1. From Water Meters to Retail (1926)
The story of Shui Hing (瑞興) begins far from Hong Kong, on the island of Mauritius, where founder Koo Shui-ting (古瑞庭) was born into a family already running an imported-goods business. In the early 1920s, Koo returned to his ancestral village in Guangdong to marry — but wartime chaos left him stranded in British-ruled Hong Kong.
Unable to return home, Koo took a job as a civil servant with the Water Supplies Department, reading household water meters. On the side, he and several friends pooled their savings to open a small general store. In 1926, that store formally became Shui Hing Department Store, opening its doors in Central.
2. Wartime Growth and Japanese Occupation
Shui Hing's early growth was, unexpectedly, driven by crisis: as refugees poured into Hong Kong to escape unrest on the mainland through the 1930s, the store's customer base — and business — expanded rapidly.
That growth wasn't without controversy. In November 1937, amid rising anti-Japanese sentiment following Japan's invasion of China, Shui Hing became caught up in a public dispute over selling Japanese-made goods. Then, on 8 December 1941, the Pacific War reached Hong Kong directly — the territory fell to Japanese forces, and Shui Hing's operations were interrupted for the duration of the occupation.
Koo Shui-ting did not live to see the business rebuilt: he died of heart disease in 1946, shortly after the war's end. Leadership passed to his son, Koo Sing-cheung (古勝祥), who would guide the company through its most ambitious decades.
3. Kowloon's First Christmas Lights (1965)
Shui Hing's most memorable contribution to Hong Kong culture had nothing to do with retail sales figures. In 1965, the company led a coalition of shops and businesses in Tsim Sha Tsui, with support from the Urban Council and sponsorship from China Light & Power, to string Christmas lights along the street lamps of Nathan Road.
The display ran from the Peninsula Hotel to Granville Road, and was switched on in a public lighting ceremony on 4 December. It was the very first time Hong Kong had seen Christmas lights on a public road — a tradition that would go on to define the city's winter streetscape for decades to come.
4. Expansion, Japanese Competition, and Decline
The 1970s brought rapid diversification: Shui Hing launched its own supermarket chain, Shui Wing (瑞榮超級市場), expanded operations as far as Singapore, and listed on the stock exchange.
But the ground was shifting beneath Hong Kong's home-grown department stores. In 1960, Daimaru (大丸) became the first Japanese department store to open in the territory, introducing shoppers to a strikingly different retail experience and putting real competitive pressure on local rivals. Shui Hing's original Central store closed in the early 1970s as a direct result. More Japanese chains followed — Matsuzakaya (松坂屋) opened in Causeway Bay in 1975, with Mitsukoshi and Sogo arriving in the following decade.
In 1990, Shui Hing opened a second Kowloon branch in Mong Kok's Wai Fung Centre — taking over ground-to-third-floor space previously occupied by Wing On. But the wider retail landscape kept shifting toward shopping malls through the 1990s, and Shui Hing eventually exited the department store business entirely, being delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under its former stock code, 0241.HK.
The Shui Hing Group still exists today as a diversified Hong Kong conglomerate — spanning property, finance, and leisure — but its retail chapter closed decades ago, leaving behind mostly memories: the smell of a Central storefront, and a string of lights on Nathan Road that changed how the city celebrated winter.
