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 third of these is about the Yuet Tung China Works which has been producing hand-painted porcelain since 1928. The article begins: Tso Chi-hung is the manager of Yuet Tung China Works, the last company in Hong […]
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IDJ remembers seeing log sawing by hand particularly in shipyards building wooden junks and sampans but also on construction sites. Many had two or four men pushing and pulling from above and below. They could tear through a log surprisingly accurately and quickly. The frame’s sidebars were used to guide the saw blade in a straight line and achieve the right […]
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Mike T: There’s a lengthy, quite detailed article for Chinese-language readers at the link below. (I can’t read it myself, so have to infer from a poor-quality Google translation.) The author seems to have gotten a tour of the factory in 2011, and provides photos inside and out. I found it quite interesting that their production was once significant enough to […]
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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A Bygone Industry in Hong Kong – Rickshaw Makers’ Stores By Fung Chi Ming The rickshaw is long out of date, but in days past it was a widely used form of urban transport.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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