Poon Kwai Hoi

Poon Kwai Hoi came to Hong Kong in 1946 from his hometown of Bao’an. After being taken under the wing of his elder uncle who was a ‘No.1’ or sub-contractor at Whampoa Shipyard, he found work as an apprentice, earning a monthly salary of around HK$20. Most of his meals and accommodation were provided by his uncle. As the older man did not provide Poon Kwai Hoi with food on Sundays, he and his fellow apprentices were given HK$1 to buy food for themselves. Back then, a dish of pork knuckle rice or stewed pork rice cost 40-50 cents, while a cup of milk tea or coffee could be had for just 10-20 cents. After moving to Hong Kong, Poon Kwai Hoi lived at the corner of Wuhu Street and Chatham Road, close to the Wing Cheong Lung tailor shop. Several of the houses nearby were also occupied by sub-contractors at the shipyard. Poon Kwai Hoi and four other young apprentices all lived on the ground floor where they slept on three-tiered bunk beds. He and his fellow boarders sometimes placed their sleeping mats outside to nap on as the streets were still fairly lawful back then. The apprentices got up at 5:00 am each workday, taking their turns to cooking. While other masters who also lodged here included his uncle who slept in the loft, the shipyard’s foremen lodged elsewhere.

When the shipyard relocated to Tsing Yi in 1973, Poon Kwai Hoi did not follow. Instead, he moved to the Bryanko Textiles Industries Limited (‘Bryanko Textiles’) in Chi Kiang Street following the referral of a friend. After working as a member of permanent staff for two years, he and a colleague called Master Chan resigned because the boss refused to increase their wages. After this, Poon Kwai Hoi took a job with the Standard Knitting Factory (‘Standard’) on Castle Peak Road in Cheung Sha Wan. The company made and sold wool sweaters for local retailers. After two years, he moved jobs again, accepting a post at Comitex Knitters (‘Comitex’) which was run by Jimmy Lai Chee Ying. Comitex was located on the 11th Floor of Tin On Industrial Building on Cheung Sha Wan Road. Business was so good the company later expanded to the 4th, 9th and 10th floors and took on hundreds of staff. Jimmy Lai Chee Ying believed in providing good employee benefits and his firm held staff birthday parties and organised regular days out for employees. Comitex later set up factories in Shenzhen, handling sweater processing in the mainland and then shipping the finished products back to Hong Kong for laundering, ironing and packaging. While he worked there, Poon Kwai Hoi was responsible for quality inspection, often working overtime and ending up spending more than 10 years with the company.

Poon Kwai Hoi recalls now that work at Whampoa Shipyard spanned several different trades such as ship building, machine repairing, steel plate replacing, carpentry and paint shoveling. Once a ship had entered Whampoa’s dry dock and the water around it had been discharged, the various workers would come and start their jobs. Whampoa Shipyard had three dry docks - a large dock, a small dock and a No. 2 dock where ship repairing was classified into major, medium and minor jobs. A major repair could take as long as a year, while a medium repair might last six months and a minor repair could be turned around in as few as 20 to 30 days. Workers took their lunch at 12:00 noon, returning to the dock at 1:00 pm and working through until 5:00 pm. Night shift workers started their day at 6:00 pm, 8:00 pm or 10:00 pm. When the blast sounded for workers to start or finish their shifts, more than a thousand people would flood into Wuhu Street.

The shipyard’s semi-permanent workers were known as ‘attendance card holders’ as they had to wear a staff card around their necks at all times to identify them while on duty, as like today’s restaurant workers. Failure to do so meant no payment for the day. As such workers were employed by the British government and paid HK$4.50 every day except Sundays, they were considered very secure in their jobs. Poon Kwai Hoi’s elder uncle was a ‘labour contractor’ whose salary was paid by the British in installments on around the 15th and 30th days of each month. He in turn was then responsible for paying apprentices like Poon Kwai Hoi. Labour contractors and apprentices were not attendance card holders. Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle was already a sub-contractor at the shipyard before the war, but fled to his hometown after Hong Kong fell to the Japanese in December 1941. He only returned to the Territory to restart his old job after peace was declared in mid-1945.

