Law Pui

Law Pui said even though he was not well educated – with only a few months’ study in Mainland China and never took any subject of mechanics, he was able to find ways to improve the making of battery cores on his own.  At that time, workers usually pressed and flatten the top of the cores, but that would cause a loss of electricity.  Law Pui pressed the core into dome shapes, and solved the problem.  That earned him the boss’s compliments. Hing Wah Battery Factory had many departments.  The machinery department alone was sub-divided into machine parts department, assembly department, and so on.  Sometimes when the drawing department designed a battery unit, they would seek the opinion of the maintenance technicians.  Therefore, Law thought that the maintenance technicians of Hing Wah made significant contributions to the business. After Law Pui arrived in Hong Kong, he studied for a few months in an evening school. When the Communist Party rose to power, the boss did not want the workers to have any contact with trade unions, so Law no longer continued with his study.  At that time, the evening school was located near Nelson Street, offering mainly Mandarin classes.

(Editor's note: In 1973, there was a period of mass resignations at Hing Wah Battery Factory. Since the factories ordered laminating machines from the USA and introduced American technology in making alkaline batteries, many manual processes were eliminated.  Coupled with the fact that the battery industry began to develop in Mainland China, Hong Kong factories’ productivity gradually decreased because the wages and raw materials were less competitive than China’s.  Many people resigned including veteran staff like Law Pui.)

Law Pui has four brothers, and he is the oldest of all.  His mother and father passed away when he was 8 and 16 years old respectively.  Therefore, he and his four brothers supported each other as they grew up together.  His two cousins (a son and a daughter of his uncle) also lost their parents in their early age, so they lived with the four brothers.  Law Pui treated them as his own biological siblings.  Later, Law Pui, his cousins, and one of his elder brothers were introduced by an aunt to work in Hing Wah.  That aunt was originally a domestic worker at Hing Wah boss’s home, but was invited by the boss to join Hing Wah.  The first to join the factory was Law Pui’s older brother, thereafter followed by Law Pui himself.  Both of them joined before 1949, while the two cousins only joined after that.  One of the cousins (the girl) worked at the pharmacy at first and was later posted to another department that manufactured electric hybrid glue. The other cousin was assigned the same responsibility as Law Pui, which was to produce black compound and pressing the battery cores.  Because of outstanding performance, he was promoted to become a foreman.  The four of them did not live together or got on and off work together, but they did all live near Reclamation Street.  Though the four of them worked for Hing Wah, they did not have lunch together because all male workers had meals with their department colleagues, while the female workers did not eat lunch inside the canteen.

In the past, Law Pui made a living by farming. He owned 40 to 50 acres of land in the countryside and had a comfortable life. He pointed out that they did not intend to stay in Hing Wah for long; they were only looking to make money to buy water pumps for irrigating agricultural land for other people in the hometown.  Little did they expect that the Communist Party would rule China in 1949, so they decided not to return home.  Had the rise of the Communist regime come two years later, he was very likely to have been back at home already. A work day at Hing Wah was 11 hours long, making life harder than it was in the countryside.

12pm was lunch time. Since Law Pui was a permanent staff, he could eat in the canteen. When the plant first opened in Mong Kok, it did not have a formal canteen.  The factory set up a temporary canteen in the courtyard for workers to have lunch.  It did not get a formal canteen until it moved to To Kwa Wan.  During lunchtime, the canteen could be filled with more than 100 people.  Each table could sit about 10 people. The machine department along occupied five tables, that and speaks to how many employees that department had.  The main dishes in those days were relatively simple ones like stir-fried vegetables and steamed fish. The most common dish was beef with fried beans, also known by the workers as ""devilish cow king"". During the one-hour lunchtime, workers sometimes played football on the streets in front of the factory gate where there were no cars. After Law Pui moved to San Po Kong , he bought an old car, so he sometimes took advantage of lunchtime to take care of his car.

Hing Wah workers and maintenance technicians sometimes had to work overtime or even overnight. When Law Pui first started at Mong Kok Road plant, he had once gone back at 4am and work until 10pm.  Sometimes, if the factory doors were not yet open, the workers would play football outside.  In general, if the machine maintenance technicians found that a machine requires repair, they need to prepare the parts and assign all works before 7pm, and then go to complete the repair.  They must finish no later than 5am. The work days started at 7am, so they had to return the fixed machines back to the plant before that time. When the technicians did not need to work overtime, they would leave at 7pm. Most of the workers and the technicians were 20-30 years old. They would play football on the roads outside the factory after work, and sometimes simply had dinner at the factory canteen.  However, the majority of male workers got married later and had their own families, so they played football less and less frequently.

Since it was easy for the factory chimney to catch fire, the factory ran fire drills regularly. One year, a fire broke out in a plastic factory in Cheong Wah Factory Building next door. Hing Wah staff immediately set up a water pipe to fight the fire once they got notified of it through the phone.

(Editor's note: Law Pui recalled he worked overtime most frequently from 1952 to 1953 during his career at Hing Wah.  At that time, Indonesia needed a large amount of batteries, so the factory always needed to run overtime.  Workers' income greatly increased as a result.  Overtime pay equals to one shift or two shifts’ pay.  The factory always paid double to the employees as a bonus.  Besides, if a worker had to work all night, he or she would get the next day off. During those two years, the factory found that the productivity was quite limited at Mong Kok plant, so workers often had to work overtime. It was therefore decided to move the plant to To Kwa Wan. The floor area was enlarged and newer machines were purchased.)

