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Printer keeps pressing on in the old-fashioned way

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Lana Lam

The moment you step into the Happy Printing shop on Pok Man Street, you are transported back in time.

Four large hand-powered printing presses dominate the room with ink-soaked rags and towers of coloured paper filling the spaces in between.

The walls are filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves housing traditional letter punches, made from lead - the key components for the star of the shop, a Heidelberg Original press, known by printers as the 'Prince of Presses'.

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The other star of the shop is owner Kwan Wing-cheuk, 69, who has been churning out receipts, invoices, letterheads and pamphlets for more than 35 years with the help of Ou San-ying, his 64-year-old wife.

'There are not many people that do this old-fashioned style of printing now,' Kwan said, standing among stacks of string-bound orders.

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Kwan, who moved from Hoi Ping, Guangdong province, to Hong Kong when he was 16, bought the second-hand Heidelberg in 1977 for HK$30,000, the same price for a flat back then, and has been making his mark on the neighbourhood since.

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