In the past, many shipping lines like the Dutch company owned by Tung Chao Yung berthed ships in for repair at the Whampoa facility. Each time a ship came into the yard, Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle listed out the work costs for the foreman who would then go to the shipyard’s office to negotiate a price. Maintenance costs were calculated on a per foot rate, with the shipyard supplying the required materials. Poon Kwai Ho’s uncle just calculated and quoted wages based on his and his colleagues’ time and labour. Poon Kwai Hoi was one of five or six apprentices who would receive orders and go aboard a ship to carry out caulking. The actual work included spreading asphalt and hemp roots on the wooden boards and then polishing the planks of wood with water and sand. Such work was limited to big ships like royal boats and cruise ships. After completing the work, the shipyard’s management would transfer all labour fees into Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle’s bank account.

All work deadlines were set by the shipyard with large vessels staying in the dry dock for periods as little as a week if the shipping schedule was tight and the jobs had to be turned around very quickly. Each job involved 100 to 200 workers. As Poon Kwai Ho’s uncle did not have sufficient manpower, he regularly had to enlist temporary labourers from the Caulking Union. Most of the people in this union were recognised masters whose wages had to be negotiated before they would start work. The trade association involved in these negotiations was made up of various sub-contractors who were bosses like Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle. If negotiations failed, the union would call its members out on strike. While Poon Kwai Hoi worked for his uncle, he never took part in strikes. In the 1960s, caulking masters could command a daily wage of over HK$10. Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle also provided HK$5 food allowance for each worker.

Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle undertook vessel caulking jobs under contract from the shipyard. First, workers drove hemp roots into the seams of wooden planks with a mallet. They then covered the planks with asphalt as the mix of hemp roots and asphalt was an effective way of preventing water leakage. The apprentices later scrapped away the asphalt, finally washing and polishing the wooden boards. Poon Kwai Hoi was purely responsible for caulking. Other repair work such as carpentry, painting, machinery and fettling were handled by other specialist staff. Caulking work was mainly carried out on ocean liners and their Western ship owners were very demanding. To ensure work was completed to a high standard, the cruise liner’s management would send carpentry masters to inspect finished tasks and would insist on start overs if work was found to be substandard. When Poon Kwai Hoi first became a caulker, he had to learn the basics of his trade as an apprentice for three years. He began his time at the shipyard by doing miscellaneous odd jobs such as transporting, cleaning up, burning asphalt and running errands. His tasks included carrying the asphalt from the warehouse to the steamship’s store and then hauling materials and tools from the shipyard’s office. As apprentices had to obey their masters’ every order, they sometimes even wound up doing the laundry for them! Poon Kwai Hoi thought that there was a good division of labour for the apprentices with everyone carrying out their assigned duties.

Having successfully completed his apprenticeship, Poon Kwai Hoi became a caulking master, continuing to work for his uncle as a permanent staff at a monthly salary of around HK$100. In those days, foremen who understood English and had accounting skills could earn up to HK$240 every month. Poon Kwai Hoi still lived with his uncle after becoming a permanent staff because it meant he did not need to pay rent. Often the periods for which large vessels were moored in the shipyard was short and caulking work had to be turned around very quickly. The shipping company initially informed Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle that a job needed doing. After negotiating the price, his uncle would source workers to carry it out. As jobs usually required between 100 and 200 workers to finish, Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle was almost always short of manpower. To resolve the situation, he asked the Caulking Union to second him casual workers at a daily wage of around HK$10 per person. Casual workers did not work in fixed shipyards and as a result had no fixed number of working days, often putting in as few as eight to 10 days each month. While permanent work offered the benefit of a stable income, it paid less than the daily wage for casual workers. Once they had completed their apprenticeships, caulkers like Poon Kwai Hoi could decide on their own future by choosing to become a permanent or casual worker.

Poon Kwai Hoi was born in 1928 in Bao’an to a family of farmers. Some of his fellow villagers had already migrated to Hong Kong before the Japanese invasion of 1941 finding work as caulkers and other jobs in the shipyards of Cheung Sha Wan. When the Japanese invaded the Territory, the authorities implemented rice rationing. In 1942, Poon Kwai Hoi and his fellow villagers came to Hong Kong on a sailing boat, hoping to find their friends and relatives in Cheung Sha Wan. They planned to register their names on rice ration cards in the hope of being able to bring some rice home. Unfortunately, they encountered a Japanese army tugboat while still at sea. The Japanese army on board mistakenly thought that Poon Kwai Hoi and his friends were resistance guerrillas and arrested them. Just before Poon Kwai Hoi and his friends could be executed, the owner of their sailing boat brought the Japanese interpreter some wine and chicken. The passengers’ lives were eventually spared after the interpreter explained to the Japanese army that the men were coming to Hong Kong to visit their relatives.

