Thanks to SCT for proofreading the text below. The Dairy Farm Co. Ltd was founded by a Scottish surgeon Sir Patrick Manson, and five local and foreign businessmen. During his practice in Hong Kong, Manson found that local people did not have access to hygienic fresh milk. Having a belief that fresh milk is essential for public health, he saw […]
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York Lo: Conic – HK Electronics Giant of the late 1970s, early 1980s Picture of Conic board in 1976, left to right: Simon Tam Hon-kong, Tam Chung-sing, Alex Au, Lam Chung-kiu and Yim Shun (absent – Chan Chun-cheung). The quote is somewhat ironic considering the aggressive expansion at the time which ultimately led to the demise of the group within […]
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Cecilia Young: My brothers and I are trying to gather information about my father’s company Yuen Hing Hong & Co. Ltd which he and my mother, Annie Lam Young, established in Hong Kong in the late 1940s. York Lo has sent information about Annie Lam Young from her biography in the HK Album 1967 which has been adapted for inclusion here: She […]
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York Lo: Notable Players in the HK Wig Industry in the 1960s and 70s In the 1960s, the US wig market exploded and grew from less than US$10 million a year in 1960 to US$1 bllion within a decade, with over 40% of American women owning more than one wig and importing over 1 million wigs from Asia on a […]
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York Lo: Leader of the Battery Pack: Hing Wah and Five Rams Batteries Left: Five Rams batteries ad in 1955 (Source: IDJ); Right: Hing Wah’s HK plant in the 1950s (Source: HK Memory) Founded in Canton and expanded to Hong Kong in 1938, Hing Wah Battery Factory (興華電池廠) was one of the oldest and largest players in the batteries industry in […]
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‘At his shop in Yau Ma Tei, Mak Kam-sang’s walls are covered in calligraphy signs he has written. Passers-by stop and peer into the store, curious about what it sells as it is so different from everything else in the area Mak is the last calligrapher in Hong Kong behind the red and blue signs informing would-be passengers where a […]
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York Lo: The Kings of Industries – the family behind Wearbest Garment in HK and Wha Mei Tobacco in old Shanghai As profiled in many other articles in this group, Shanghainese industrialists played a crucial role in the post-WWII industrialization in HK in fields ranging from textile, plastic, enamelware, construction and many others. In the field of garments, Sieh-Ting King […]
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Tymon Mellor: Galena ore, the main source of lead was first discovered at Lin Ma Hang in around 1914. As described in Part 1, a number of attempts were made to commercially exploit the lead ore, but they all failed. That was until Mr Morrison Brown Yung took an interest in the site and introduced modern mining methods to extract […]
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No, they are not grandmothers made out of cardboard. If you don’t live in Hong Kong or have never visited you may well be puzzled by the expression, cardboard grannies. Here’s an image of one. The SCMP ran an article on the 7th February 2021, ‘Cardboard granny’ dies after beinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaMlJG1o6y4 struck by truck in Hong Kong, linked below. And suggested […]
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York Lo: Notable Players in the history of the HK Glass & Mirror Industry The glass and mirror industry in Hong Kong has a long history tracing back to the 19th century but unlike its products, there is little transparency into the history of the industry and its key players as most of them were and remain very low key. […]
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