Tymon Mellor: With the completion of the Shing Mun Reservoir in 1937 and the new cross harbour pipe line in 1939, Hong Kong should have had an ample water supply, but low rainfall in 1938 and an influx of refugees from Southern China put a strain on supply. Things would only get worse. With war raging in Mainland China, the […]
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York Lo: Lin’s (Kwong Ming) Enterprises (連氏光明) and Kwong Ming Knitting Factory Picture and obituary of family patriarch Lin Yan-yee (WKYP, 1978-6-19); Right: Lin Siu-man (WKYP, 1982-9-1) The Lin family came from Chaoyang in Chiuchow and has been a notable player in the knitwear, garment, handbag and shoe industry in HK for over half a century through their Lin’s (Kwong […]
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HF: Many thanks to IDJ for sending this newspaper article about the preserved ginger industry in Hong Kong in 1947. The article was published in the Hong Kong Sunday Herald of 7th June 1947. I’m not sure if ginger was HK’s oldest industry with both the manufacturing of salt from sea water and quarrying of rock being very old. However, […]
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HF: The following article about Aw Boon Haw and his brother Aw Boon Par was written by Stephanie Chung Po-yin and first published in the Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, edited by May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn. The publisher, HK University Press, has kindly granted permission for it to be posted here, but retains copyright over this material from 2012. […]
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Gregory Couch has kindly given permission for his article, The first commercial airliner ever shot down by hostile air action, to be posted on our website: CNAC DC-2 #32, the Kweilin, was machine-gunned and forced down by five Japanese pontoon biplanes on August 24, 1938, shortly after leaving Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport. Hugh Woods was at the controls, and […]
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York Lo: Chan Cheung (陳章): Trader, Garment Manufacturer and Developer From the 1940s to 1970s, Chan Cheung, who also went by Chan Chingman (陳正文,1911-1989), was a prominent business figure in Hong Kong whose business interests range from his namesake Chingman & Sons, a leading importer of fabrics and furniture to La Falandy, the distributor of French wine of the same […]
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The history of explosive storage in Hong Kong is an interesting one. The earliest location appears to have been Magazine Island, originally named One Tree Island, which lies just to the West of Aberdeen Harbour. From 1887 to 1908 it was leased for an annual rent of $100, by the Nobel Explosives Company, who built a magazine, a road and […]
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Elizabeth Ride has sent BAAG Report KWIZ #73 1944, and noted earlier: After KWIZ #4, the Naval section is not included in the AWM papers, and does not appear again until KWIZ #66, and then in a slightly different format. HF: I am afraid because of time constraints I am no longer able to summarize and list the most salient […]
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York Lo: Mixing Concrete and Construction Equipment with Cantonese Opera and Wing Chun: the Wan family of Wai Hing and Modern For over six decades, the family of Wan Wai-yin has been supporting the construction industry in HK and beyond by supplying building materials and equipment such as gravel, concrete, timber, scaffolding and elevation platforms through various Wai Hing and […]
» Read moreThe website is currently undergoing problems with only intermittent internet access on my computer. This is because on Monday morning our house was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm resulting in greater damage and problems that we had at first realized. These are taking longer to correct than I had thought because around 30 properties in our neighbourhood were similarly […]
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