After Poon Kwai Hoi landed in Cheung Sha Wan, he heard the wailing of air raid sirens and within minutes the area was being bombarded by warplanes. Those near a bomb shelter were badly mutilated by the bomb blasts. One of Poon Kwai Hoi’s younger brothers who worked for the Japanese as a foreman was scared out of his mind by the serious casualties. By the time the Japanese were finally beaten in 1945, Poon Kwai Hoi was around 17 years old. At this point, his elder uncle asked if he was interested in coming to Hong Kong to work as an apprentice in Whampoa Shipyard. When Poon Kwai Hoi asked his parents for their advice, his father advised him that apprentices were regularly bullied. But determined to make a living, Poon Kwai Hoi did not care about this and went to Hong Kong anyway. When he stepped down on Hong Kong soil from a truck, he began a new life that has now continued for more than 60 years.

While working at Whampoa Shipyard, Poon Kwai Hoi lived in Hung Hom. As Sundays were his rest day, he often joined his fellow apprentices when they went out to buy firewood and sawdust to heat their home. On days when they did not need to buy fuel, Poon Kwai Hoi and his mates would go strolling around Shanghai Street, visiting the fortune telling stalls there. There were many things on sale in Shanghai Street back then and the area was then far more prosperous than Nathan Road. On weekday evenings after work, Poon Kwai Hoi occasionally went to Yau Ma Tei with friends in search of fun. Sometimes they went to see the Chinese opera at the Astor Theatre or listened raptly to people telling stories like the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin from the side of the Alhambra Theater.

Back then, Nathan Road had no street lights and both sides of the road were lined with trees. Often shows at the Astor Theatre didn’t finish until well after midnight, so everyone faced a frightening walk back in almost total darkness. When he finally arrived home, Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle would scold him for returning so late! Poon Kwai Hoi rarely ventured to To Kwa Wan in those days, generally only going as far as the area around Wearbest Garment Factory, Bailey’s Shipyard and what is now I-Feng Mansions. At that time, this area was nearly all wasteland with only a few sparsely distributed houses and allotments where people grew vegetables. When Poon Kwai Hoi first arrived in Hong Kong, the area was home to many Japanese warehouses storing barrels of gasoline and miscellaneous items. Bailey’s Shipyard was later demolished and the site was then used to construct many buildings. Back then, To Kwa Wan Sports Centre was still a hill, and there was also a small hill next door to Kai Tak Airport. The present site of the HKFTU Workers’ Club was a wasteland while the road at the side of Wearbest Garment Factory offered direct access to the airport. Looking back, Poon Kwai Hoi feels that the sea at To Kwa Wan in those days looked huge, with both the Wearbest Garment Factory and Ma Tau Wai Road located along the coastline. This area of sea eventually became smaller and smaller as a result of reclamation.

In all, Poon Kwai Hoi has moved home four times in Hong Kong. Between 1946 when he first arrived in the Territory to the late 1960s, he lived at the junction of Wuhu Street and Chatham Road. When Whampoa Shipyard was subsequently decommissioned, the building he was living in had to be demolished, too. Poon Kwai Hoi did not follow the shipyard’s relocation to Tsing Yi, but moved to a building which was opposite where Ko Shan Theatre stands today. In around 1980, he was forced to move home again due to the demolition of this building. As a result, he relocated to To Kwa Wan’s Thirteen Streets, living there for the next six years. He eventually settled down in Kowloon City Road in 1986 where he still resides to this day. It was only after he moved into To Kwa Wan that he began to form more impressions about this area. Poon Kwai Hoi now sighs that living environments in the past were very crowded with his entire family squeezing into a room that cost a monthly rent of just HK$10. Conditions there were very similar to those in resettlement areas.

