Hong Kong toy tycoon’s success story begins with the yellow rubber duck

Long before the giant, inflatable rubber duck floated into Victoria Harbour, in 2013, the original, miniature version – just as yellow and buoyant – arrived with a quack in Hong Kong.

“My duck represents a typical Lion Rock story of how we built a global empire from nothing,” says Lam Leung-tim, now aged 91, about his 1948 pet project.

Known as LT Lam in industry circles, the nonagenarian is the sole surviving toy-industry pioneer from the city’s post-war era. With numerous accolades under his belt, the latest being the Industrialist of the Year Award 2015 (to be presented by the Federation of Hong Kong Industries on Tuesday), Lam is proud to see the third generation of his family join his business, Forward Winsome Industries, the history of which can be traced back to 1947.

The father of Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung – the member of the Executive and Legislative councils who infamously scuppered electoral reform in June by leading the walkout of pro-Beijing legislators ahead of the vote – he may be, but Lam Snr is also known as the “Father of Transformers in China”, after the robotic toy he introduced to the nation, and, of course, for that little duck he brought into existence more than six decades ago.

“MY FATHER WAS THE SECOND child of 12 in Nanhai, near Foshan, in Guangdong province, and came to Hong Kong in 1905,” Lam begins, speaking in a conference room surrounded by toys at Chai Wan’s Eltee Building – which is named after his initials. “After four years he returned to get married and then brought his newlywed to Hong Kong, where he worked as a live-in cook.”

When Lam was born, on March 30, 1924, at a hospital in Wan Chai, his father was a chef at the residence of the general manager of American Express: the mansion at 14 Old Peak Road, in Mid-Levels.

“I got my first toy there, when I was four, and it was a ping-pong ball. But I accidentally sat on it and crushed it; I cried bitterly,” Lam laughs.