Wen Choy Bon

At that time, To Kwa Wan was not well developed and no bus travelled across the harbour. As a result, Wen had to go to work by ferry from Wan Chai to Kowloon City, which took about 30 minutes. On the first day at work, his first sight after alighting was the huge plant of Tien Chu Ve-Tsin Factory and many other factories along the roads. Next to the pier was the site of a spinners mill, and was surrounded by battery factories and firecrackers factories. Coca-Cola Bottling Factory was facing Tien Chu Ve-Tsin Factory (i.e. the junction of the Kowloon City Road and Mok Cheong Street). Throngs of workers were bustling during commuting hours. Sung Wong Toi was not yet built into a garden then.

Thanks to the bovine bone factories nearby, To Kwa Wan was always filled with a fault smell. Those factories collected bones from the nearby meat stalls, ground the collected bones into powder and then made fertilizers with it. However, the storage and the production process of the fertilizers attracted many flies, polluting the environment. A slaughterhouse, which was near Tien Chu and now known as Cattle Depot Artist Village, bred cattle, sheep and pigs that would be slaughtered and supplied to the markets after being quarantined. Those domestic animals were imported from Mainland China, some in large trucks or swine trucks, and some by sea. For those shipped by sea, dozens of animals were landed at an exclusive pier (which is now the area of Grand Waterfront and the nearby five streets), herd after herd, and were flocked to the slaughterhouse along Ma Tau Kok Road by the “cowboys”. Droppings of the cattle and pigs were found everywhere along the road, and suffered by the residents in the vicinity.

Numerous factories massed at the northern part of To Kwa Wan. Most were small-scale while a few were large. They hired a large number of workers. Cottage factories were situated on a hill at the back of the Cattle Depot and near the entrance of Kai Tak Tunnel. Those factories were mainly one-storey illegal structures built with zinc-coated sheets, concrete or bricks. Industries included glassworks and others (the sites of the factories still partially exist at the back of the Cattle Depot). Tien Chu and Coca-Cola were two large-scale factories there. Tien Chu operated mainly mechanically while the bottling factory was labour-intensive. The two factories hired hundreds of workers respectively. In lunch hour the workers gathered everywhere on the streets in To Kwa Wan, which was quite bustling.

In the early 1960s, the transportation system in To Kwa Wan was still undeveloped. Besides the cross-harbour ferry, the bus routes, such as Route No. 11, mostly set out from the upper part (Ma Tau Wai Road, Chatham Road, Ma Tau Kok Road), Kowloon Walled City and Kwun Tong. 14-seat mini buses were scarce. But along with the industrial development, many workers were crossing districts for work. The need to travel to To Kwa Wan from elsewhere increased and hence the transportation system developed gradually.

At that time, there were not many houses in To Kwa Wan. Most of them were tenement buildings, and multi-storey buildings were scarce. Workers were mostly from other districts. From 1964 to 1970, public housing estates such as Ma Tau Wai Estate, Chun Seen Mei Chuen and Lok Man Chuen had been built. Residents in other districts then moved to To Kwa Wan, and hence became part of the source of the workers for the factories in To Kwa Wan. Moreover, due to the Chinese Civil War, many people fled to Hong Kong. Those new immigrants who had to rely on their relatives usually moved to To Kwa Wan as it was relatively undeveloped and the rent of a tenement was affordable. They also provided cheap labours for the local factories.

As Hong Kong’s industries flourished, To Kwa Wan greeted its own hey days. In 1962, when Wen arrived in To Kwa Wan for the first time, the local industries were not well developed. In the 1970s, the electronic industry boomed. Factories moved in industrial buildings with air conditioners installed to carry on their production. So, the industries of To Kwa Wan shifted from the northern area to the southern area. The old cottage factories and the ground workshops in the northern area were eliminated and replaced with modern residential buildings. Industrial buildings appeared one by one in the southern area, gathering in the Hoi Sham Area (i.e. the area along Yuk Yat Street). Unlike the industrial areas in Kwun Tong and in Tsuen Wan, the industrial buildings in To Kwa Wan were less spacious and most factories were small to medium enterprises. (Editor note: Wen added that form the 1960s to 1970s, large-scale factories disappeared gradually in the northern part of To Kwa Wan. Eastern Cotton Mills in Mok Cheong Street was the only remaining factory. Those hazardous industries such as the firecrackers factories and the matches factories were outlawed by the government, while Tien Chu, Coca-Cola and other cotton mills closed down one by one. They were replaced with residential buildings such as Wyler Gardens, which was built on the site of Wyler Cotton Mills. Hoi Sham Park and Fishtail Rock were an island while the front of the Yuk Yat Street was a shoal. The two places were combined after reclamation and many industrial buildings were built there.)