When Poon Kwai Hoi first arrived in Hong Kong, very few of Whampoa Shipyard’s workers lived in Hung Hom as the whole of Wuhu Street had been levelled by bombing during the war. Only the area around Kwun Yam Temple was left intact. After working at the shipyard, Poon Kwai Hoi lived in his uncle’s single resident lodgings at the junction of Wuhu Street and Chatham Road. The dwelling was located in a four-storey old-style building, built of sturdy red bricks that even bombing raids could not destroy! The second, third and fourth floors were inhabited with shipyard sub-contractors involved in caulking, carpentry, machinery and painting. Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle’s family members, including his wife, son, daughter-in-law and grandson, all lived in the loft. His uncle loved to smoke opium whilst at home. Around 10 other masters and apprentices like Poon Kwai Hoi all occupied the ground floor where there were a dozen or so three-tier bunk beds that were occupied virtually around the clock. Of the three masters who were employed by Poon Kwai Hoi’s uncle, one was a permanent member of staff who voluntarily chipped in HK$5 a month in rent. Some of Poon Kwai Hoi’s fellow villagers from Bao’an would also board here when visiting Hong Kong. As there were no electric fans back then, the apprentices sometimes slept outside on the pavement.

Other sub-contractors lived in Chatham Road and Cooke Street. Together with his uncle’s residence, about six four-storey old buildings on both sides were occupied by sub-contractors from Whampoa Shipyard.  Such single resident occupancies were also dotted around Hung Hom, Shau Kei Wan, Sham Shui Po, Jordan Road and other places with large rooms capable of housing up to 10 people at a time. Looking back, Poon Kwai Hoi recalls that Hung Hom did not have many such hostels. When Whampoa Shipyard was demolished and relocated to Tsing Yi, his uncle’s residence also faced the wrecking ball. As a result, Poon Kwai Hoi moved to the junction of Chatham Road and Shek Tong Street, opposite what is now the Ko Shan Theatre. While there, he shared a room with one of his brothers at a monthly rent of about HK$100. The other workers all scattered elsewhere and Poon Kwai Hoi also left the shipyard after changing to another job.

When Poon Kwai Hoi worked for his uncle in Hung Hom, the man provided him with lunch every day except Sunday when he would give his young charge a few dollars to eat out. Poon Kwai Hoi usually spent the cash at tea houses in Cooke Street, where a dish of stewed pork rice cost just 40 cents and pork knuckle rice and spare rib rice could both be had for only 50 cents. When the workers finished their day, the tea houses were full of people. Cooke Street was a particularly prosperous thoroughfare with many tea houses and dai pai dongs where shipyard workers took their meals. With rice congee and fried bread sticks available for just 10 cents, business was brisk at the congee stalls on the pavements outside. There were also many dai pai dongs in Lo Lung Hang Road and Winslow Street, where just 20 or 30 cents was sufficient to buy a meal of roast goose or chicken. At that time, all dai pai dongs in Hung Hom were fixed stalls, and the Government left the hawkers there to their own devices. Female workers mostly ate on the roadsides, often buying big pot meals from the row of food stalls in Wuhu Street. Costing around 10 or 20 cents, lunches of vegetables and pork on rice were also very popular.

When Whampoa Shipyard relocated to Tsing Yi, Poon Kwai Hoi moved to a wool knitting factory, going on to work in the industry for over 30 years. He did not follow the shipyard to its new home as he thought the journey to work was too far. One of his brothers who stayed on at the shipyard was eventually promoted to supervisory level. Poon Kwai Hoi had no regrets about changing careers because he could not understand English or communicate with foreigners and therefore did not have a very bright future in shipyards. After Poon Kwai Hoi and his colleagues parted ways, most of them lost contact. With the relocation of the shipyard, the Caulking Union was also disbanded with the union premises at Lai Chi Kok Road sold and all money distributed.

In those days, when bosses needed to recruit manpower, they would bargain with the Caulking Union. If negotiations failed, union members would go out on strike, sending strikers to picket all major shipyards in Hong Kong and Kowloon. In addition to Whampoa Shipyard, facilities affected included the Taikoo and Bailey’s shipyards. After leaving the shipyard for the last time, Poon Kwai Hoi began learning knitting techniques following his introduction to the trade by a good friend. He stressed that in order to make a living, he had to learn new skills. As wages and meals were provided during the apprenticeship, his treatment in the knitting industry was not too bad. In looking back on the time he spent working in knitting factories, Poon Kwai Hoi recalls he had a lot of tough experiences. As there were a lot of styles and patterns involved in knitting woolens, joining in the trade was far from easy.

