By Ellen Hill for Escarpment Group Photos: David Hill
Celebrate the rich prospects of 2016 on the eve of the Chinese lunar New Year when the most fabulously famous hotel in Australia celebrates its Asian heritage with a special Shanghai Nights event on Saturday, February 6.
The event will be part of Roaring 20s Festival events to be held at the Hydro Majestic Hotel, to celebrate the 1920s era when Australia’s first tourist destination kicked up its heels for a decade-long party.
Escarpment Group general manager Ralf Bruegger said: “The Hydro Majestic has been blessed with a long connection with Asia.
Many Chinese workers such as Louie Goh Mong, nicknamed `Charlie’, worked at the Hydro Majestic Hotel during the Mark Foy era.
“Around the turn of the 20th century, the hotel became the good fortune of Chinese workers disillusioned with the Bathurst goldfields and stranded in the Blue Mountains with no money to return to Sydney.
“Mark Foy, the great Sydney retailer who built the Hydro Majestic Hotel, was fascinated with all things Asian and happily employed many Chinese workers such as Louie Goh Mong, nicknamed `Charlie’, who worked as a cook at Foy’s Sydney home and managing the mayhem at the Hydro Majestic for thirty-five years.’’
The Shanghai Nights event will wrap up Roaring 20s Festival events at the Hydro Majestic, which will kick off with a Gangster Casino Night on Friday, February 5, and also include on Saturday, February 6, the Hydro Charleston Challenge world record attempt for the largest number of costumed people to dance the Charleston and the Majestic Long Lunch featuring local and regional food and wine.
Shanghai Nights will include an evening of exotic cocktails and canapes, lights, lanterns and jazz music to celebrate on the eve of the Chinese lunar New Year.
“This will be a very beautiful event which reminds people of the romance of the 1920s and the elegance of the Hydro Majestic rather than just the flappers and gangsters,’’ Mr Bruegger said.
“We will recreate the softness of the lighting, the reds and greens and golden colours, the feathers and fabrics, the sophisticated lines of the architecture. Guests will feel like they have slipped into a fantastic dream.’’
Guests are encouraged to dress in 1920s-style Asian fashion to help create an authentic atmosphere of old Shanghai.
For women, that could include kimono-style coats and robes or cheongsams and richly embroidered fabrics accessorised with carved bone, ivory and mother-of-pearl jewellery and high heeled shoes.
Men could wear a western-style three-piece business suit which became popular in China during the 1920s or the tradition Chang Pao and Ma Gua long shirts over traditional drawstring “lantern pants’’ and finished with a top hat.
The Roaring 20s Festival celebrates the sumptuous architecture, saucy clothing, outrageous dancing and jazz music of the hedonistic heyday of Australia’s first tourist destination, the Blue Mountains. The festival will continue throughout February at other venues around the area.
Go to hydromajestic.com.au to book for Shanghai Nights ($150 per person), the Gangster Casino Night, the Majestic Long Lunch, to register for the Hydro Charleston Challenge and for more event, accommodation and dining option information and bookings.
* Escarpment Group is a commercial client of Deep Hill Media and Headline Publicity
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