To Wen, To Kwa Wan did not have any dominant industry, though it had many different industries. In the 1960s, those more significant industries were found in the ground workshops opposite the Cattle Depot and the Thirteen Streets. For example, garages could be found everywhere. Generally speaking, when there was a certain rising industry in Hong Kong, related factories would then enter To Kwa Wan, forming the phased agglomeration of industries. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, when Wen was still working in Tien Chu, it had supplied chemical raw materials for wig factories and a large number of female workers were gathered to produce wigs. However, the trend was later taken over by the electronic industry and the watch making industry.

In the early 1950s, Wen already got to know FTU in his school days as a body that strived for the workers’ rights and benefits. He had also participated in its activities such as visits to the slums and workmates. These cultivated in him a spirit of serving the community. As a result, when working at Tien Chu, Wen spontaneously joined the Canning and Soy Workers Union, which was afflicted to FTU and located at To Kwa Wan.

In 1964, the FTU Workers’ Club was established at the junction of the Ma Tau Chung Road and Ma Tau Kok Road. Since the Club was near the factory of Tien Chu, Wen often joined the recreational activities held by the Union. Many workers liked to go singing or reading magazines in the Club after lunch, and the Club became the gathering place for workers from different industries. In the 1960s, FTU had mainly organized recreational activities such as singing and dancing classes. In the late 1970s, FTU established the Spare Time Study Centre to provide a platform for further studies for the workers. (Editor’s note: the interviewee added that the Worker’s Club was a ten-storey building, in which many different activities were held, and many interest groups for young people were founded, such as singing class, dancing class, travelling team, football team and table tennis team. Besides, the building also had an assembly hall with a capacity of 400 people for holding general meetings and seminars. There was also a Chinese restaurant in the FTU Preferential Service Centre to serve the workers and the residents nearby in the early years.) FTU was the only organization that protected the worker’s rights by then. Before the emergence of supermarkets, the Union purchased cheap goods in bulk and sold them to the workers at cost values, and hence the Club became an excellent shopping spot for workers. For example, workers usually bought oil, Chinese sausages and other New Year goods from the Union during the Chinese New Year season.

In the 1960s, the labours were divided into the leftist and rightist camps. The leftist unions would hang the five stars red flag while the rightist (Editor’s note: the Hong Kong and Kowloon Trades Union Council) would hang the blue sky with a white sun in the red field flag. There were only the leftist unions in To Kwa Wan, while the rightist unions were mainly located in the Sham Shiu Po and Tsuen Wan districts. Tien Chu Ve-Tsin was a national enterprise established in Shanghai by the father of gourmet powder Wu Yun Chu, and is now afflicted to Shanghai Industrial Investment Company. Therefore, most of the Tien Chu workers joined the Canning and Soy Workers Union, which was leftist. At that time, worker’s unions based in To Kwan Wan included also the Woodwork Carving Worker’s Union and the  Hong Kong & Kowloon Spinning Weaving and Dyeing Trade Workers General Union.

There were two ways to contact the workers at that time, i.e. through individual trade unions or through the Federation of Trade Unions. Every trade union’s main jobs were to contact and serve workers in its own industry. While some workers volunteered to join a union, every trade union had its own full-time staff, committee members and volunteers, who contacted workers by different means such as automatically acting as a bridge for the communication between the union and factory workers. The Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) was formed by representatives of every individual trade union. The FTU established its council and delivered its objectives and policies (such as service and welfare work) to its affiliates through their own representatives. Each affiliate had its own tasks for its particular industry, while the general objectives and tasks of FTU were decided by the FTU council. Externally, FTU maintained a friendly relationship with the local organizations To Kwa Wan, such as martial arts clubs, Kowloon City Residents Association and churches. They supported each other and served the neighbourhood together.

