Kwok Kwai King

Kwok Kwai King found the job at Poon Lee Garment Factory from an advertisement on the street.  The factory was hiring 10 overlock stitching workers and those who answered the advertisement were of similar age to Kwok’s (around 18 to 19 years old).  They did not know each other at first, but later they got along very well.  Overlock stitching was an emerging technique.  All ten of the new workers were novices, who learnt the technique from Mr Hui.  There was no basic salary during the learning period.  Oftentimes, they had to remake the shirts that were returned from the examination section.  Her fellow co-workers would all be tearful when that happened.  Kwok Kwai King learnt seriously and was thankful to Mr Hui for his attentive guidance.   

From 1964 to 1967, Kwok Kwai King assumed the duty as the provider for the family.  Her initial daily wage at Poon Lee was just over one dollar.  Later, her income rose to 110-120 dollars every two weeks.  The cost of living was lower in those days: rent was only a few dozen dollars.  Therefore, she could still afford the daily expenses.  She would split the payment she got from the first two weeks into two shares - one for food and the other for rent.  The second payment from another two weeks of a month would also be divided into two - one for food and the other for her son’s tuition.  In 1967, she left Poon Lee.  That year her fourth daughter was born and there was the 1967 riot.  These happenings made her life harder.  

When the youngest daughter was born in 1970, Kwok Kwai King stayed at home to do beading work until the daughter entered kindergarten.  She then went to work at Hung Min established by Mr Hui next to the Kowloon City Ferry Pier.  Mr Hui contacted her through her ex-co-workers and invited her back.  He suggested to enrol her daughter into morning classes at kindergarten and also allowed Kwok to leave early to pick her daughter up from school.  Kwok’s youngest daughter went to morning classes at a kindergarten in Wearbest Building behind the Jockey Club off-course betting branch, starting at 9.00am each day.  Kwok had to leave the factory at 12.15pm to pick her daughter up after school and make lunch for her.   At 2.00pm, she would return to the factory.  Before she left, she would put this little girl to afternoon nap and ask the landlord to keep an eye on her until the other two sons came home from school at 3.30pm.  Her other two daughters went to afternoon classes.  

At 7.00am, Lok Shan Road was already filled with food carts selling garlic chive cakes, waffles, soup noodles, sesame soup, and dried bean curd.  When breakfast hours passed after 10.00am, all the carts would disappear from the streets.  Some hawkers came back at 12.00pm, selling tea, coffee, instant noodles, etc.  Other served beef brisket, fried fish and other easily cooked dishes.  Some of the workers would have pizza and soy milk.  At about 2.00pm, the stalls would close again.  During the night, many mobile vegetable stalls would gather near the junction of To Kwa Wan Road and Lok Shan Road.  They purposefully did business at that time so that the factory workers could pick up groceries on their way home.   

Kwok Kwai King worked two jobs during her time with Hung Min.  In the evening, she worked a night shift at a cottage industry. After Kwok Kwai King cooked for the children at 8.00pm, she would go to work at the night shift until 1.00am.  Looking back, she was very surprised at how she could live through these harsh days.  The workers at the small factory were all hard-working and would return to work after dinner.  Six or seven of the sewing stations were filled.  Overlock-stitching workers were especially in shortage, so the bosses asked Kwok Kwai King to come to the shift whenever a deadline was close.  In fact, she worked night shifts for about 20 days per month. 

In fact, before entering Mei See Garment Factory, Kwok Kwai King's friends in the industry had introduced her to work as a subcontractor at a shirt factory in San Po Kong.  This factory made men's Arrow Shirt in mass production, with a production volume of around 5,000 dozens of shirts per day.  There were 12 sets of overlock-stitching machines and the labour cost for each dozen of shirts was 10 cents. This production volume required at least 10 workers in the stitching section, but Kwok Kwai King thought she could only find 5-6 workers.  She declined the offer because she thought she could not meet the production target.  Looking back, she thought she was not ambitious enough and lost this golden opportunity of making more money.