Everything tagged "chinese customs" | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Everything tagged "chinese customs"

Frederick Cyril GABY (aka Cyril) [1906-2002]

Status: 
Deceased
Sex: 
Male
Names
Family: 
Gaby
Given: 
Frederick Cyril
Alias / nickname: 
Cyril
Birth
Date: 
1906-08-27
Death
Date: 
2002-05-06
Other
Other reference: 
Elsie Gaby

Cyril Gaby represents a long-standing tranche of the Hong Kong community - that is of seamen who would acquire a Chinese mistress in the city and set her up in an apartment. It was a convenient arrangement for men who came and went. In his autobiography, Gaby has described how he acquired his mistress through the time honoured "viewing" procedure at a tea shop in Ladder Street and recorded the price negotiated with the madam, which in his case in the early 1930s was a down payment of $500 and the purchase of a $2000 apartment in Wanchai.

Birthplace (country): 

Chinese Customs vessel moored off Kowloon City Praya-1938

Date picture taken (to nearest decade for older photos): 
1938

Not many pictures from this angle of an area of Kowloon City on the right hand side that was to be raised to the ground by the Japanese to extend Kai Tak aerodrome in 1942. The Central British School ( now KGV) is prominent in the background

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