Biography

Wu Wai Keung was born in 1933 in Qingyuan, his native place. He was brought up in a peasant family and had received 3 or 4 years of education in his native place. After the Second World War, he went to Guangzhou where he learned spraying paint as an apprentice. In 1950, he came to Hong Kong and found shelter at a relative’s home. He got a job in a herbal tea house in Wan Chai. He resigned in 1956 and had worked as a mold caster and paint sprayer in mold casting factories, plastic factories and workshops in the years that followed. In 1962, Wu Wai Keung established the Wing Ming Craft Shop on Ying Yeung Street, To Kwa Wan which supplied plaster molds for molding factories and plastic products manufacturers. He expanded his business in the late 1960s. Having got orders producing molds for decorative items, he rented an apartment on Ying Yeung Street for the workshop. In 1970, he changed his career to manufacturing plastic products. He opened the Ming Wo Manufacturing Co. in a ground-floor workshop on Yin On Street and moved it to Kwun Tong in the following year. In the early 1980s, he closed down the manufacturing workshop and re-established the mold casting workshop in To Kwa Wan. He operated the mold workshop until he retired in 1995. When Wu Wai Keung first came to Hong Kong, he had lived in various districts including Wan Chai and Sham Shui Po. In 1962, he moved into the Thirteen Streets in To Kwa Wan which became his permanent residence until to date. He had served as the chairman of the building’s mutual aid committee for about 20 years.