York Lo: Samuel Gee Yen (嚴欣淇) and East Sun Textile(怡生紗廠) Left: Bio and picture of Samuel Gee Yen in 1948. Source: 實業界名人錄(1948); Right: picture of Samuel Yen before boarding CAT plane to Taiwan to visit his relatives in 1959 (WKYP, 1959-8-24) Founded in April 1949 by Samuel Gee Yen (aka Shing-Gee Yen 嚴申耆,1906-1984), East Sun Textile was one of the […]
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York Lo: The Van Family from Cambodia and the Bonsun Group of companies (萬象) Bonsun Industrial Building in Tsuen Wan, next to Wong’s Factory Building Earlier on the website, I touched on the sale of the Wong’s Factory Building at 368-370 Sha Tsui Road in Tsuen Wan, which was developed by the Wong family of Sweetmart Garment (see article). Right […]
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Tymon Mellor: Introduction The mine workings on the south-west slopes of Ma On Shan mountain are now no more than mere scars in the hillside, but in the middle of the last century, the mine provided employment for up to 6,000 people and supplied high grade iron ore and other minerals to the Japanese steel industry. This article describes the […]
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York Lo: Y.C. Hu and L.S. Ku – directors of Pao Hsing Cotton Mill In the earlier article about Pao Hsing Cotton Mill, it was mentioned that two outside directors – Hu Ying-choi(Y. C. Hu) and Ku Lan-sun (L.S. Ku, misspelled as “Ku Han-sun” in the lawsuit) were recruited in 1953. Further research revealed that Hu and Ku were two […]
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From Tai Ping Koon, which opened in 1860 and served Sun Yat-sen, to Gaylord Indian Restaurant, open since 1972, to the award-winning abalone served in Forum since 1977, these restaurants have stood the test of time. In a city where restaurants come and go with dizzying speed, those which have stood the test of time are few and far between. […]
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York Lo: Yakult (益力多): 50 Years in Hong Kong Left: glass bottle of Yakult before 1971; Middle: the original Yakult HK plant at 161 Wai Yip Street in Kwun Tong (Yakult HK website); Right: plastic bottle of Yakult today In the late 1960s around the same time when Japanese instant noodle (see our article on Winner Food and Doll noodles) […]
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York Lo: Faithful Trading and Polytek Engineering Industrial trading and engineering firms such as China Engineers, Reiss Bradley and Andersen Meyer covered earlier in other articles played an important role in the industrial development of Hong Kong and the broader region as they facilitated the necessary technology transfer from the West by acting as importers and installers of state of the […]
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Tymon Mellor: On the 28th March, 1886, the first of many blasts was initiated at the Mui Wo silver mine. The owner, Mr Ho A Mei (see Part One of this article linked below) wanted to extract the galena ore to aid in the mineral processing of the richer ore from a Mainland mine of his. The mineral processing facility […]
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James Chan: This advert from the Hongkong Government Gazette of 9th January 1886 caught my eye. Further investigation brought up the announcement shown below the advert, published in Australia and New Zealand, warning readers that Norman Electric was an “unmitigated fraud and swindle” and exposing one Emil Bassett of New York who was operating under the alias Marsh Bassett. I […]
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HSBC Main Building (香港滙豐總行大廈) is a headquarters building of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which is today a wholly owned subsidiary of London-based HSBC Holdings. It is located on the southern side of Statue Square near the location of the old City Hall, Hong Kong. The previous HSBC building was built in 1935 and pulled down to make way for the current building. The current building is the […]
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