History in Craftsman's hand
Don’t think just because Louis Ho wears shorts and a tank top that he’s an ordinary artisan. You’ll never guess that in his spare time he uses his pen and a magnifying glass like a sleuth to trace and record some of Hong Kong’s forgotten history.
Louis Ho is the 4th generation owner of a shop that makes pulley block. To continue the family business, he came back to work in the shop after graduating secondary school. In 2000 Louis Ho who had lost interest in wood discovered a new purpose in life. He found in a book a picture of a street that was wrongly captioned. The street in Yaumati was where he grew up in so he knew it very well, and his father also confirmed that he was right. Since then he has believed that it is important to verify history, that he should be as meticulous in researching history as he is in doing his work. He went on to trace the history of his own shop and also that of the Red Brick House. His passion actually helped to preserve this historical building.
Even now he occasionally writes articles for newspapers, putting on record some of Hong Kong’s history that is rarely known.
Having been tracing Hong Kong’s history for over a decade, Louis Ho and his like-minded friends feel that history is the soul of a place, without a soul a place will just be a shell. If no one continues to dig up our history, Hong Kong’s past will slowly become a blur and eventually disappear from the minds of the next generation.
不要單看何國標身穿笠衫短褲,以為他是一般工匠，猜不到工餘時間他會執起筆和放大鏡，
像私家偵探般追查及記錄一些香港被遺忘的歷史。
何國標是一律囉木店的第四代傳人，為了承繼家族生意，中學畢業後便回店內工作。
在2000年，對木頭已麻木的何國標發現了自己的興趣，他在一本書上，
發現其中一張舊照片的街道標題錯了，正確的街道正正就是在他長大的油麻地，
所以他非常熟悉亦得到爸爸確認，從此令他認為歷史是不可以有錯的，
追尋歷史和他的工作一樣，要有一絲不苟的精神和態度。之後，他找尋自己店鋪的歷史，
同年他追尋歷史的熱情更令紅磚屋保存下來。
直至現在他也不定期在報紙投稿，主要記錄低他搜尋過一些少為人知的香港歷史。
在尋找舊香港的十多年，何國標與一班愛好歷史的人也體會到，
歷史是一個地方的靈魂，沒有歷史就只剩下軀殼，
若再沒有人去發掘去記錄歷史的話，
香港便會在下一代腦中漸漸迷糊，漸漸消失。
