Meet the little-known “jokes collector” who wrote about Hong Kong’s little-known history, culture and society.

Relative obscurity in one language group and near-universal name recognition in another has always been a hallmark of writing about Hong Kong. Since the colony’s beginnings in the mid-19th century, local history enthusiasts of various stripes have tended to work in parallel oblivion, with little overlap between Chinese and English research. Exceptions exist; Lo Hsiang-lin and his innovation Hong Kong and Western cultures (1963) remain a rare early example of successful readership crossover. However, these outliers confirm the general rule of mutual exclusivity.

Lo Kam in his youth. Photo: courtesy of Ko Tim Keung

This local mystery is best personified by the veteran journalist Leung Tol (1924–1995). Known in Chinese-literate Hong Kong as Lo Kam, Leung has written extensively on a variety of topics for decades. Although still widely known to the general public, Lo Kam nevertheless remains almost completely unknown outside Chinese language circles.

Lo Kam, often referred to as the “collector of jokes”, wrote quirky columns in popular Chinese-language newspapers that covered then little-known aspects of Hong Kong’s history, culture and society. Lo Kam’s interests were wide-ranging; One article could explore a long-forgotten shop on a back street in Kowloon, along with the exact details of who owned it, where it came from, what the business sold, why it was famous locally for a time, who its main clientele is why the business eventually closed, and people living nearby still have memories of what once seemed like a permanent local institution. In half a page, Law managed to accurately recreate a missing fragment of former times and places.

Cover of Hong Kong Anecdotes by Lo Kam. Photo: courtesy of Ko Tim Keung

Other local interest columnists came and went, but for Chinese-speaking readers, Lo Kam remained the gold standard by which all others were judged. Through such popular historical writings, which are generally considered of little value by “serious” scholars and researchers, he aroused the curiosity of two generations of Hong Kong residents about aspects of their own history, culture and society that might otherwise have not interested them.

Up until the 1990s, local history was considered an unusual minority interest, attracting groups of amateur enthusiasts with a wide range of research abilities. While formal academia gradually developed a more professional study of Hong Kong through the work of pioneering academic historians at various institutions of higher learning, interest among the general public lagged behind. Topics that were almost the exclusive domain of hobbyists in the 1990s have become mainstream academic research and publications by the late 2010s, and continue to grow.

Cover of Lo Kam's book The History of Cantonese Opera. Photo: courtesy of Ko Tim Keung — Cover of Lo Kam’s book The History of Cantonese Opera. Photo: courtesy of Ko Tim Keung

Quiet devotion to promoting local history tends to go unrewarded and unrewarded, and offers no path to personal wealth – especially in Hong Kong – or anything like a secure income or future retirement plan. Described by one long-time friend as “an old-style writer/journalist dedicated to his craft, Lo Kam wrote until the very end of his life, which was quite surprising since he was not that old. And he had to fight most of his life to survive.” But nevertheless, such enthusiasts did what they did because they considered their work meaningful and therefore continued to work quietly, receiving little recognition and less financial reward. And as a result, Hong Kong has become a much richer place intellectually than it otherwise might have been.