Wong was born in Tianjin, China in 1925. He launched his career in Hong Kong after moving there in 1956. Originally drawn as a means to support his family, his comic strips went on to become hugely influential among Chinese-speaking communities around the world.
His most iconic character, Old Master Q, first appeared in 1961. The cartoons were seen as faithfully chronicling the lives of the working class in Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s, when the economy was about to take off, and society was under the growing influence of Western culture.
Sometimes lazy and petty-minded, Old Master Q is a flawed character which resonated with readers in the Chinese-speaking world. His kind heart is one of his redeeming qualities. Most of Wong’s comic strips did not have any captions, but their humour touched the hearts of many.
Old Master Q – or Lao Fu Zi – has two best friends: Big Potato and Mr Chin, as well as a love interest, Ms Chan.
Old Master Q has not much luck in love as the beautiful, fashionable Miss Chan never seemed to return his affections. The female lead character was inspired by Wong’s wife, whose maiden name was Chan. But in real life the couple were happily married and raised three sons together.
Alfonso Wong’s pen name Wong Ze is actually the real name of his eldest son. Trained as an architect, Joseph Wong Ze – seen here – started to take over his father’s work in 1995. The two denied allegations that Wong plagiarised the character of Master Q from another Tianjin artist, Feng Pengdi.
Wong’s work has come to play a key role in Hong Kong popular culture. In 2012, during Hong Kong’s election for the chief executive, this photo parodying the three candidates – who all have an uncanny resemblance to the Old Master Q characters – went viral.
Old Master Q has morphed over the years into a sprawling franchise across South East Asia, with its own merchandise, themed restaurant and movies. New comic strips, reflecting more modern themes, are still being created by his son and read by children and adults.
Wong died of organ failure on 1 January in the US, at the age of 93. „My life is like a comic strip,“ he once said. „I make Old Master Q, actually myself, do all the tricks to entertain the readers. „

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Visitors have been enjoying a new floating walkway on the Hongshui River in China’s Guizhou Province.
Covering an area of 54,000 sq m, it’s hoped the path will attract more tourists to the region in the winter months.

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British number one Johanna Konta continued her good start to 2017 by reaching the semi-finals of the Shenzhen Open in China.
Konta beat world number 60 Kristyna Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-4 6-7 (11-13) 6-3.
Her next opponent will be another Czech, Katerina Siniakova, who beat Serbian Nina Stojanovic 6-3 6-4.
Siniakova caused a surprise in the second round by defeating second seed Simona Halep.
Konta looked in control early on against her opponent – the twin sister of world number six Karolina Pliskova – as she took the first set with a single break of serve.
Neither player could force a break point in the second set and in the resulting tie-break Konta wasted two match points before the big-serving Pliskova levelled the match on her fifth set point.
But Konta stayed firm in the final set, claiming the break and reaching the semi-final on her fifth match point.
„I am very happy to have extended my stay here,“ she said.
„She is one of the best servers on tour so I knew I was going to have a hard time on her service games. I was very happy I was able to get that break in the third and see it out in the end. “
Basketball Open Session
Silver Thursday – Academy of Sport, (Sports Centre) London South Bank University

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SEOUL, Jan. 5 (UPI) — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi voiced his opposition to the deployment of a U. S. missile defense system on the Korean peninsula during a meeting with South Korea opposition party lawmakers in Beijing on Wednesday.
The meeting, which took place as Seoul is preparing to move forward with THAAD deployment in coordination with U. S. Forces Korea, addressed possible boycotts against South Korean companies and pop artists that have raised concerns, South Korean television network MBC reported Thursday.
Rep. Song Young-gil of South Korea’s Minjoo Party, who met with Wang, said there was a „tacit understanding“ between the two sides that the boycott against K-Pop artists was in some part a response to South Korea’s decision to deploy THAAD.
Wang has also refused to meet with the South Korean ambassador to Beijing, and Ambassador Kim Jang-soo was denied a meeting with a Chinese senior official in charge of North Korea affairs.
South Korean analyst Shin Sang-jin at Kwangwoon University has said the Korean government would not welcome the recent meeting between Korea’s political opposition and the Chinese foreign minister because Seoul sees the encounter as an opening for China’s strategic intentions to intervene in Korean politics.
Other analysts have said Beijing is looking for an opportunity to deter South Korea from its longstanding commitment to the security alliance it retains with the United States and Japan, according to MBC.
Beijing’s foreign ministry issued a statement on THAAD deployment in South Korea on Thursday, according to Korean news service Money Today.
Beijing said that while it „understands the South Korean side is trying to protect the security of the nation and its people … China is against the enforcement of THAAD that would incur losses for China’s strategic security. “
Seoul is moving ahead with the deployment and is expected to complete the land exchange with conglomerate Lotte, which owns the golf course in Seongju where the missile defense system is to be deployed.
THAAD could be deployed as early as May 2017, according to News 1.

