Everything tagged "China"

Even though HCHC was taken over by Internatio in 1948, people kept referring to the company as Holland-China Trading Company. This group photo was taken for the occasion of senior manager Philip Harding Klimanek (front row, sixth from the left) leaving the company. Charles Gesner van der Voort can be found front row, first from the left, his wife Nancy third from the left. Phil Beekmeijer and his wife Ans are third row, first and second from the left.
<Read more ...>

Philip Harding Klimanek (1883-1965) was born in the Czech Republic, at the time his place of birth was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In ca. 1905 he started to work for Holland-China Trading Company, in Hong Kong.

In 1939, when Charles Gesner van der Voort arrived in Shanghai to work for the company, he was Charles' superior. In a letter home he wrote: "Played chess with Klimanek in the French Club" [translation Pieter Lommerse, the French Club was Le Cercle Sportif Français, a fashionable place to be in the 1930s and it still exists today]. <Read more ...>

Jan Wesselingh was an employee of Netherlands Harbour Works Co. from Amsterdam, working in Guangzhou (Canton) before WWII and in Hong Kong after WWII. I was brought in contact with two of his sons by Theodor A.R. Strauss, 1988-1993 secretary of Nederlandse Reünisten Vereniging China (NRCV, Dutch Reunists Association China), of which Jan Wesselingh was a member.

Can you please help to find out more about the meaning of the figurines?

More narrative will follow.

Courtesy Wesselingh family archives <Read more ...>

After contacting Theodor A.R. Strauss, 1988-1993 secretary of Nederlandse Reünisten Vereniging China (NRCV, Dutch Reunists Association China) about a detail I found about works performed for Hong Kong Kai Tak airport in 1927 by Netherlands Harbour Works Co., he brought me in contact with two sons of an engineer who worked for the company in the 1930s to 1960s. The eldest son of Jan and Mieke Wesselingh, Hans (J.A.) Wesselingh, had written a document about the story of their parents in China and the younger son Rob Wesselingh sent me additional information via e-mail. <Read more ...>