Hugh Farmer: I was recently contacted by Samantha Martin, granddaughter of the subject of this article Frank Gardner. Samantha said there were errors in the original article, shown below which was originally posted in November 2014. I am happy to correct those mistakes she notes and thought it best to start with her recent email and highlight the changes Samantha […]
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(1) “When Taikoo Sugar Refinery [began] operations… a number of expatriates had been Germans as indeed had the general manager and former chief chemist, Dr Ferdinand Korn. The refinery’s owners, however were ‘inclined not to go in for too many Germans if we can secure really reliable Britishers’. Not that such ‘Britishers’ were without fault: ‘I am satisfied’, remarked one […]
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This article was written by Christopher Munn, and first published in the Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, edited by May Holdsworth and Christopher. The publisher, HK University Press, and author have kindly granted permission for it to be posted here. Thanks also to Christopher for sending the first image of the E-Sing bakery. The second image was included in the original […]
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York Lo: Interesting Wall at the abandoned Kwai Chung Public School (葵涌公立學校) Recently while researching the industrialist Chong Hu-kwong of Tai Loong Weaving I came across above image of donors’ memorial wall (similar to ones you can find at Tung Wah Group of Hospitals and Po Leung Kuk) at one of the buildings of the abandoned Kwai Chung Public School. […]
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HF: While walking along the section of the Wong Nai Chung Tree Walk (part of the Wong Nai Chung Gap Trail) where it passes above the Hong Kong Cricket Club, on Saturday 6th January 2018, I came across the following Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department sign in front of a rather anonymous tree, a Reevesia (Reevesia thyrsoidea). Somewhat of a […]
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Roy Eric Xavier, Director, Portuguese and Macanese Studies Project at the University of California, Berkeley, USA has kindly granted permission to reproduce the second part of the following article. He stresses that this is still a draft and subject to revision. Roy runs the absorbing website Far Eastern Currents which covers a wide range of research into the Macanese Diaspora especially in Macau and Hong […]
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“Born and raised in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, at the heart of eastern China’s silk-producing Yangtze River Delta region, Zhao began his more than 40-year career as a ronghua creator as a 19 year old at a state-owned factory. The art of making ronghua – literally “velvet flower” – dates back to the Tang dynasty (618-907) and refers to the creation of not […]
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This article about an almost forgotten company comes courtesy of IDJ’s extensive archives about Hong Kong’s aviation history. If the reader is sufficiently interested in the subject it might be read in conjunction with our earlier article, Far East Aviation Company Ltd. – “British Enterprise in China”, 1934 article, linked below. The first image below has been extracted from the latter article. […]
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The Signal Tower in the Signal Hill Garden at Blackhead Point was built in 1907 by the Hong Kong Observatory to house a time-ball apparatus that was previously located in the nearby Round House of the Former Marine Police Headquarters. [Nick Kitto points out: the time-ball is still visible at the Marine Police Headquarters in TST. HF:Blackhead Point (黑頭山, lit. […]
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York Lo has sent information,about several generations of the family of Wong Yan Ting also known as Wong Wah Hee. Wong was the Wahee in the firm of Smith, Wahee and Company which later became the China Sugar Refinery. York has also added a couple of portraits of Wong family members. YL: Carl Smith’s book Chinese Christians, provides information about the family of Wong […]
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