Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Welcome

Welcome to Gwulo.com, and over 30,000 pages about old Hong Kong.

If it's your first visit, you might like to use the search box at the top of the page to find what you're looking for, check out the latest old photos, or just scroll down to browse through recent articles.

I hope you'll join in too, and share your questions and knowledge with us. Most pages let you leave a comment, it's easy to upload a photo, and the Forum is waiting for you to post a new message.

Finally, if you're interested in Hong Kong history, please stay in touch by signing up for Gwulo's free weekly newsletter.

Kind regards,

David

PS 'Gwu lo' is roughly how '古老' sounds in Cantonese. It means 'ancient' or 'old-fashioned'.

New on Gwulo: 2022, week 20

Gwulo's newsletter takes an extended break

I don't plan to send out any weekly Gwulo newsletters in June, July, or August, while I'm working on the upgraded Gwulo website (details below), and visiting family in the UK.

During that time, the daily Wartime Diaries emails will continue to be sent, so if you'd like to keep hearing from Gwulo you're welcome to subscribe to the 77 years ago series. You'll receive emails from Jun-Aug 1945 that cover the liberation of Hong Kong after the Japanese occupation, so it's an exciting period to follow.

You also have the option to visit the What's new page at any time, and see all the latest posts and photos from contributors.

Otherwise, I'll be back in your mailbox in September. By then I expect the upgrade will be finished, and I can get back to writing about old Hong Kong photos at long last.

 

A look at the latest additions to Gwulo...
 

General
 

  • Regular readers will recognise Stephen Davies, as he has helped answer many nautical-themed questions here on Gwulo. His new book was published earlier this month: Transport to Another World: HMS Tamar and the Sinews of Empire
     
  • Readers are looking for any information about:
     
     
  • Upgrade update:
     
    • I've re-run the whole upgrade from scratch, fixing the last few bugs that appeared along the way. The real upgrade is ready to begin!

      Tomorrow, Tuesday 31 May, I'll set the gwulo.com website to be read-only. You'll still be able to view all its pages, but won't be able to add or edit anything.

      After the old server is set to read-only, I'll make a copy of it, run the upgrade again, and then upload the upgraded site to the new server at the hosting company. Once the new server is ready (hopefully before the end of this week), I'll post a message here on Gwulo.com to give you details of how to access it.

      I plan to run this old server and the new upgraded server in parallel for several months. The old server will continue to be a read-only snapshot of the site from 31 May, and the new server is where we'll add new content. Once the new server is running smoothly and all major bugs have been fixed, the old server can be retired.

     

 

Places
 


 

People

New on Gwulo: 2022, week 19

A look at the latest additions to Gwulo...
 

General
 

  • Graham Heywood's diary of his experiences as a POW in Hong Kong has valuable lessons for us today.
     
  • Readers are looking for any information about:
     
    • Tanka People of Hong Kong
       
    • The story behind this photo. Wayne writes: I'm standing front row - left, but have no idea what I'm doing there. Guessing this is 1954. No idea as to the event, but hoping someone might recognize themselves (or someone they know).
      party.jpg
      party.jpg, by Wayne Carew

     
  • Upgrade update:
     
    • Forums, Jurors Lists, Organisations, and Streets, are all working on the new site. That's a major milestone, as now all the main functionality of the current site is available on the upgraded site. The first and longest phase of the upgrade is now finished.

      The second phase is to repeat the upgrade on the live site, and make it publicly available. First I'll re-run all of last year's work again from the start, and check we end up with a working site. (There's always a risk that some of my more recent changes have broken some of the earlier work.) 

      Once I can reliably upgrade the test server I'll run the upgrade on the real server, to see if there are any hiccups there. Then the last step will be to put the current site into read-only mode, and run the upgrade again to make sure the new site is right up to date with all the latest information from the current site.

      That will end the second phase and mark the start of the third phase, when I'll ask for your help to start using the new site and let me know what bugs you find. (The current site will continue to be online and available for reference, but we'll only be able to add new content and comments to the new site.)

      Looking back through my notes, I started the upgrade at the beginning of March 2021, so this first phase has taken many months of work. I'm crossing my fingers that phase two will be much shorter and take just weeks.

     

 

Places


 

People

New on Gwulo: 2022, week 18

A look at the latest additions to Gwulo...
 

General
 


 

Places


 

People

New on Gwulo: 2022, week 17

A look at the latest additions to Gwulo...
 

General
 


 

Places


Kowloon

More of Kowloon's industrial sites:
 

New Territories
 


 

People

New on Gwulo: 2022, week 16

A look at the latest additions to Gwulo...
 

General
 

  • Memories of:
     
  • Readers are looking for any information about:
     
    • How old is this stone marker near Luk Keng:
      Stone Marker 朱藍山界
      Stone Marker 朱藍山界, by Paul Tsang

       
  • The 'explosion' reported at the West Point gasometer in 1934 wasn't actually an explosion.
     
  • Upgrade update: A slight change of plan - I've finished the core pages for Photos, Places, and People, and had originally planned to open up the new site for feedback when I got this far. I've decided it is better to get the rest of the pages (Organisations, Streets, etc.) working before I open up the new site, then I can concentrate on responding to feedback instead of trying to juggle that with finishing the other pages. I'm currently working on the 'Book / Document', and 'Page(s) from Book / Document', and then will work my way through the other page types until they are all done.
    At the same time I've put in an order to the hosting company to move us to a larger server, so it has enough space to host both the current and the upgraded websites at the same time. The Gwulo website will be offline for several hours during the middle of this week, while the hosting company makes the changes.

 

Places


Kowloon

LizB has been busy documenting Kowloon's industrial sites. If you can add any photos, facts or memories to these places, please click through to their page and leave a comment there.
 

New Territories
 


 

People

Pages

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