HF: Kau Wa Keng (九華徑), is a village and valley between Lai King and Lai Chi Kok though traditionally and administratively it belongs to Kwai Chung. The village has about 300 years of history, most of the villagers were originally of the Tsang clan. I took these photos of a group of buildings in Kau Wa Keng old village on the 23rd February […]
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HF: Producing salt from the sea is one of the oldest industries in Hong Kong. I have information, however slight, that it was produced in at least these locations. Kwun Tong Mui Wo (Lantau) San Hui (Tuen Mun) Tai O ( Lantau) Yim Lin Ha (Sha Tau Kok – NE NT) Yim Tin Tsai (Sai Kung) Wong Ka Wai (Tuen […]
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Elizabeth Ride has sent British Army Aid Group (BAAG) records of shipping movements in Hong Kong in 1944-45 during the Japanese occupation in World War Two. These provide information not only about the ships themselves but what cargo was being brought into and out of Hong Kong during the latter stages of WW2 and of godowns, docks etc that were […]
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HF: Our article, Dredging Marine Sand – Container Terminal 6, 1987, says that the dredging for that particular project was done by the Dutch company Hollandsche Aanneming Maatschappij, better known as HAM. HAM turns up again in the report Review of Dredging Practice in the Netherlands written by ST Gilbert and PWT To and published by the Geotechnical Engineering Office, Civil Engineering Department, Hong […]
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Edward Schneider (great-grandson of Carl Ingenohl): El Oriente was mostly a trade name, although it did appear in various names of companies of the group associated with Carl Ingenohl’s business group. The parent company was a Swiss partnership of which Ingenohl was the General Partner (and principal partner) and that partnership owned the Hong Kong company, the Manila company (until […]
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HF: The 1909 Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China…etc, lists AE Griffin as a “Temporary Civil Engineering and Constructional Staff member at the Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Comapny of Hongkong Ltd.” Griffin is the first listed of 26 such staff and therefore was probably the most senior. Indeed the paragraph before the concluding one in the following paper […]
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IDJ wrote in reponse to our article, “Worst industrial jobs in UK’s history”, linked below – Hong Kong’s own list? “naturally Night Soil Collector. This task went on certainly during my time in HK primarily servicing Western District’s old properties with no drains or sewage pipe-work. I recall it was all dumped into barges at Kennedy Town and taken out to sea for dumping. […]
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Mary Anne Le Bas has sent an SCMP article, Six home-grown Hong Kong trades at risk of dying out, published on 21st June 2015. The second of these is about a Sai Kung town resident who makes and sells about 800 boxes of traditional Hakka food daily. The article begins: Hui Sai-ling makes Hakka snacks at her home in Sai Kung […]
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Stephen Davies says the basic story of ICSN is best located in the book, Beancaker to boxboat. Jardine operated ships using the Jardine Matheson house flag from pretty early on – the earliest I think I have dated seems to be from the late 1820s. From that date ships came and went, but nothing that really feels like a JM shipping line […]
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HF: The SCMP of 18th April 2016 contained an article about damage caused to the explosives storeroom at the Ma On Shan mine complex by workers from the Lands Department who mistakenly thought it was to be demolished. The article begins: The government last week almost flattened a house in a remote village proposed for grading as a historic building, in […]
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