{"id":362608,"date":"2026-03-28T11:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T11:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/362608\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T11:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T11:21:14","slug":"jeffrey-lees-extraordinary-museum-of-plush-toys-and-military-memorabilia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/362608\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Lee\u2019s extraordinary museum of plush toys and military memorabilia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Step into Jeffrey Lee\u2019s 10,000 sq ft office-slash-warehouse-slash-personal museum in Kwai Chung, and the first problem is purely logistical: where do you look first?<\/p>\n

The place has the bones of a warehouse \u2013 grey carpet, metal racks, long corridors \u2013 but it\u2019s lit like a slightly feverish ballroom. The light hits glass, plastic and brass; it catches on badges, buttons and the glossy eyes of plush toys.<\/p>\n

\"JeffreyJeffrey Lee\u2019s collection of military uniforms. Photo: Jocelyn TamOne room is dedicated to military uniforms \u2013 a showroom of garment-bagged jackets, mannequins in red ceremonial dress and glass counters spread with patches and medals like jewellery. Another is home to sports memorabilia, ranging from signed football jerseys to team hats. One glass cabinet is stuffed with phones from across the decades: rotary dials, cordless handsets, chunky office sets. It\u2019s one of Lee\u2019s biggest themed collections<\/a>, started 20 years ago. There\u2019s no record of how many pieces there are in total; he does, however, have a system: every time a new item comes in, it is noted in writing.Several spaces are effectively annexes for stuffed toys.<\/a> In a long glass-fronted display, small figurines lined up shoulder to shoulder range from cartoon characters to toy soldiers. Nearby is a landscape of teddy bears and pandas, piled like boulders. Mickey Mouse, Tigger, Winnie the Pooh and a family of Donald Ducks all make an appearance. A cinema, complete with vintage film posters, is temporarily home to the 80 or so oversized stuffed toys Lee won at the AIA Carnival at Central Harbourfront this year alone \u2013 proof, as if any were needed, that the collection is still expanding.\"OversizedOversized soft toys that Jeffrey Lee won while playing the ring toss game. Photo: Jocelyn TamLee, who is chairman of insurance broker firm SFI International, is a fanatic of the ring toss game. \u201cWhen I used to live in the United States, I\u2019d often take my kids to Las Vegas and Reno,\u201d he recalls. At famed casino Circus Circus, \u201cnext to the casino, they\u2019ve got circus acts and these game booths. They set it up that way \u2013 so the adults can go gamble<\/a> and the kids can play\u201d. The children would play a couple of rounds with the US$20 their father had given them and win prizes. Lee, meanwhile, kept playing. \u201cI\u2019d be waiting for them and I\u2019d spend my own US$20 there \u2013 bam, bam, bam.\u201d Then the inevitable escalation: \u201cThey\u2019d go, \u2018Daddy, Daddy, do it with me,\u2019 and I\u2019d be at it for a full three hours.\u201d The outcome is familiar to anyone who has ever tried to win a carnivalesque prize through repetition and stubbornness. \u201cThe whole car would be packed with these plush toys and we\u2019d head home.\u201d\"MoreMore ring toss prizes at Jeffrey Lee\u2019s office-slash-warehouse-slash-personal museum. Photo: Jocelyn Tam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Step into Jeffrey Lee\u2019s 10,000 sq ft office-slash-warehouse-slash-personal museum in Kwai Chung, and the first problem is purely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[337,114,1657,184,3448,85,46,231,43,545,5959,2224,125,208,2711],"class_list":["post-362608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-asia","tag-business","tag-china","tag-economy","tag-hong-kong","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-opinion","tag-south-china-morning-post","tag-sport","tag-technology","tag-us","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}