The Mills

This guide to The Mills in Hong Kong follows textile merchant Chen Din-hwa, who fled Shanghai in 1949 and founded his cotton-spinning company Nan Fung on reclaimed land in Tsuen Wan. It traces Hong Kong's booming garment industry through the 1970s, when nearly half a million people worked the mills, most of them migrants from Guangdong province, and the industry's swift collapse once mainland China opened its border to foreign investment. Look for the original signage and the mills' signature green paint as you walk the grounds.