York Lo: Seasonal Fruit Company (時新鮮菓公司) Seasonal Fruit Company’ store on Des Voeux Road (The red sign on the left is Chung Yuen Electrical, see article) From the 1950s to 1970s, Seasonal Fruit Company was a leading importer and retailer of fresh fruit in Hong Kong and its advertisements could often be found in newspapers from that era. The original […]
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Stephen Davies: An interesting question to which I don’t know the answer, is what the provenance is of the gasometer that still stands (and I believe is in use for stand-by storage) back from the Tin Wan Praya waterfront just outside the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter West entrance (on the north shore). I’m fairly sure it’s been there as long as I […]
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York Lo: Bernard Van Zuiden (萬瑞庭, 1899-1979) – Dutch Trader and Philanthropist in Hong Kong Bernard van Zuiden (right) welcoming his visiting elder sister at a cocktail reception in HK in 1959 (WKYP, 1959-12-10) Life and Career of Bernard Van Zuiden Born in Enschede in eastern Netherlands, Van Zuiden studied textile and commerce in his hometown in the 1910s. He […]
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York Lo: Brothers: Knitwear Pioneer Yap Chuin-siu and Financier Simon Yip In the 1960s to 1980s, Yap Chuin-siu and his brother Simon Yip were prominent figures in the HK business scene as the earlier was the founder of Rose Knitting, a leading listed knitwear manufacturer and the latter a high-profile financier with large investments in the Dominican Republic who was […]
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Dheeraj Khiytani was recently in touch. He writes: I’m a native of Hong Kong, born and bred with an interest in tobacciana. Specifically I have been collecting early US or English cigarette packs for a number of years. A dealer of mine recently offered me a pristine catalogue of coloured lithographs of cigar products manufactured by the Orient Tobacco Company, Hong Kong. […]
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York Lo: Kwok Yat-wai (郭一葦, 1915-1990): Jeweler, Developer and Philanthropist Left: Kwok Yat-wai from the profiles of the directors of the Tung Wah Group of Hospital (KSDN, 1971-4-1); Right: Ad for Kwok’s Diamond Mansion in Wanchai in 1964 (KSDN, 1964-11-8) Like Cheng Yu-tung of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery and the New World Group (see article on Hip Hing Construction) and […]
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HF: The following article about William Jardine was written by Alain Le Pichon and first published in the Dictionary of Hong Kong Biography, edited by May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn. The publisher, HK University Press, has kindly granted permission for it to be posted here, but retains copyright over this material from 2012. Thanks to SCT for proofreading the retyped article. Jardine, […]
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York Lo: Singnam Choy (蔡星南) – Founder of the HK Chinese Godown Association Left: Singnam Choy (right) with Lam Hau-tak (see Lam Yuen Fong article) and Chau Cham-kwong as heads of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals in 1948 (WKYP, 1948- 6-19); Right: notice issued by The Ching Hua Co in 1947 to clarify that it had no relations with […]
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by Duncan G. Crewe and Richard A. Whittington This article was published by The Hong Kong Study Circle in its Journal 371/2 in October 2014. For more about this group see the information and link below. On 27 March 1936 the DH-86 aircraft RMA Dorado departed from Kai Tak with the first air mails by Imperial Airway’s direct service from […]
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York Lo: Oriental Engineering (華捷洋行) Representatives of Oriental Engineering welcoming L.A. Jull, chairman of LEC Refrigeration at the Kai Tak Airport in 1961 (KSDN, 1965-3-31) Founded in 1910 in Foochow, Oriental Engineering Co Ltd (incorporated in HK in 1964) is one of the oldest and largest distributors of refrigeration and kitchen equipment in HK and remains under the management of […]
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