Thomas Sposato has sent a link to a website which shows photos of American Marine boatyard shortly after Typhoon Wanda made landfall in Hong Kong on 1st September 1962. Wanda was the most intense tropical cyclone on record in hong Kong and caused 434 deaths and left 72,000 people homeless. Over 2,000 boats were either wrecked or damaged in the colony. All Photographs courtesy […]
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Rickshaw in Chinese is shau che (literally translated as hand vehicle) or wong bau che (literally meaning yellow hire vehicle). Rickshaws were introduced from Japan in 1880 and were thus named dung yeung che (literally translated as Eastern Ocean Vehicle). The gung che (public rickshaw) or gaai che (street rickshaw) was a passenger rickshaw, and the si ga che (private […]
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Andrew Cattrell: Why was Lamma Island chosen for the location of HK Electric’s last-built power station? During the 1970’s Hong Kong went through a boom of rapid growth and it quickly became apparent that more power would be needed in order to sustain the extra demand and development of the City. The Ap Lei Chau power station would need to […]
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HF: Harry Kin Hong Long divided his life between New Zealand and Hong Kong. In the latter he worked for two companies, Kung Lee Steam Ship Co. and HK and Yaumati Ferry Co. Harry’ s daughter, Judy Chan, has kindly sent a considerable amount of biographical detail about him. In this article I have extracted that which relates directly to […]
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Linda Kernan: The history of the soybean and its byproducts stretches back more than 3,000 years in China. The humble soybean was known as the “Cow of China” because it was the main source of protein for the Chinese people. It took a local man, however, to spot the potential of the little bean and transform it into the most […]
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IDJ has sent the following newspaper articles regarding the proposal to extend the Peak Tram down to Queen’s Road. If you are not familiar with the location of the Peak Tram you may not be aware that the bottom “station” of the line is situated a couple of hundred yards up a hill and is therefore somewhat inconvenient to reach. […]
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HF: Our recent article Godown – meaning and origin of the term, linked below, had me tracking down photographs of godowns in Hong Kong, which I show below. If anyone comes across the many I have probably missed please send them in and I will add them to the collection. This article was first posted on 28th March 2022. Related […]
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Our recently posted article, Lt. Col. M.H. Logan connected to KCR, Logan and Amps, Palmer & Turner…, mentioned the company Palmer & Turner and I thought it might be of interest to learn more about the firm, now known as P&T Group. The following timeline comes from the company’s website. P&T Group The origins of P&T Group date back to […]
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Woh Chai Shan (Chinese: 窩仔山), a.k.a. Shek Kip Mei Hill (石硤尾山), Mission Hill or Bishop Hill (主教山), is a hill in Shek Kip Mei, New Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is approximately 86 metres (282 feet) tall. The hill is zoned as open space under Hong Kong’s town planning system. It is mostly undeveloped and is used by some local residents for recreation and leisure. The Kwun Tong line of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) runs beneath […]
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HF: Vol. 34 of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch published in 1994 contains a lengthy article about German speakers in Hong Kong and of the companies they were involved in. It was written by Carl Smith. I am familiar with only a small number of these companies and even fewer of those persons working for […]
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