When Whampoa Shipyard left Hung Hom, Poon Kwai Hoi changed career to become a woolen knitting factory worker. Initially, he was employed as an apprentice in a Sham Sui Po factory producing garments for sale locally. This employer provided Poon Kwai Hoi, with not only wages, but also food and accommodation. Back then, Poon Kwai Hoi came to know a colleague called Master Chan who appreciated and mentored the younger man. Two years later the manufacturer closed the business and laid off all the employees. When Master Chan took a job in Bryanko Textiles he invited Poon Kwai Hoi to join him. After inspecting the new plant, Poon Kwai Hoi thought the working environment there was very good. Keen to maintain his friendship with Master Chan, he decided to start work in Bryanko Textiles. The company's factory was located on the 4th or 5th floor of an industrial building on Chi Kiang Street in To Kwa Wan which used old style manually operated lifts. There were other garment factories in the building, too, and immediately adjacent were other factories. While working in the sample room here, Poon Kwai Hoi earned a monthly salary of around HK$1,200. Although the sample room had very few looms, they were all handled by Poon Kwai Hoi and Master Chan with Poon Kwai Hoi running up samples of different sizes and styles that had been sketched out by Master Chan.

Poon Kwai Hoi recalls that Bryanko Textiles was a medium-sized woolen knitting factory, employing 20-30 workers who undertook looping, checking, mending, washing, ironing and packaging. The company’s products were mainly for export to the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In addition to making samples, Bryanko Textiles also took orders for production, many of which were processed on behalf of large manufacturers. Bryanko Textiles’s boss was a native of Xiamen who was on good terms with the bosses of other larger woolen knitting factories such as Comitex on Cheung Sha Wan Road, Standard on Castle Peak Road and Covo Knitters in Kwun Tong. These large manufacturers sent the knitted wool sheets to Bryanko Textiles for washing and ironing and then took them back again after processing.

After Poon Kwai Hoi worked in Bryanko Textiles for about two years, Master Chan resigned. Taking into account that his boss did not provide food and had not increased his wages, Poon Kwai Hoi also quit and joined Master Chan in searching for new employment. Hong Kong’s large knitwear companies back then mainly operated out of Sham Shui Po. To Kwa Wan did not have large factories, but rather small, medium and squatter plants. For example, there were a few small operations on Sheung Heung Road which generally picked up orders from larger manufacturers for processing. Each squatter factory had just a few workers, equipped with as many as a dozen looms. Unlike medium-sized plants such as Bryanko Textiles, the squatter factories could not handle washing.

While Poon Kwai Hoi worked in Bryanko Textiles, To Kwa Wan had undergone substantial changes to what it had seemed like during his days as a Whampoa Shipyard worker. To Kwa Wan in the early 1980s was already very prosperous, with buildings constructed everywhere. The hill beside Lee Wah Weaving Factory had also been flattened and the site was converted into a football field. Since Poon Kwai Hoi had first arrived in Hong Kong just after the war, the streets had become brighter and more hygienic and filled with more cars and pedestrians. When he worked at Bryanko Textiles, Poon Kwai Hoi’s daily wage was about HK$30 and the factory did not provide food. While the boss did ask caterers to deliver meals to the factory, his workers had to pay for their own meals! Both Poon Kwai Hoi and Master Chan ate lunch in the factory back then. Later, Poon Kwai Hoi would go home and have dinner with his wife after work. Bryanko Textiles’s boss came from Xiamen and the Xiamen natives in the factory all ate together, having rice congee and fried bread sticks for breakfast. Poon Kwai Hoi did not really enjoy eating their food.

Back then, Poon Kwai Hoi and his family rented a middle room in an old building on Chatham Road for around HK$100 monthly. As their children were nearing 20 years old, his wife could go out to work at factories. She had previously been a thread trimmer at Wearbest Garment Factory and had been employed at Yee Tai Garment Factory on Castle Peak Road. She had also worked as a looper with a wool sweater manufacturer. During their free time, Poon Kwai Hoi and his wife mostly went to the cinema. Their favourite venues included the Lux Theatre in Hung Hom, the Golden Harvest Theatre on Kowloon City Road, the Full Moon Theatre on San Shan Road and the Ruby Theater in To Kwa Wan. After Poon Kwai Hoi left Bryanko Textiles, the family continued to reside in Chatham Road until the building they lived in was demolished and they relocated to Thirteen Streets.

