The Gutta Percha Company by Bill Burns The following paragraphs are extracted from Bill’s article, with his permission, which can be found on his large and absorbing website. The article can be read in full via the link below, along with an extract from the book “London by day and night:or, Men and things in the great metropolis” by David W. Bartlett, […]
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York Lo: From Saigon to HK and Rice to Corduroys: the Wong family of Wong Cheong Fung, King’s Dyeing, Corona Textile, and Perfecta Wong Min-ching (third from left) with his sons and grandchildren in the mid-1960s. (Courtesy of John Huynh) Natives of Chiuchow, the Wong family immigrated to Vietnam where they built one of the first and largest textile mills […]
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York Lo: Woo Ping (胡炳) – Weaving and Real Estate Pioneer Top: article about Shun Shing Weaving in the late 1940s with pictures of Woo Ping and the “Three Bears” and “Three Dragons” trademarks; Bottom Golden Hill Commercial Building in Mongkok (Landvision) Woo Ping was a pioneer in the weaving and real estate industry in Hong Kong who was active […]
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York Lo: Luks Industrial (陸氏實業) – Maker of Etron TV Left: Luks founder Luk King-tin (Capital, 1990); Right: logo of Etron TV from a 1988 TV ad in HK listing Luks as its manufacturer and Yin Kin Ltd as its distributors and being available in the Sheung Wan, Yaumatei and Mongkok branch of Wing On (VCRBase) A history of television […]
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York Lo: Chow Yau (周有, 1912-1983) – Vertical Integrator of the HK Death Care Industry With over 45,000 deaths per year, the death care industry is a huge business in Hong Kong. While many Chinese articles have covered Siu Ming, the king of funeral homes who monopolized the business in the 1960s and early 1970s, little has been written about […]
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York Lo: South China Tea Corporation (華南茶業) and “Cocktail Tea” (鷄尾茶) Left: Outdoor advertising for South China Tea’s “Cocktail” covering the building which housed the Mayfair Studio in Kowloon (likely 3 Saigon Street); Right: a South China Tea Corp’s “China Beauty” Chinese green tea tin (Worthpoint) While the family of Southeast Asian tycoon Eu Tong-sen might be best known in […]
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York Lo: Shui Hwa Watch (瑞華表行) Ad of Shui Hwa Watch in 1977 listing all the brands it was sole agent of (WKYP HK Yearbook, 1977) From the 1950s to the 1980s, Shui Hwa Watch was one of the leading watch dealers in Hong Kong, best known for being the sole agents for famous Swiss brands such as Piaget (伯爵表, […]
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HF: Olyphant & Co. was a merchant trading house in 19th-century China. From its initial involvement there, the firm expanded into other countries including Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Olyphant & Co’s business dealings in Peru caused the company to collapse in 1878. The firm was founded in Canton by David WC Olyphant (1789-1851) and Charles N Talbot after their former employer, King […]
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Stephen Davies: Further information about the Sainam and her sister ship the Nanning. I now know that the owner, Sai Hing Steam Ship Co., was originally a Chinese firm offering Canton to Macao river ferry services, formed as a syndicate to buy four ex-Swire ships (see SCMP, 9th November 1917, p.11) – the ships were the Nanning, Sainam, San Ui and Lin […]
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York Lo: The Kwan family and Yue Ying Can Manufacturing and Asia Can Co Left: Yue Ying and Asia Can co-founder Y.P. Kwan (WKYP, 1963-4-3); Right: profile of Yue Ying Can Manufacturing in 1934 (HK Chinese Factories Survey, 1934) Earlier on the website we covered the Shang family of China Can Company. Another key player and pioneer in the HK […]
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