In 1958, FTU had asked the British Hong Kong Government for a plot of land opposite Victoria Park (i.e. the Hong Kong Central Library now) to build a worker’s city hall. However, the application was turned down, so FTU had to be on its own: fundraising, purchasing land, construction, etc. Constrained by funding, the workers’ city hall was sited at the junction of Ma Tau Chung Road and Ma Tau Kok Road in To Kwa Wan because of the cheaper land price. Later, due to the emergence of Hong Kong City Hall, the workers’ city hall was renamed as the Workers’ Club. According to Wen’s speculation, the address of FTU was located at Lockhart Road in Wan Chai and its work mainly concerned the Wan Chai district. Moreover, the liaison and support facilities in Hong Kong Island were more convenient and well developed. Therefore, the plot opposite Victoria Park was an ideal location for the workers’ city hall. But due to the limited funding, FTU could not purchase any property in Hong Kong Island. As a lot of workers inhabited in To Kwa Wan, which was also the central area of Kowloon, and the traffic was quite convenient, To Kwa Wan was a second choice of the site after all. (Editor’s note: the interviewee added that FTU had once sold the unit in the building, which was at the back of the Worker’s Club, in order to get enough funding to construct the Worker’s Club. This proved that FTU was lacking money, and suggested that land price was an important factor for site selection.)

Wen lived and studied in Wan Chai when young, and he had a happy childhood on Southorn Playground. In 1962, after graduating from Senior Secondary Grade 2, he worked at Tien Chu Ve-Tsin factory in To Kwan Wan on his school’s referral. The factory was a large-scale manufacturer of gourmet powder of the Finger Citron brand and also some chemical products. Tien Chu Ve-Tsin factory offered comprehensive benefits. Dorms would be allocated to its married staff members. Wen was married in 1968 and was allocated by the factory a dorm in 164 Ma Tau Wai Road, which was near the dorms in Bailey Street. In 1976 he moved to Tien Hung Building in Ma Tau Kok Road due to the demolition of his dorm. In 1997, he moved to Jubilant Place.

When Wen was living in Tien Hung Building, he witnessed the reconstruction of the nearby Six Streets, i.e. Ma Tau Kok Road, Pak Tai Street, San Shan Road, Pau Chung Street (the four peripheral streets), Sui Lun Street and Wan Cheong Street (the two inner streets). In around 1988, Land Development Corporation, which was under the government and responsible for urban reconstruction, undertook the acquisition of the Six Streets. The Housing Society followed up this reconstruction project. The buildings around the Six Streets were all built after the War and so were at least 50 years old. Also, those buildings were stand-alone tenement buildings with 4 to 6 floors and fragmented ownerships. Residents were mostly from the lower class and were in various living conditions. But the most common situation was 5 or 6 families lived in partitioned flats in a single unit on the same floor. The roof was full of houses too. It was rare for one unit to be occupied by just one family. Moreover, various factories were run inside all the buildings and most were handcrafts and small-scale processing workshops.

Stakeholders who were affected by the reconstruction project included owners, tenants, subtenants, small factories and ground floor shops. The authority concerned had stipulated that only those residents who had moved in before a certain year were eligible for compensation or relocation. As soon as the reconstruction project was gazetted, the government sent officers to the affected area the same morning to conduct a freezing survey and registration. Residents must show proofs of residency. General owners and tenants had some records such as payment of property tax, but those rooftop units had no official address and tax documents. They only relied on the red numbers painted on the door of each unit in the earlier census. However, it was still hard to confirm the identity and length of stay of the rooftop residents, so they could hardly get compensated.

In conclusion, Wen was satisfied with the results. Not only had the owners received compensation based on the price of a 7-year-old property of the same size in the same district, which became the new standard for compensation at that time, the tenants were also relocated in the same district. They moved in the public housing estates of the Housing Society, which included Chun Seen Mei Chuen, Ka Wai Chuen and Lok Man Chuen. Yet some of affected parties were not satisfied with the reconstruction arrangement. For example, the owners of the ground shops were not satisfied with the market-price-based compensation due to the loss of long-established reputation and customer network, which were difficult to be compensated. Neither were those “nailers” who took advantage of the urban renewal satisfied with the compensation. Although conflicts between the government departments and the residents arose, and sometimes the police intervened, most of the residents were satisfied with the work of the Concern Group. Wen gained rich experience of attending meetings and serving the neigbourhood from this reconstruction project, apart from the acquaintance with many residents and friends. His personal network was extended across Chun Seen Mei Chuen, Ka Wai Chuen and Lok Man Chuen, which served as an important cue for his work in the district in the future.

