their diet.

The children’s favorite was “Magic Caramel”. which was made using Sweetened Condensed Milk.  If you would like to try out the recipe you can find it in another post – click here.  This ad is from 1930.

Many of the foreigners on the mountain were educators, and there were bookshops, stationary stores, art supply shops, and printers.  Both Western and Chinese paintings were popular, as were cards and calendars.

Foochow lacquers were so popular that there were two shops on the mountain.

And then there was the Drawnwork Shop.  Do you know what drawnwork is?  The workers would draw bundles of threads from the fabric and tie them together, so a pattern emerges.  Then they would add other touches – embroidery, needlework, or cut places in the fabric into small patterns in the cloth.  There was even a drawnwork shop that came every summer from Swatow (Shantou) to sell their goods to the international community, some of whom were from Swatow, Amoy and other nearby cities.

Kuliang was a bustling place with many shops, a place where you could get many imported goods and supplies, a very cosmopolitan retreat!