HISTORY – The Bustling Hong Kong of 1947: Historical Photos from Mark Kauffman


Mark Kauffman was an award winning photographer for Life Magazine. At 17, he was the youngest person to ever shoot a cover for the publication, where he remained as a staff photographer for 30 years. He died in 1994.

The crystal-clear shots below were taken by Kauffman in 1947, two years after the Japanese occupation of HK ended. They depict busy streets, the cricket club, the statue of Queen Victoria awaiting re-installation after retrieval from Japan and some more recognisable scenes such as trams and bamboo scaffolding.

Normality returned very quickly to post-war HK, though it was also a period in which Britain realised it could no longer run its colonies as it once did. Restrictions on Chinese people using certain beaches or owning assets on The Peak were dropped as immigration from China boomed…

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