Lai Kan

At first, the fruits of the wholesale fruit market were imported from Guangdong, such as lychees, wampees, starfruits and sweet oranges. Later, more fruits such as longans and strawberries were imported from South China. Uncle Kan highly commented the good taste of the mainland sweet oranges and oranges. But today, no more mainland species are available; they all come from the US. After the liberation of mainland, railway transport was more convenient, so fruits were imported from the Northeast, such as snow pears, duck pears, Laiyang pears, apples, etc. Fruits from the Northeast are huge in production and easy in preservation. They need not be distributed as soon as possible, they can be stored at the Tien Chu cold storage room in the former To Kwa Wan site.

On the contrary, fruits from South China such as lychees and longans are perishable and cannot stand the low temperature in the cold storage room. Besides mainland China, fruits were also imported from Taiwan, South East Asia, Australia and the US. Uncle Kan says fruit imports from South East Asia has increased since the 1960s. On one occasion, he bought several durians for sale at his store. But, no customers would like to buy them because the smell was too strong. However they have become a favorite fruit in Hong Kong today. He also says Oregon apples were imported from the US before the 1960s, but regrettably this small, crispy and sweet fruit is not supplied now. 

 Uncle Kan left Dongguan his native place and came to Hong Kong in 1946. He was 22. His uncle wanted him to help with the wholesale vegetable and fruit market business, but it was later closed down. Uncle Kan went to work in another wholesale vegetable and fruit market. After a year or two, he opened his own wholesale fruit market with his friends. His uncle’s market used to source from large wholesale markets which supplied fruits from South China such as lychees, wampees and starfruits and vegetables like flowering Chinese cabbage, Chinese white cabbage, leaf-mustard, Chinese kale and radish.

In the early post-war period, the market wholesaled both vegetables and fruits, but the quantity of the former was much larger than the latter. Later, they were separately wholesaled when vegetables were marketed by the government. In the early post-war period, fruits were mainly imported from the southern regions such as Guangzhou, Shantou, Chaozhou and Xinhui because of inconvenient transportation. The Tianjin duck pears were only supplied in August and September, and Xinhui was the only source of sweet oranges. The site of the Hong Lok Yuen in Tai Po was an orchard which produced lychees, wampees, longans and muskmelons. At first, only 30 or so wholesale markets were in operation. The wholesale volume was limited because each market only employed 2 to 3 workers. After 1949, the state-owned Ng Fung Hong distributed fruits from the mainland. All kinds of fruits were supplied to Hong Kong such as the Hami melons, watermelons, apples and snow pears. The supplies continued to expand. Later, we had watermelons from Taiwan too. 

In the old days Taiwan-supplied fruits were packaged using wooden crates, and during transport they crashed against each other and many became broken. When delegates of Taiwan fruit merchants came to Hong Kong for exchange, Lai Kan suggested that they learned from the Japanese way of packaging watermelons – using carton paper boxes. This packaging, while more expensive, helped keep the quality. In those days oranges from the U.S. were also packed in (wooden) crates.