The Old Reliable Firm, Good Workmanship Guaranteed: A Chinese Australian story of family, migration and entrepreneurship.
BOOK LAUNCH presented by Micheal and Gary Leong.
9 August 2025
11am-12noon
Free entry at Hinchinbrook Shire Library, Ingham.
In the closing decades of the 19th century, Joseph Kee Tey Lim and George Yip Wing Leong journeyed from their home villages in Kwangtung to seek their fortunes in Australia.
Kee Tey built a successful career as a cabinetmaker in Melbourne, while George Yip Wing made his money in retail and mining speculation in Queensland, and then as a banana merchant in Melbourne. Both men relocated their families to the cosmopolitan British colony of Hong Kong in the early 20th century.
Hong Kong provided rich opportunities for Chinese entrepreneurs with English-language skills and knowledge of British business methods.
Kee Tey became a building contractor in Kowloon, and George Yip Wing worked for The Chosen Company department store on Des Voeux Road Central, Hong Kong.
In the 1940s, the two families’ prosperity was fractured by the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. Many family members returned to Australia. It was in Melbourne that the Lim and Leong families were joined together when Hong Kong-born Jean Mary Lim married Heungshan-born Richard Thomas Wai Cheong Leong in 1944.
"The Old Reliable Firm" explores the complexity of Chinese Australian identities and experiences through these two family histories, highlighting the ways that Kwangtung, Australia, and Hong Kong shaped their lives, loves, and businesses.
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