By York Lo For almost half a century stretching from the 1920s to the 1960s, the most popular casual footwear brand in Asia was Fung Keong (馮強). First manufactured in Canton in 1920, and later in Hong Kong and Malaysia, Fung Keong rubber sole canvas shoes had massive appeal during those years of economic hardship due to its affordability and are permanently etched […]
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Dodwell & Company (天祥洋行) was one of the leading British merchant firms, active in China and Japan during the 19th and 20th century. It was a direct rival to Jardine, Matheson & Co. “It was established in 1858 when W R Adamson and Company (silk dealers) set up in London, with its head office in Shanghai and branches in Hong Kong, […]
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York Lo: I-Feng and Freezinhot first caught my attention when I stared up at the third floor exterior of the infamous Chung King Mansion on Nathan Road and spotted the corporate signages. It turns out that I-Feng, which dissolved in 2001 according to Companies Registry record did have its head office in Chung King Mansion. And then I got even […]
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Mary Anne Le Bas has sent an SCMP article, Six home-grown Hong Kong trades at risk of dying out, published on 21st June 2015. The last of these is about one of the few remaining Hong Kong companies that make neon lights. Leung Lap Kei, who runs the China Neonlight Advertising Company, says that, “in the 80s and 90s, the […]
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Centenarian Mary Wong presenting a lace handkerchief to Princess Margaret and her then husband the Earl of Snowdon in March 1966 when they visited her shop. Her son and daughter in law Mr & Mrs Jimmy Tse were by her side. Source: Wah Kiu Yat Po, 1966-3-4. York Lo: Mention the Japanese name Oshin, (“Ah Shun” or 阿信 in Cantonese), […]
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‘A biography of Sir Paul Chater would be a history of Hong Kong’, the South China Morning Post obituary stated on 28 May 1926, Arriving as an impecunious but ambitious and extremely capable teenager, he was later to be described by the Sunday Times of London, ‘as one of the most powerful and…most beneficent figures in the Empire’. [This article […]
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York Lo: In 2013, the Ford Motor Company released a 1924 letter which Sun Yat-sen sent to Henry Ford inviting him to open up a plant in south China – the bearer of the letter was a Chinese American merchant named Ng Jim Kai (a.k.a. Ng Tung Kai 吳東啟, 1859-1935). [1] A major financial backer of Sun Yat-sen for over […]
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New information in red regarding Hong Kong lighthouse ladies. IDJ: The script below comes from one of my aviation books related to the 1930s China Coast. It’s an interesting aside about the wives of lighthouse keepers:- “Chinese keepers of the lights had invariably been pirated so often for their large supplies of specially refined kerosene, the lighthouse service found it […]
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Peter H.T. Woo – Father of the Hong Kong Electronics Industry – by York Lo Several years ago, I was invited by the editors of the Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography (HKU Press, 2011) to write biographical entries for the book. In total I wrote 37 entries which covered many of the important figures in HK business history. However, there […]
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Stephen Davies: Credit must be given for the information below to a presentation given by Ma Koon You on Hong Kong dockyards at the HK Heritage Discovery Centre a couple of years back, and since supplemented by me. Capt George Underhill Sands (1824-1881) bought the old MacDonald Shipyard in Sai Wan (Western District, HK Island) after a complex history that […]
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