(Editor’s note: Four years after Poon Kwai Hoi arrived in Hong Kong in 1946, his parents wrote him a letter urging him to return to his hometown to get married. His and his wife’s eldest daughter was subsequently born around 1952 and came to Hong Kong with her mother three or four years later. Poon Kwai Hoi’s second daughter was born in Kwong Wah Hospital and his son was also born in Hong Kong. Due to financial difficulties, his wife and eldest daughter soon returned to their hometown where they worked the family farm and were joined by another son. Poon Kwai Hoi’s wife and daughter survived the turmoil wrought by the cultural revolution’s communal era on the mainland and arrived back in Hong Kong in 1974, eventually renting bed space in Cooke Street in Hung Hom. Poon Kwai Hoi also moved to Cooke Street to live with his wife at this time. The family subsequently moved to a rented room in San Lau Street before later going to live in Sham Shui Po. By that time Poon Kwai Hoi was working at Standard. There were later riots in Sham Shui Po. As the disturbances terrified his wife, Poon Kwai Hoi decided to move back to To Kwa Wan, once again renting a room in San Lau Street.)

In the early 1980s, Poon Kwai Hoi and his family lived in Thirteen Streets. During that time, his wife worked as a casual labourer in nearby factories such as a nearby electronics plant in Mok Cheong Street. When Poon Kwai Hoi went to work in a woolen knitting factory in Cheung Sha Wan around this time, there were very few buses and he had to ride a bike to and from work. Each day his journey took him through Sung Wong Toi, Prince Edward Road, Argyle Street, Boundary Street and Castle Peak Road. Upon arrival, he would lock his bike to the staircase of the factory building. At this time, Poon Kwai Hoi’s family rented a shared fifth floor apartment in Fung Yi Street, occupying the 400-500 sq. ft. space with the principal tenant and sharing all water and electricity charges with his family. Buildings in the Thirteen Streets area back then boasted both front and back staircases, one of which was used as fire escape.

(Editor’s note: Poon Kwai Hoi thinks that there were not many differences between Hung Hom and To Kwa Wan, as both districts were very working class and the social environment was not as complex as in Sham Shui Po. When the Ko Shan Theatre was constructed, the tenement building in Chatham Road the family lived in was demolished. By that time, Poon Kwai Hoi’s son had found a job in construction and was friendly with a master who lived in Thirteen Streets. It so happened that this master was moving home and the flat he was living in was falling vacant. Poon Kwai Hoi accepted his son’s suggestion about moving to Thirteen Streets and he and his wife, son and nephew began sharing the unit with the landlady.)

When he first moved to Thirteen Streets, Poon Kwai Hoi experienced little difficulty in adapting to life there. Unlike the bustling pavements of Chatham Road, the area had few pedestrians after nightfall. While the Thirteen Streets area was poorly lit and buildings’ staircases were quiet and secluded, the area was quite safe in the few years he and his family lived there. Buildings in the Thirteen Streets area were mostly residential dwellings with garages and shops on the streets and many corner stores that mostly sold groceries. The area was also home to electronics and garment factories which were usually located in industrial buildings on Mok Cheong Street. When Poon Kwai Hoi, his wife, son and nephew lived in Thirteen Streets, they slept in bunk beds. His daughters either went to live with relatives or got married and moved out. When his nephew illegally sneaked into Hong Kong from the mainland, Poon Kwai Hoi let him stay in the apartment. Soon after, his nephew went to learn steel fixing skills in another relative’s place.

Poon Kwai Hoi wound up living in Thirteenth Street until 1986 by which time the family had been applying for low-cost housing for over 20 years. Poon Kwai Hoi’s wife wished to buy a flat so that they could all be free of the whims of landlords and the burdens of rent. The family had considered purchasing a flat in Thirteen Streets, but could not afford its HK$180,000 price. His wife finally bought a 300-square-foot fifth floor unit in a tenement building on Kowloon City Road after looking through real estate ads. The purchase price together with legal fees of the unit came to about HK$160,000. Poon Kwai Hoi and his family still live in the apartment to this day. Since first moving into Thirteen Streets, Poon Kwai Hoi has come to have deeper feelings for To Kwa Wan. In recent years, he liked to visit To Kwa Wan Kaifong Welfare Association and participate in its travelling and gathering activities.