Lawrence Chan Wing-luen began his working life helping test plane parts for Boeing during the Vietnam War. Luckily for toy-crazy kids all over the world, he did not pursue that career.
The mechanical engineer set up Wynnewood Corp in 1972 with his brothers, building it into one of the world's leading toymakers.
The collection of toys at his office in Kwun Tong not only reflects Chan's career, but also the boom and bust times of Hong Kong's toy industry over the past 38 years.
Starting in the 1970s as the producer of cheap but cheerful plastic dolls, toy guns and cars, Hong Kong's toymakers are now making increasingly sophisticated electronic products. Most of the city's toymakers have since the 1980s relocated their factories across the border to the mainland to take advantage of cheaper labour and land.
Chan, the chairman and chief executive of Wynnewood, is backing Beijing's push to get the toymakers to step up the 'value chain' further amid tougher requirements for safer and better-quality toys.
Back in the 1970s, Wynnewood was producing simple plastic toys and magic cups, which magnified images once filled with water, with 50 workers at a factory near the existing Kwun Tong office.
Now the range of products Chan proudly displays include best-sellers such as a break-resistant digital camera, a toy palm pilot, a chubby frog which teaches English letters and an accurately-toned-to-scale xylophone.
