York Lo: Red Capitalist: the life and ventures of K.C. Wong (王寬誠,1907-1986) Left: Portrait of K.C. Wong from the 1950s; Right: K.C. Wong meeting with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s When it comes to Hongkong’s “Red Capitalists”, Henry Fok (whose biographical entry I wrote for the Dictionary of HK Biography) is probably the first name that came […]
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York Lo: Bakilly – the forgotten maker of perfumes, hair cream, toothpaste and other personal care products HF: York added four images to his original article in March 2019. These are indicated by an asterisk in the captions. Founded in the 1910s, Bakilly (百家利) was a major local personal care product brand in Hong Kong for over half a century […]
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York Lo: Makers of Preserved Fruits – Wong Wing Kee, Lee Wah Mui, Hing Ah, Lee Sin Kee, Yam Hop Hing and Koon Wah I wrote an article earlier on the website about the “Five Treasures” of the HK sauce industry. Another traditional Chinese food product industry which is closely associated with sauce is preserved fruit (eg. Dried plums) as […]
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IDJ has kindly sent this article about the Hong Kong Rubber Manufactory Company extracted from the Hong Kong Sunday Herald 26th July 1936. HF: Even when enlarged the original article was not always easy to read, indicated by [] in the retyped version, and I would be grateful to have any errors pointed out in my attempt to retype the […]
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Antonia Cheung: My father Mr. Chang Don Chien was the chief engineer of the South China Iron Works from 1948 till 1968. A Biography of Mr. Chang Don-Chien by Antonia Cheung. Personal Information: Mr. Chang, Don-Chien 張敦潛 was born in 1918 in Shanghai. He studied Classical Chinese, Chinese calligraphy, arithmetic under a Chinese scholar before he was six. At seven, he entered […]
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Carles Brasó Broggi: China Engineers Ltd This company was founded by William Charles Gomersall, G. E. Maden, E. S. Elliston, Z. V. Choo and James H. Lee in 1928 in Shanghai. They provided textile machinery to Chinese cotton mills that emerged after WW1 in Shanghai and in the Yangtse Delta region. Gomersall and his partners made deals with important industrial […]
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Biography Of Alfred Herbert Rennie b. 17th November 1857 Ontario, Canada. d. 14th April 1908 Hong Kong. Here I am primarily concerned with the time Rennie spent in Hong Kong when he established the Kongkong Milling Company. For more information about the man a very useful source is: ‘The Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography’ listed below. For further information about […]
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This is an advertisement of Continental Rubber Factory Ltd. published in the Pictorial Record of the 7th Exhibition of Chinese Products, promoting the products of the company and the its exhibition booth in the venue. This factory was established in 1938, at Winslow Street, Hung Hom and a sale office on Des Voeux Road. The factory produced rubber shoes, sores, […]
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York Lo: Po Chai Lemonin (普濟檸檬精) Left: “Lemon King” Chan Shiu-chuen; Right: Po Chai Lemonin ad Founded in Canton in the early 1920s by Chan Shiu-chuen (陳少泉, 1903-1968) and moved to HK in the late 1940s, Po Chai Drug Co (普濟藥行) was best known for its Lemonin – a popular pain killer medicine across China and Southeast Asia from […]
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York Lo: Keeping Warm – Nam Wah Industrial (南華實業), maker of polyester blankets and thermal carriers Article about Nam Wah’s thermal carrier for tropical fish. The carrier shown appears to be made for Pan Am (WKYP, 1961-11-1) Recently while browsing old newspapers for research on other topics, I came across three articles (all shown here) about a firm by the […]
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