York Lo: Notable Players in the history of the HK Glass & Mirror Industry The glass and mirror industry in Hong Kong has a long history tracing back to the 19th century but unlike its products, there is little transparency into the history of the industry and its key players as most of them were and remain very low key. […]
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York Lo: SMC, DEMC and TAT – Pioneers of the Hong Kong Electric Fan Industry Entrepreneurs from Hong Kong have long played an important role in the electric fan industry globally. The property and investments billionaire Joseph Lau made his first fortune selling ceiling fans to the US and the Middle East with his Union Ngok Kee and Evergo in the […]
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York Lo: Joe Law (1922-2015) – HK Plastic and Toy Industry Pioneer Ignatius Joseph Law Cho-Yiu (羅祖耀, 1922-2015), aka Joe Law, was one of the founding fathers of the plastic and toy industry in Hong Kong. His involvement in plastic spanned six decades in products ranging from plastic flowers and toys to Christmas novelties and L.E.D. lighting. Along the way, Law […]
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York Lo: Shanghainese Builders in HK (Part Six) – Ahong and Chinney Ahong and Chinney are two Shanghainese builders in Hong Kong who trace their roots back to pre-War Shanghai and are controlled by two families which share the same last name – Wong. Ahong followed the interesting path of moving first from Shanghai to British Malaya in the 1930s […]
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York Lo: Eternal Fortune and Fame – The 140 Year old Saga of Chinese Winemaker Wing Lee Wai (永利威) With an auspicious Chinese name which stands for “eternal fortune and fame”, the 140 year old Wing Lee Wai is one of the oldest businesses in Hong Kong, operating out of its base at 124 Wing Lok Street in Sheung Wan […]
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York Lo: From Chaoan to HK: Kai It Battery Factory (蓋一電池廠) Left: Kai It plant at 15 Mok Cheong Street before its re-modeling into Kai It Industrial Building. Right: Blue Dove batteries manufactured by Kai It Aside from Hing Wah, a major player in the battery industry from the 1940s to the 1980s was Kai It Battery Factory, which also operated […]
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York Lo: Flip Flops Across the Globe: How HK Exporters John Cowie and Nylex Left their Global Footprints with Plastic Sandals In the 1950s, plastic sandals (known as flips flops in America, jandals in New Zealand, thongs in Australia, slops in South Africa etc) became popular around the globe. Modeled after Japanese sandals known as zoris, some of the first […]
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York Lo: Tale as old as Wine: the Rise and Fall of Chinese Distilleries in Hong Kong Wing Lok East Street/Morrison Street in 1965 where the giant signs of Chinese distilleries such as Yan Wo Yuet and Wong Kwong Shin Tong were visible. From the 1900s to the 1960s, Hong Kong had a thriving local Chinese wine industry that not […]
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York Lo: YC Moy – the Friendly Compatriot and the Yau Kiu Film Studio (友僑片場) Left: YC Moy in his later years (Source: World Moy’s Clan Association yearbook); Right: Front gate of the Yau Kiu Film Studio in Kowloon City Earlier in the year, the author wrote an article about Hua Nan Motors, the distributor of DeSoto and Peugeot automobiles […]
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York Lo: Several articles have been posted on the Group’s website about American shipbuilder George U. Sands and his shipyard in Kennedy Town which eventually ended up in the hands of the family of Li Sing, the richest man in Hong Kong at the turn of the 20th century. Several years ago, I wrote an article about Li Sing and two […]
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