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China’s yuan climbed at its fastest pace against the greenback in a year in offshore trade Thursday, offering some relief to a currency bedeviled by capital outflow concerns recently.
On Thursday, dollar was fetching as little as 6.8071 yuan in intraday, offshore trade, the pair’s lowest since November. On Wednesday, the dollar/yuan pair had its largest drop in a year in the offshore market, falling from as high as 6.9688 to as low as 6.8658.
In part, that reflected the yuan’s climb onshore , as well as move by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to set its yuan mid-point at 6.9307 against the dollar, down from 6.9526 on Wednesday.
China’s central bank does not allow the currency to move more than 2 percent from its daily fixing in onshore trade. While policymakers cannot closely control offshore trade of the currency, it usually remains relatively close to its onshore counterpart.
On Thursday, the difference between the onshore and offshore trade was stark. Onshore, the dollar was fetching 6.8952 yuan.
But analysts noted that the offshore yuan’s move was also driven by mainland policymakers‘ apparent efforts to tighten capital controls.
China regulators introduced new rules, which will take effect in July, requiring financial institutions on the mainland to report domestic and overseas cash transactions of more than 50,000 yuan (around $7,217), down from 200,000 yuan previously, Reuters reported.
Starting from January 1, the country’s foreign-exchange regulator also planned to step up scrutiny on foreign-currency purchases, Reuters reported.
Additionally, overnight Hibor, or the Hong Kong interbank offered rate, for the offshore yuan, was pushed higher, reaching as high as 17.76 percent on Tuesday, before slipping to around 16.95 percent on Wednesday. On Thursday, Reuters reported the rate was set at 38.335 percent.
Mirza Baig, head of foreign exchange and interest rate strategy for Asia at BNP Paribas, said that level, similar to what would be seen in economically troubled Brazil, served up a punitive interest rate on any short renminbi position in the offshore-yuan market.
„That high cost of funding combined with more measures to restrict capital outflows“ buoyed the yuan, noted Baig.
Economists at Citi also pointed to short-covering in the offshore yuan.
„We have often pointed out that tight offshore-yuan funding is a low-cost option for authorities to shake out speculative offshore-yuan shorts — because it poses a negligible risk to the mainland economy — and can thus be persisted with for longer than investors anticipate,“ Citi said in a note dated late Wednesday U. S. time.
It noted that shorting the offshore yuan — or taking a long dollar/offshore yuan position — had become „rather expensive. “
The analysts cited several reasons for the sudden resilience of the offshore yuan.
„The widely-held view that pressure on the renminbi would intensify at the start of the year is being rapidly reassessed amidst persistently high funding costs in the offshore yuan, reports suggesting U. S. dollar sales by state-owned enterprises, stricter monitoring of capital outflows, and an apparent change in methodology for setting the daily dollar/yuan midpoint,“ Citi said.
In a previous note, Citi has said that policymakers appeared to be setting the midpoint for a slightly stronger yuan than would be suggested by the currency’s trade-weighted basket.
The mainland’s currency has recently become a source of political tension with the U. S., with President-elect Trump vowing during his campaign to label the country a currency manipulator for the purposes of a competitive trade advantage and threatening to impose a 45 percent tariff on its exports to the U. S.
In the wake of the Trump win, the yuan fell to nearly eight year lows against the dollar, touching its weakest since at least January 2009, during the global financial crisis. But analysts attributed the slide primarily to the strength of the dollar, with the dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, surging to a 14-year high after the election.
Some analysts had noted that, based on currency movements within the yuan’s trade-weighted basket, policymakers appeared to be supporting the yuan somewhat.
Analysts generally don’t expect the yuan will continue to climb much against the dollar, even as the country faced the likelihood that capital outflows would remain relatively high.
Geoff Lewis, global market strategist at Manulife Asset Management, told CNBC’s „Squawk Box“ on Thursday that he expected the yuan to fall around 4-5 percent against the dollar this year, a slower pace of depreciation than 2016’s around 7 percent.
„I think what we’re talking about here is a renminbi which weakens in line with other currencies. There’s no harm in that. I don’t think Beijing will try and resist that,“ Lewis said.
„The capital account is relatively poor,“ he said, but he added, „China still has enough reserves to prevent the renminbi from crashing. “
He noted that while there were concerns that the mainland’s foreign-exchange reserves might fall below the psychological $3 trillion mark, he didn’t attach much real significance to psychological levels as $3 trillion was still a sizable pot.
In November, China’s foreign reserves fell to $3.052 trillion, a nearly six-year low, Reuters reported. December’s data were due on Saturday.
Lewis wasn’t alone in shrugging off the upcoming data.
„I think it is not of huge significance to the market, because it does not convey the full picture of Chinese authorities‘ intervention in the foreign-exchange market,“ BNP Paribas‘ Baig said. „This is partial information and it has become a less important market driver. The market does not move on this number much anymore. “
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