Chi Woo Wha

How fabrics produced by Central Textiles’ spinning and weaving factories compared to the fabrics made by South Sea Textile Manufacturing Company. South Sea mainly produced for export while the cotton yarn produced by Central Textiles’ spinning factory was supplied to its weaving factory for weaving into fabrics. In those days, manager Mr Wong of the Central Textiles’ sales department was responsible for marketing. He successfully promoted the growth of the business in the spinning factory. As the products from Central Textiles were mainly for export, the quality of the yarn was similar to that of South Sea Textile. Central Textiles’ weaving factory mainly produced grey fabrics like twill and khaki. Central Textiles’ spinning factory, on the other hand, was famous of making water-proofed fabrics which were sent to the Jardine dyeing factory in Sha Tin to be coloured. South Sea Textile did not install bleaching, dyeing and finishing facilities. As a result, the company was mainly involved in producing grey fabrics sold as raw materials to dyeing and finishing factories. The finished fabrics were exported from the dyeing factories. Grey fabric was a fabric woven with cotton yarn of an original colour that had not yet been processed or dyed. Some materials such as checkered yarn were only woven into fabrics after they were dyed with colours. Chi Woo Wha was of the view that this technique was brought from Shanghai into Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s textile industry only thrived after the Shanghainese immigrants came to Hong Kong. At that time, weaving factories were divided into two categories: those set up and run by the Shanghainese and those established and managed by the Cantonese. Cantonese weaving factories tended to be smaller, often using wooden-framed looms which were operated manually. Examples included the Sam Kwong Weaving Factory and Phoenix Textiles. Shanghainese weaving factories such as Prosperity Textile generally operated on a larger scale and mainly produced white- grey fabric. Cantonese masters and Shanghainese masters received different kinds of training. Shanghainese masters tended to be younger and had received training in school where they learned knowledge of textiles and calculation. Most of the Cantonese masters did not receive the training at school; they learned from their training masters on factory floor instead. Despite these differences, there were no real discrepancies between the fabrics made by either parties. At that time, there were not much market demand for good quality fabrics - whatever fabrics were made, there would be ready buyers! Chi Woo Wha learned from Shanghainese masters when he was an apprentice at South Sea Textile. He also attended classes and studied cotton spinning, design and drawing. The teachers at these textiles training classes were engineers and management personnel from the factory who had formerly studied at textile schools in Shanghai. For this reason, skilled workers who earned experience at South Sea Textiles would find themselves capable of doing any spinning and weaving jobs when they worked in other factories.

The proprietor of South Asia Textiles was a Shanghainese native who ran a small factory with about 50 looms. Liberty Weaving Factory belonged to what is now the Windsor Group and the owners back then including Chow Chung Kai and Chou Wen Hsien (perhaps better remembered for founding Doll Noodle) were also native Shanghainese. At that time, the factory housed 200 automatic looms. Chi Woo Wha had worked in the machine maintenance and safety department of Liberty Weaving Factory as an officer, overseeing machines for the entire factory, but mainly taking charge of repair and maintenance. When Central Textiles moved its operation to Tsuen Wan, it had about 150 looms. Since there was a shortage of raw materials for weaving, quality was not an issue of concern among the customers. As a result, some merchants bought and sold yarn as an investment to make more money.

When Central Textiles moved to Sha Tsui Road, Tsuen Wan, Chi Woo Wha was employed as an officer in charge of machine maintenance and safety and was responsible for managing many kinds of looms – some of them automatic. The difference between automatic looms and non-automatic ones was that the automatic looms could change cops automatically. The automatic loom could continue to operate non-stop, resulting that there were few flaws on the fabrics and the quality of the fabrics was much desired. Non-automatic looms were called “power looms”, which would stop when the weft yarn in the shuttle was used up. The worker watching the machine had to link a new yarn with the last yarn manually, which produced visible flaws on the fabric. The fabrics made by non-automatic machines were of poorer quality. Today the mechanical equipment in Central Textiles are more advanced with electronic control, providing more effective functionality. Consequently the production procedure is very much different from what it was like when manual equipment was used. During its early stages, Central Textiles’ weaving factory had 150 looms. This number eventually increased to 352 as business grew. The company mainly produced grey fabrics, some 50% of which were water-proofed. These water-proofed fabrics were supplied to Fung Keung Rubber Shoes Factory and used in canvas footwear. Grey fabrics in this instance referred to yarns in their original colours. After finishing processes, the fabrics would not shrink. Generally, the other types of fabrics commonly produced from local weaving factories were corduroy and denim. It was not true that denim was a more recent type of product at a later time. In the 1950s and 1960s, not many people wore jeans as it was considered not a proper attire in most occasions. The production volume of denim increased sharply as blue jeans became very popular.

