Ho Sau

Ho Sau was born in 1925 in Guangzhou and studied in primary school in Guangzhou. His family had run a Chinese herbal medicine shop called Pac Wo Tong in Macau over 200 years. Ho Sau's father was responsible for managing the family business.

Title	Personal Background of Ho Sau and his family business in Macao
Date	31/03/2010
Subject	Social Life
Duration	1m49s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YY-HS-SEG-001

When Ho Sau came to Hong Kong to visit relatives with his mother,Guangzhou was bombareded by the Japanese Army. The family decided to let Ho Sau remain and study in Hong Kong. He studied at the subsidiary primary school of Man Fan Secondary School run by his grand-uncle. Not long after Ho Sau's mother died, Ho Sau's father decided to reunite with Ho Sau and his younger brother in Macau and let them study secondary school there. While they were still in school, Hong Kong fell into the hand of the Japanese. As Ho Sau's father worried about the unstable circumstances, he took Ho Sau's younger brother to Guangzhou.Ho Sau took on another trip. He returned to Hong Kong to work for a living. He worked as a labourer in his uncle's restaurant. Unfortunately the restaurant couldn't survive the bad economy during the Japanese Occupation and had turned into a casino. Ho Sau refused to work there and returned to his home town in Nanhai. Immediately after peace was restored, Ho Sau returned to Hong Kong and witnessed the scenes of celebratory merriment of the people in Hong Kong.

Title	Experiences of study and work during youthful times
Date	31/03/2010
Subject	Japanese Occupation
Duration	8m53s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YY-HS-SEG-002

In early 1950s, Ho Sau got a driving license. Through a friend's introduction, he worked as a personal driver for Mr. B.C.K. Hawkins, the then Secretary for Chinese Affairs . In 1957, Mr Hawkin's retired from the government and returned to England. With Mr Hawkin's support, Ho Sau was accepted by the Kowloon Motor Bus to work as a bus driver. In 1978, Ho Sau, at the age of 52,  changed his job to the Union Press which was a subsidiary company of Wing Kee Compnay. Wing Kee was the sole agent of Pentax Camera in Hong Kong at that time. Ho Sau met the proprietor of Wing Kee as they were both fond of photography. In 1990 Ho Sau retired at the age of 64.

Title	Major work life: from a restaurant labourer to a driver and a clerk
Date	31/03/2010
Duration	6m2s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YY-HS-SEG-003

Ho Sau had gone through a ceremony of "pen opening " when he started to go to school as a little boy. The ceremony was held by the most learned uncle of the Ho family. The member of uncle's family were learned men. Ho Sau's great grand-uncle started the Man Fan School which was initially planned to be named “Model School”. The school was shut down during the Japanese Occupation. After the World War II, Chu Hai College bought the same building to provide upper and post-secondary classes. Ho Sau's grand-uncle, Mr Ho Chor Shek, was the principal of Man Fan School and Ho Sau's great grand-uncle was principal-cum-superintendent. Man Fan school had a single school building with a car park and a playground. The school only provided junior secondary classes and classes for Primary 5 and Primary 6 students. Chinese, English, Arithmatics, Music, Arts and Physical Education was taught. The brothers of the principal were also teachers at the school.  Also af few teachers were hired elsewhere. Amont the alumni of Man Fan, there was a female student who had joined the Exhibition pageant and a male student who took over his family business of Wing Hang Bank. It was a regret that alumni had few opportunity to meet. The Alumni Associaiton was difficult to prolong.

Title	Study experience during childhood and school life in Man Fan School
Date	31/03/2010
Subject	Education
Duration	21m20s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YY-HS-SEG-004

During Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Ho Sau had been working at the Dai Yun Teahouse Restaurant. Before the allied powers blocked the supplies of materials into areas under Japanese rule, food supply was sufficient in the market. The restaurant was able to survive by serving rich customers who also ordered food for parties at home. The restaurant used to provide food that was almost expired to its staff. Ordinary citizens obtained rice under a rationing system with a rice card. This card was similar to an ID card with which the card holder could obtain the basic food necessities such as rice, cooking oil, salt and cooking fuel. Ho Sau had witnessed a bombardment by the Allied Force. He came across dangerous situation when he took a boat for his hometown when the Japanese army guarded the border of Hong Kong. After peace was restored, he had worked as a waiter in Tai Kwun Restaurant and New Asia Restarant.

