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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HF: Here’s another in our series of Ginger Factories from the late 19th century and early 20th. I cannot find out much more about this company and would like to know when it was established. Also about Wong Chi Chau mentioned in this article. And the company of which he was the compradore of, Messrs. Alvares & Co. The article […]
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A Bygone Industry in Hong Kong – Rickshaw Makers’ Stores By Fung Chi Ming The rickshaw is long out of date, but in days past it was a widely used form of urban transport. For public hire and for private use, it also created new employment. The first rickshaw in Hong Kong was of Japanese construction. But, as time went […]
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IDJ has sent this SCMP article about 99 year old Mak Sing-ying. Mr Mak has for 81 years been making pans, cans, boxes and buckets out of tin from his workshop in Sai Kung. The article was published on 9th November 2014 See: SCMP article Sai Kung’s ‘tin man’ 9th November 2014 This article was first posted on 18th December 2019.
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HF: Patrick Hase and James Hayes have kindly given permission to post their article, Traditional Tea Growing in the New Territories. KC Iu was also co-author but regrettably I have been unable to contact him. The article was published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Vol 24, 1984. It has three sections, each written by one […]
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IDJ has sent this photo and accompanying short article about the demise of Dragon Kilns in Hong Kong. The technique as shown in the image looks more like hand-to-hand warfare than the manufacturing of bowls and cups. Was the white bucket used to extinguish the fires if things got a little out of control…? Such kilns were certainly found at […]
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James Hayes has kindly given permission to post his 1968 RASHKB article about the weaving of locally grown hemp thread into cloth during the annual visits of mostly male Hakka weavers. This was then used to make clothes, quilts, mosquito nets and other items of use in the New Territories in the 19th century. The practice appears to have ended […]
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York Lo: From Tea to Real Estate and Soy Milk and back to Tea – the six-generation saga of the family of Kwan Fan-fat Group picture of the Kwan family at the wedding of Kwan Fan-fat’s youngest son Kwan Kam-pui at the Kam Ling restaurant in Kennedy Town in 1949 (WKYP, 1949-7-10) Earlier on our website, we covered real estate […]
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Vaudine England has kindly sent a link to what she describes as a typically 1900-era directory of the European empires in the east. The author was D Warren Smith. We have already posted the following extracts from this account, Part One – Industries in Hong Kong, Part Two – Shipyards in Hong Kong, and Part Three – The Peak District […]
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HF: At Yan O Wan (also Yam), the bay just west of Sunny Bay MTR station on the north Lantau coast, you can still see large vertical tree trunks embedded in the sea floor. If you are in Hong Kong have a look next time you are on your way to the airport, Tung Chung or Disneyland by road or […]
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