Evergreen Plastic & Industrial Co (異奇塑膠實業)
York Lo: Evergreen Plastic & Industrial Co (異奇塑膠實業)
Left: Booth of Evergreen Plastics at the 29th HK Products Expo in 1971 featuring its dolls (Source: HK Memory); Right: a vintage made in Hong Kong doll by Evergreen (Source: eBay)
Founded in 1954, Evergreen Plastic &Industrial Co was one of the leading plastic toy manufacturers in the 1950s through 1970s.
The founder and chairman of Evergreen was Wong Shiu-kau (王肇球), who was born in 1921. A creative man, Wong intentionally named his firm “Evergreen” in English and 異奇 (which means “different and special”) in Chinese to highlight the uniqueness of his products. He came up with many new products and by the time it exhibited at the 1955 HK Products Expo, little more than a year after the firm’s inception in September 1954, Evergreen was producing over 40 different products which were exported to Southeast Asia and Europe in addition to being sold locally. Three innovative products developed by Evergreen highlighted at the 1955 HK Products Expo were a plastic makeup set for ladies, a “Evergreen” plastic cup featuring a detachable handle and lid, and a special adjustable plastic calendar. Over time, Evergreen shifted its focus to toys and was best known for its plastic dolls.
The original factory of Evergreen was located at 2606 Kun Tong Road in Ngau Tau Kok but the government earmarked the area it was located in for re-development and in October 1963, Evergreen and 22 other factories were demolished, causing quite a bit of chaos in the process and Evergreen ultimately relocated to 43 Hung To Road in Kwun Tong.
In June 1977, Wong Shiu-kau died in HK at the age of 56 and was survived by his wife, a son who was an engineer in Minnesota, two daughters, three older brothers, three younger brothers and one sister. As a firm, Evergreen Plastic Industrial was incorporated in 1964 and dissolved in 1982, 5 years after Wong’s death.
Picture of the original Evergreen factory in Ngau Tau Kok (top) and the chaos of its demolition (bottom) in 1963 (WKYP, 1963-10-31)
Sources (other than those quoted above):
Kung Sheung Daily News, 1977-6-14
Ta Kung Pao, 1955-12-16
This article was first posted on 7th January 2018.
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