Title	Survival struggle during Japanese occupation and job seeking experience after peace was restored
Date	31/03/2010
Subject	Japanese Occupation
Duration	30m47s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YY-HS-SEG-005

After the World War II, Ho Sau acquired a driver's licence because he believed that a driving job was better than working in the restaurant. He learned driving with a master who had a driving licence. At that time there was only road practice examination but not written examination. He learned from a licensed master and was able to get passed after only 20 hours of learning and practice. With a driver's licence, Ho Sau worked as a personal driver for Mr. B.C.K. Hawkins and took the couple to social gatherings. Ho Sau was able to communicate with Mr. Hawkins in English. Ho Sau learned English on his own. He listened to the English oral programme convened by Wong Cheuk Kei at the Rediffusion Radio. Every morning he had to escort Mr Hawkins down the Peak to work. To catch up the radio programme, he gave up taking the Peak Tram and ran up back to Mr Hawkin's house on the Peak. He also learned vocabulary from a dictionary. To join an international photography contest, a participant had to submit a photo with an English subtitle. Ho Sau was proud that he was able to meet this requirement with his proficiency of English. After Mr Hawkins, Ho Sau worked at the Kowloon Bus Company as a bus driver. As the company offered no lunch time for drivers, most drivers used the tactic of leaving the bus terminus a few minutes earlier to leave this few-minute's time to have lunch at the opposite terminus. Therefore most drivers got stomachache problem. At the beginning at KMB, Ho Sau was a replacement driver and he took over Route 2 during the 1960s and 1970s running between So Uk Estate and Tsim Sha Tsui Ferry Pier.

Title	Some memories of career as a driver
Date	31/03/2010
Subject	Social Life
Duration	19m49s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YY-HS-SEG-006

Ho Sau had used different types of camera at different period of time. He used a simple camera in the beginning. When Mr B.C.K. Hawkins knew that he was interested in photography, he sent Ho Sau a folding camera as a gift. Ho Sau also received a 120 format camera from one of his friends. Many years later he could afford to buy a Rolleiflex camera and a Pentax camera. He also set up a samll darkroom in the toilet of his apartment in So Uk Estate to reproduce photos from films. Without taking lessons, Ho managed to develop on his own a pictorial photography style. He used stringent methods to accentuate the subject and simplify the background, and took documentary photos about life with great compositional depth. He mentioned that in the early 1950s photography was not popular in Hong Kong. Members of the Hong Kong Photographic Society were mainly westerners. English was its official language. Therefore he did not participate in their activities. Chinese photographic societies were established after 1970.

Title	Personal photographic equipment and styles; the establishment of Hong Kong Photographic Society and China Photographic Society
Date	31/03/2010
Subject	Art and Culture
Duration	22m28s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YY-HS-SEG-007

The first photography contest that Ho Sau participated was the worker's life photography competition run by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions in 1961. The work he submitted was named "The Mathematical Addition". He won the first prize in this competition. It gave him great satisfaction since it was only his first competiton. Later on he actively participated in the overseas salon competitions which was more just and more challenging for him. He was proud of winning by photography technique rather than by equipment. Ho Sau was a member of ROYAL in the UK and PSA in the USA. He learned about the international salon competitions through the publications of these organizations. He chose to participate in certain competitions which published the award-winning photographs in good quality publications. His purpose was to let Hong Kong photographs appear on renowned international photography publications. As he lived in So Uk Estates, he observed daily lives of So UK in great details. He always took photos from a top-down view to capture the scenes of people, buildings and structures. He captured the special patterns of the outer walls of So Uk Estate buildings and the distant view of people to create specially arranged snapshots of daily life.

Title	Participated and was awarded in local and international photographic contests; photographic interests in So Uk Estate
Date	31/03/2010
Subject	Art and Culture
Duration	24m31s
Language	Cantonese
Material Type	Audio
Collection	Oral History Archives
Repository	Hong Kong Memory Project
Note to Copyright	Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project
Accession No.	YY-HS-SEG-008