York Lo: Oceania Hawaii Holdings (夏香集團) Left: matchbox from the Oceania Restaurant & Nightclub; Right: Chinese performance at the Oceania Restaurant & Nightclub from a 1970s postcard. Earlier in the group, we have covered Ruby Restaurant, which was one of the first restaurant groups to go public in HK in late 1972. Around the same time Ruby went public, another […]
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York Lo: Kwoon Kwen Metal Ware (冠群金屬製品廠) Left: Kwoon Kwen ad in 1955 (HK Pun U District Association); Right: Kwoon Kwen founder Li Yan (HK Pun U District Association, 1959) Kwoon Kwen Metal Ware, a leading manufacturer of luggage locks and other metal products, was founded in 1948 (although as a firm it was not incorporated until 1965) by Li […]
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Tymon Mellor: The question was, “Who is Charles L Shank and what was his connection to the Shek Lai Pui Reservoir?”. A rather open question, but one that has led to an interesting journey. The questioner had acquired a large format book with 122 professional photographs of pre-war Hong Kong construction sites. Sample photographs provided documented the construction of the […]
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York Lo: Tai Hang Rubber Factory (大行樹膠廠) Left: ad for Tai Hang Rubber Factory in 1941; Centre: Tai Hang Rubber founder Yau Kim-fee (A Century of Commerce); Right: News article about strike at Tai Hang Rubber in 1941(HK Daily Press, 1941-9-15) From the 1930s to 1960s, Tai Hang Rubber was one of the big four manufacturers of rubber shoes in […]
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York Lo: Yen Dack Land Investment (仁德置業) Article about Yen Dack Land in 1962 with sketch of Yen Dack Building (WKYP, 1962-9-19) Yen Dack Land Investment is one of the lesser known developers which has developed many buildings in Hong Kong with the character “Yen” in its names since the 1960s. Left: wedding picture of Chan Kwong-dew and Gwendolyn Ho […]
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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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York Lo: The Kwan Family – Theatre Owners and Movie Producers From the 1930s to the 1970s, the families of Kuan Ka-pak and his brother Kuan Ka-yue (the next generation used the English spelling of Kwan instead for their surname) played an important role in the HK movie industry as the owners/operators of at least a dozen movie theaters known […]
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Thanks to IDJ for sending the following newspaper article titled New Year Honours for H.K. Residents. Of particular interest is mention of U Tat-chee, “genial Ginger King and Vice-Chairman of the Hong Kong Manufacturers Union, who becomes an officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil Division).” HF: I have retyped a further extract from the original article and […]
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York Lo: King of Entertainment: Wong Kow (黃球) and his Mayflower (五月花) group of restaurants and nightclubs Left: Wong Kow; Right: Matchbox for the Mayflower Restaurant group in the 1960s which list the phone numbers for all four of its restaurants and Oriental Ballroom. Wong Kow (1921-2017) was a major figure in the HK restaurant and entertainment industry in the […]
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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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