Since most of the To Kwa Wan residents were wage earners and also members of different trade unions affiliated to FTU, to serve the residents meant to serve the workers too. In light of this, FTU combined the two categories when starting its work of serving the community. Although the Ma Tau Kok Six Streets Reconstruction Concern Group was dominated by residents and was not established in the name of FTU, FTU would support the Concern Group by lending meeting venue and assigning some District Council members experienced in district affairs, such as Chan Yuen Han and Wong Kwok Hing, to provide consultations. Having lived and worked near the six streets for many years, Wen was familiar with the neighbourhood, and, due to the possibility of the acquisition of Tien Hung Building, Wen shared the common interests with the neighbourhood. Therefore, out of the interests of himself and others, Wen volunteered took up a leading position in organizing the residents and striving for their rights. At that time, political forces from various regions began to rise. Some political organizations responded to the reconstruction project. Because the Concern Group was supported by FTU, and Wen was familiar with the neighborhood, they soon withdrew from the frontline.

To Wen, the government proposed the reconstruction out of concerns for the public. He agreed that the project would benefit the development of the entire community and help improve the living conditions of the residents. The structural problems of the buildings around the Ma Tau Kok Six Streets could only be solved by reconstruction. Having the common support for reconstruction, Wen then commenced the negotiations with the Government, discussing ways to minimize impacts and ensure that the residents could be benefited from the reconstruction. Concerning the needs of the elderly and the residents in this area, Wen fought for same-area relocation and compensation based on the property price in the same district. That way they could continue to live in the same district with minimum impacts and losses. Besides, the government needed local organizations to assist in filtering and reflecting residents’ requests, and so respected the Ma Tau Kok Six Street Reconstruction Concern Group.

The Concern Group’s objective was to fight for the reasonable rights of the residents. Instead of being voracious, it adopted a down to earth approach and insisted on being reasonable. When facing Mr. R. D. Pope, Director of Lands Department, Wen played the card in a safe and sound manner. On one hand, he reasonably reflected different requests of the residents, owners and merchants. On the other hand, he always reserved room for negotiation. In the end, Wen received positive feedbacks from Pope. The whole reconstruction project was followed up mainly by two government departments. The Lands Department was responsible for decision-making such as the compensation and relocation proposals, while the Housing Society was the executive agency doing the practical work such as defining individual households. When Wen negotiated with the Housing Society, he stuck to the same principle to ensure that the compensation scheme and other details could be implemented.

In 1962, there was an influx of refugees from the mainland. A large number of immigrants, mainly poor people, rushed to Hong Kong. Fortunately, they could find shelter in small rooms in Hong Kong that offered even better living conditions than the villages in the mainland. Since the local housing supply did not meet the demand while the housing requirement of the lower class was not high, it was common for many people to live in a single unit, such as lodging with their relatives. (Editor’s note: Wen added that in the 1950s, the earliest immigrants were mainly single young people who had no one to rely on and hence lived in lodges for singles. But after the 1960s, most of the immigrants from the mainland had relatives or fellow townsmen in Hong Kong for support.)

From the 1960s to the 1970s, Hong Kong's industry took off, increasing labour demand. The large number of immigrants was just in line with the economic development. As modern houses were not yet built, most of the new immigrants tended to live in the Thirteen Streets, Ma Tau Kok Five Streets (Ma Tau Kok Road, Hing Yin Street, Hing Yan Street, Ming Lun Street, Chung Sun Street), and the old buildings around Wyler Gardens and Mei King Street. Currently To Kwa Wan is still popular dwelling place among new immigrants, including mainlanders, South Asians and Indians and Pakistanis, due to the relatively larger number of old buildings. For example, the Thirteen Streets were inhabited by Indian and Pakistani immigrants, while Hoi Sham area (e.g. the area along the Mei King Street) accommodated South Asians and Hokkiens. The situation is the same as that of Yau Ma Tei and Sham Shui Po. )

At that time, there were many licensed hawkers and cooked-food stalls (Dai Pai Dongs) around the industrial areas. They covered every corner of the streets such as Ma Tau Kok Road and Pau Chung Street, causing poor hygiene. In addition, unlicensed hawkers usually ran their businesses near the markets. One of the markets was located at the junction of Pau Chung Street, Pak Tai Street and Ma Tau Kok Road. The other one was located at the junction of Kowloon City and Lok Shan Road (i.e. near the present Municipal Services Building in Ma Tau Wai Road). These two markets were outdoor fixed-pitch stalls. Later the area under the flyover along a section of Kowloon City Road gradually developed to a ground indoor market. Later, the government put down all street hawkers and Dai Pai Dongs. Some stall owners rented a new shop to continue their businesses while some closed their businesses. The area along Ma Tau Wai Road next to the hill was originally a quarry. It was later smoothed for the construction of many buildings. The newly developed area was more tidy and clean.