Chi Woo Wha explained that there were several kinds of fabrics. In addition to canvas and plain fabric, they included twill, khaki, denim, bamboo yarn, stripe, and bleached, printed and dyed textiles. While a leaflet published by Central Textiles tells that new kinds of materials such as denim and corduroy were not produced until 1977, Chi Woo Wha maintains that such fabrics did exist before that. After 1977, Hong Kong saw an increase of denim production as many Cantonese factories including the Kong Sun Weaving Factory and the Chip Tak Weaving Factory produced the fabric, but Central Textiles’ weaving factory did not produced denim at that time.

The business orders from local and overseas buyers. In the past, overseas buyers came to Hong Kong to place orders with the sales departments of local factories. Back then, the sales departments did not have to worry about looking for business as it always seemed that orders were readily available. In its early years, Central Textiles only had one sales department for both its spinning and weaving factories. With the increase in business later on, each factory set up its own sales team. In those years, the 128 x 60 khaki, raw materials for making US Army uniforms, was the most heavily demanded among all kinds of fabrics.

Chi Woo Wha worked at the maintenance and safety department of Central Textiles’ weaving factory before he went to Africa. In 1973, he returned from Africa returning to Central Textiles’ weaving factory as an engineer, mainly assisting in the overall management of the mill. Work at Central Textiles’ factories was divided as follows: Cheng Chi Ping was the manager overseeing the spinning factory, while Hui Ho was his deputy mainly responsible for the weaving factory’s production. Hui Ho came from Shanghai and had been engaged in the textile industry for many years. Although he had no formal training in textiles, he learned from his master and was very experienced. In Central Textiles, a manager was assisted by a deputy manager, and further below was an engineer.

Production at Central Textiles was arranged by the engineer in accordance with the specification of the job orders. The engineer had a wide scope of duties, overseeing the mechanical aspects of production. He also had to oversee planning, production management, and scheduling of production; supervise of the labour force; check on product quality; and estimate production volume and costing. Upon Hui Ho’s resignation, Chi Woo Wha took over all management work at Central Textiles’ weaving. When the weaving factory was relocated to its present site in 1989, Chi Woo Wha was formally promoted to factory manager.

Chi Woo Wha’s memory of other weaving factories, included Grand Textile Co., Nam Hwa Textiles Ltd., Prosperity Textile Ltd., Chun Sing Weaving Factory and Chung Nam Weaving Factory.Chung Nam was situated in Kwun Tong and was affiliated to Oriental Textiles Ltd., but ceased business a few years ago. Towel factories in those days were classified as a separate trade from weaving.  Most towel factories were of smaller scale than weaving factories and used a different type of looms for production. Some weaving factories specified themselves in using electric machines as they were more advanced than the hand-driven looms commonly used in the past. Chi Woo Wha was not aware of the operations at Yau Tat Kow Kee Weaving & Dyeing Fty.

The situation at different factories.Liberty Weaving Factory had connection with Chou Wen Hsien. Chou Wen Hsien (the owner of the Winner Weaving Company) and Tong Ping Yuen (the owner of South Sea Textile Manufacturing Company) had made contribution to the development of Hong Kong’s weaving industry. Winner Weaving moved to Malaysia before 1997 but it ceased operation later on. Today in Hong Kong, Winner is running a garment factory but not weaving factory any more. The Lee Wah Weaving Factory produced denim in the early days while East Asia Textiles, Ltd. had a very old weaving factory which was no longer in operation. Mou Fung Ltd. was one floor above Central Textiles’ weaving factory and only produced denim. It is still running about 100 looms at a newly built plant in Zhuhai. Mou Fung has been operating for about 30 years and is probably the most famous local denim manufacturer in Hong Kong nowadays.

Since China adopted the open door policy, many Hong Kong factories rapidly relocated to the mainland in order to reduce their operational costs. Some totally ceased all production in Hong Kong after setting up their mainland facilities. Chip Tak Weaving Factory no longer produced denim in Hong Kong , as it is now undertaking all its production in China. In the past, Chip Tak was better known than Mou Fung. Today, many textile companies no longer weave fabrics but just take orders and sub-contract production to other weaving factories. In the past, there was also a Shun Shing Weaving, Co. which also wove denim at the premise in Wing Hong Street near Castle Peak Road, Lai Chi Kok. This factory is already closed down. When Hong Kong’s textile industry was thriving, several officers from the South Sea Textile Manufacturing Company left the company and pooled capitals together to set up joint ventures of their own. While they had mastered textiles knowledge and technology, these formerly factory officers were not proficient in running a business. Tse Pui Weaving Factory mainly produced woven fabrics. Companies making knitted fabrics were generally called knitting factories.