York Lo: Shanghainese Wood Carvers and the Development of the Wooden Furniture Industry in Hong Kong As mentioned in the article “There was Something About Hong Kong Old Mary…”, Chiuchow natives Mary Wong and her son Jimmy Tse of HK Old Mary Sing Shun Co. were pioneers of the export carved wood furniture industry in Hong Kong and Jimmy himself actually […]
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HF: Can anyone provide further information about these aspects of the music industry in Hong Kong? I am especially interested in the history of record companies in Hong Kong HF: Chunny Bhamra lived on Lamma Island, Hong Kong for many years but moved to Melbourne, Australia with his family in about 2016. Chunny Bhamra: Gramophones and Phonographs were never really made […]
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York Lo: The authorized agent for YKK zippers in Hong Kong since the 1950s has been Hung Cheong Import & Export Ltd ( 鴻昌進出口有限公司, incorporated in 1972), which was founded by Kwok Tak-seng (郭得勝, 1911-1990) and Yeung Yiu-chung (楊耀松, 1921-2003). The profits from selling YKK zippers formed the foundations of […]
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IDJ sent in photographs showing what he believes is the manager’s house at Green Island Cement Company from about 1900-1905. See article below. Jane Taylor continues: My grandfather, Robert Taylor appears to have started out in Macau in 1912 and moved to Hong Kong around 18 months later. He served as manager of Green Island Cement, I think from the […]
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A 19th Century Company Town in North Point, Hong Kong By Jennifer Field Lang In 1881, Butterfield and Swire (the Far Eastern branch of the British trading firm John Swire and Sons) established the Taikoo Sugar Refinery in Hong Kong. John Swire (1793-1847) the son of a Halifax cloth merchant founded the general merchant trading company in 1816 in Liverpool, […]
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York Lo: The Queen of Pens – Holia Chow and Rox Industrial In the 1960s, Hong Kong had a pen manufacturer by the name of Rox Industrial (樂士實業), which made a variety of writing instruments including ballpoint pens, fountain pens, markers, sign pens and mechanical pencils. Although Rox focused on the export market, the firm was known locally as it […]
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Hong Kong’s neon-drenched streets were just one aspect of his home that Justin Wong missed while studying in Canada. A lover of cinema, he would become nostalgic for the city whose urban landscape has been beautifully evoked and captured in films such as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) and Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (1994)(1) As a fast-growing metropolis, Hong Kong always arouses people’s longing and […]
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York Lo: Spear and Yips – Pioneers of the HK Shirt Industry Before the war, shirts in Hong Kong were dominated by imported brands from overseas (e.g. Arrow Shirt from America) or the mainland (e.g. Smart Shirt and 555 Shirt from Shanghai). The first two domestic shirt brands to emerge in the post War period were Spear Shirt (槍牌恤) and […]
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Thanks to IDJ for the excellent images and information. Hugh Farmer writes:- I had always imagined that the Green Island Cement Company was named after HK’s Green Island (Tsing Chau) opposite Kennedy Town. But no, the company initially started operations on the similarly named island, Ilha Verde, near Macau. The date of its establishment there is given by various sources […]
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York Lo: Union (V-Tex) Shirts (伊人恤) – the Rise and Fall of an Iconic Hong Kong Brand Left: Close up view of the Union V-Tex booth at the 23rd HK Products Expo in 1966. Right: Governor David Trench (lower right with the hat and glasses) walking by the booths of Union V-Tex (left) and Pak Fah Yeow (right) at the same […]
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