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 last of these is about one of the few remaining Hong Kong companies that make neon lights. Leung Lap Kei, who runs the China Neonlight Advertising Company, says that, “in the 80s and 90s, the […]
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Centenarian Mary Wong presenting a lace handkerchief to Princess Margaret and her then husband the Earl of Snowdon in March 1966 when they visited her shop. Her son and daughter in law Mr & Mrs Jimmy Tse were by her side. Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 1966-3-4. York Lo: Mention the Japanese name Oshin, (“Ah Shun” or 阿信 in Cantonese), […]
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‘A biography of Sir Paul Chater would be a history of Hong Kong’, the South China Morning Post obituary stated on 28 May 1926, Arriving as an impecunious but ambitious and extremely capable teenager, he was later to be described by the Sunday Times of London, ‘as one of the most powerful and…most beneficent figures in the Empire’. [This article […]
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IDJ has sent extracts from an in-house Taikoo Dockyard book of the 1950s which covers a wide range of company facilities, workshops etc. The section of the book shown in this article covers General Engineering and reveals that the yard’s manufacturing skills extended beyond the obvious shipbuilding into a wide range of heavy engineering…and more surprising delights. General Engineering Many […]
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York Lo: In 2013, the Ford Motor Company released a 1924 letter which Sun Yat-sen sent to Henry Ford inviting him to open up a plant in south China – the bearer of the letter was a Chinese American merchant named Ng Jim Kai (a.k.a. Ng Tung Kai 吳東啟, 1859-1935). [1] A major financial backer of Sun Yat-sen for over […]
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Peter H.T. Woo – Father of the Hong Kong Electronics Industry – by York Lo Several years ago, I was invited by the editors of the Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography (HKU Press, 2011) to write biographical entries for the book. In total I wrote 37 entries which covered many of the important figures in HK business history. However, there […]
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York Lo: For decades after the War, the plastic industry and two closely related industries – toy and artificial flower manufacturing had played an important role in the industrial growth of Hong Kong and thanks to the efforts of pioneering entrepreneurs and the hard work of an industrious labor force, Hong Kong had emerged from nothing to become a top player […]
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HF: This Michael Rogge film starts outside Crocodile Garments Ltd, underneath whose sign is shown in brackets, United Shirts Factory I am assuming the next couple of scenes are of Crocodile Garments employees and locations:- 0.11-0.30 what is the man cutting out with the electric saw? 0.40-0.55 material hanging out to dry? any idea of the location? 0.56-1.03 what is […]
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Graham Wood has kindly sent a copy of the souvenir brochure issued at the official opening of the Hok Un power station in 1921. HF: I have retyped the original PDF version of the brochure sent by Graham and as it is a fairly lengthy document this is the third in a series of articles. I will include all the […]
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Mark Regan has kindly typed out this short report from the HK Telegraph of 17th March 1906. Conflagration at Kowloon Cement Works Ablaze Fire broke out in the cooperage department of the Green Island Cement Works, Hunghom, at about eight o’clock last evening. When the brigades from the Kowloon Dockland Yau-ma-ti Police Station arrived the flames were burning furiously and […]
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