Portal:Hong Kong/Selected article/2008/February

A Mister Softee Ice-cream truck parked at the Star Ferry pier, Central. The trucks at the Central and Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry piers are more or less stationed.

Mister Softee is a United States Ice-cream franchise that is also popular in Hong Kong. Locally owned by the Ng Enterprises Ltd., it consists of a number of ice cream trucks. As the Hong Kong Government has stopped the issue of new hawking licenses since 1978, and the existing licenses cannot be transferred to other vehicles, the old trucks are still running on the roads of Hong Kong. Each van, as required by the law, comprises a soft ice cream making machine, a basin, and two refrigerators.

The red-white-blue outlook of the trucks, and the Blue Danube played by them, are part of the collective memory of many Hong Kongers. The first truck, which had been imported from England, began to operate in 1970. Today the company has 14 ice cream vans running on Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories. The headquarters of the company is located in Fo Tan.