Hing Wah plant was divided into front and rear blocks.  The front block was four storeys high and the rear one had six storeys.  The second and third floors of both blocks were interconnected.  The two blocks had a total of 10 floors.  The building only had a freight elevator. 

The front block was L-shaped, whereas the rear one was U-shaped.  At its highest, Hing Wah had more than one thousand employees.  The machine department alone had 60-70 people working.  The fourth floor was the kitchen, and the third floor was the office and a place for making paper tubes and packaging.  The second floor was a place for boxing and filling electro fluid as well as a warehouse for finished products.  The finished products would be transported to the ground for final packing before being delivered out.

The rear block was built three years after the factory moved to To Kwa Wan, when it was realised that the front block was running out of space.  The fourth, fifth and sixth floors were places for producing 9-Watt batteries.  The sixth was also equipped with large crane which could lift large objects to the sixth floor when necessary.  The third was a place for the production of black compound.  The second level of both the front and rear blocks were for boxing.  Zinc shells were made on the ground-level workshop.

(Editor's note: Law Pui thought that Hing Wah factory’s environment on its Mong Kok Road plant was very poor. It had a piece of waste land in its front and the place was dark and small. The new plant in To Kwa Wan was comparatively better ventilated, and the workers were in higher spirit. Although it was not air-conditioned, it had a lot of fans and exhaust fans, making it a much better environment than that on Mong Kok Road.)

Normally, workers were able to join Hing Wah battery factory workers because of the referral of their relatives.  Maintenance technicians were no exceptions.  Law Pui pointed out that some technicians were even the boss’s relatives.  Although joining Hing Wah required introduction, the factory also examined the candidates.  For example, workers interested in joining the cutting department were tested by the factory to check their skill level.  Females wanting to get employed must be able lift 100 pounds of cargo with another partner.  Most male workers were from Shunde (such as the town of Daliang); some came from Zhongshan and other places.  There were not that many Chaozhou people. Most maintenance technicians joined when they were 20-30 years old - many of them had just completed their full training and had worked in other factories before. The factory generally did not recruit older people. At that time, the machine department’s foreman was named Leung Chang.  Anyone who wished to introduce a friend or relative into the factory must first seek his consent.

After Hing Wah moved to To Kwa Wan, the maintenance department also started to hire trainees. The trainees did not have a specifically fixed duration of training.  It all depended on the trainee’s learning abilities. Outstanding trainees would be given continuous pay rise and be assigned to various departments after training was completed.  When Law Pui was the maintenance supervisor, he also mentored some trainees.  The trainees were generally regarded as permanent staff, and paid on a monthly basis.  Most of the technicians had their own family, and they lived all around Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, in districts such as Sham Shui Po, Aberdeen and Tai Po.  In those years, Hing Wah did not provid shuttle bus for the workers.

There were three relatively more famous battery factories around To Kwa Wan, namely, Hing Wah battery factory on To Kwa Wan Road, Kai It Battery Factory on Mok Cheong Street, as well as Mindex Battery Works which moved to Lei Yue Mun from its early site in San Po Kong. Law Pui knew more about Mindex Battery Works because their boss had connections with the boss of Hing Wah.  Law Pui even knew the technicians from Mindex, with whom he still got in touch after he retired.  As for Kai It Battery Factory, Law had less contact with them and hence did not know much about them.

Law Pui pointed out that each factory had its own secret of making batteries. When some workers changed from another factory to Hing Wah, Law saw that as an act betrayal. There was no communication between technicians in different factories. They only worked according to the battery charts given to them. The charts were different from factory and factory, so there was no need for interflow. Hing Wah’s drawing department and finished product department had a lot of labour power. When the technicians wanted to buy some larger parts, they had to give prior notice to the drawing department. Small parts were manufactured by Hing Wah’s own technicians.

As for the purchase of machinery, the Hing Wah imported mostly from overseas.  For example, the cutting machines were mostly purchased in Germany and the comb binding machine for encapsulating battery cores were from the USA. Law Pui said he learnt to operate the machines through his own efforts and study. He did not need the foreigner suppliers to send people to instruct him at the factory plant. Aside from imported machinery, Hing Wah also bought local injection moulding machines to make battery shell. However, the factory had to assemble them and look for the moulds.

(Editor's note: The hill behind Hing Wah battery factory was often reported to be haunted. The workers panicked every time they had to work overtime. Law Pui did not believe in supernatural beings so he worked at night and went back and forth between the ground floor and third floor without fear.)

Battery factories faced the problem of pollution. Hing Wah workers were free to decide whether or not to wear masks.  Law Pui’s fingernails were also soiled by battery’s black compound.  Compared to other places of work, Hing Wah’s cell-making room was very noisy.  At its peak, the machines could make around 300 cells every minute.  If the machine did not have any problem, it would operate for a long time and therefore making great noises. The factory was filled with a sulphated smell risen from the production of battery cells.  Having worked at Hing Wah for many years, Law Pui had already accustomed to that smell.