Ng Kin Sun

Ng Kin Sun was born in mainland China in 1948. Several months after his birth, his family came to settle in Hong Kong. His first home was in the Central district. He had studied in the Cheung Sau Kindergarten and Confucian Tai Shing Primary School on Caine Road. His family moved to Yau Ma Tei in 1956/1957 where they rented a flat on the ground floor of No. 48 Lee Tat Street. Lee Tat Street, Tung Kun Street, Ching Ping Street, Public Square Street, Cheung Shui Street and Canton Road were collectively known as the ‘Six Streets in Yau Ma Tei’. These streets have now been redeveloped into the Prosperous Garden. Today, Lee Tat Street and Cheung Shui Street no longer exist and Canton Road has been shortened. When his family moved to Lee Tat Street, Ng Kin Sun was in the second school term of Primary 2, he took a ferry every day to Central where his school was situated. Later on, he transferred to Lai Chak Primary School on Canton Road for Primary 3. The family moved to Sai Kung in 1963, when the water rationing measure was implemented. In 1964, they moved to the 4th floor of a building on No. 113, Temple Street. Ng Kin Sun got married in 1976 and bought a small flat in Tak Kei Building on Battery Street. But the couple only spent their bedtime there as if it was an ‘external bedroom’ and the flat on Temple Street was still their correspondence address. In 1992, The family moved into Block 1 of Prosperous Garden. Ng Kin Sun has lived in Yau Ma Tei for more than 5 decades.

Title	Ng Kin Sin's education and migration background
Date	21/02/2011
Subject	Community| Education
Duration	10m31s
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.	YMT-NKS-SEG-001

The Lai Chak Primary School which Ng Kin Sun attended was a full-day school. He set off from Lee Tat Street some time after seven every morning and walked his way to school through Canton Road, Battery Street, Kwun Chung Street and Jordan Road. He completed primary and secondary education in Lai Chak Primary School. For more than a decade, he took the same route to school on foot and he remembers clearly what he saw along the way. The Yau Ma Tei Police Station stood on Canton Road. He had a classmate whose father was a policeman. Sometimes he would take Ng Kin Sun to the welfare club to play ping pong in the police station after school around 3-4pm. Ng Kin Sun felt embarrassed when he recalled such impudent act. Another classmate was the daughter of the proprietor of a bakery on Battery Street. He always frequented the bakery and had noticed swallows’ nests beneath the balconies of the buildings on Battery Street. Canton Road was well-known as a hub of jade shops. At the junction of Jordan Road and Shanghai Street stood a gas holder (now developed into the United Mansion). At the time, the Ferry Point (now known as Eight Man Buildings) were not built yet,　the site was a cotton warehouse of the Wharf (Holdings) Limited.

King George V Memorial Park was the shortcut from Jordan Road to Lai Chak Primary School but the discipline teacher would not let students enter the Park because there were a lot of bad guys hanging around the soccer pitch. Students were advised not to stay in the Park. Students who lived nearby would visit the Park with classmates. Ng Kin Sun had played hide-and-seek in the Park. As students were not allowed to enter the Park, they walked to school along Canton Road. On Kwun Chung Street, many street hawkers sold cooked food with a cart. They sold à la carte noodles, fish ball, pig skin and Chinese radish. But　the school had made a rule that students should not buy from the hawkers. The discipline teacher would go to these spots before and after school. The Yau Kee Store operated at the junction of Austin Road and Kwun Chung Street. All Lai Chak students knew it. Here, an oyster sauce cuttlefish bun or curry cuttlefish bun was sold for 20 cents and a sauce bun cost only 10 cents. The So Kin Hong Bone Setting Clinic was a popular spot where students met and then walked to school together. There was a warehouse opposite the Lai Chak Primary School and a fire broke out every year. In those days, there were few tall buildings and the Ocean Terminal could be seen from the Lai Chak campus.

Title	Memories of his route to school: street scenes of Canton Road, Battery Street, Kwun Chung Street, Jordan Road
Date	21/02/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	12m49s
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.	YMT-NKS-SEG-002

Ng Kin Sun attended primary schools in Yau Ma Tei district when he was 8 to 12 years old. His parents were not strict so he was free to roam over the streets for fun after school and on holidays. In his childhood, people had different games in different seasons and the children followed their examples. When fishing was popular, Ng Kin Sun carried the fishing line to school without his parents’ knowledge. He would go fishing at the Jordan Road Ferry Pier after school. When he had money, he would spend 10 or 20 cents to buy shrimps as the bait to fish mottled spinefoots. He would receive free bait from old people who fished on the seaside even if he had no money for it. When the fighting spider Thiania Subopressa was popular, he spent several dozen cents to buy one. He kept it in a crowfoot grass case and carried it to school in his school bag. After school, he would have it fought another Thiania Subopressa at the entrance of the garden, roadside or Yung Shue Tau. Sometimes, he had marble and pogs games on Lee Tat Road, played soccer on the undeveloped land in King’s Park or watched street performance in Yung Shue Tau such as martial arts, drug promotion, monkey show, singing or physiognomy.

Many Lai Chak students’ homes were on the six streets of Yau Ma Tei, Ng Kin Sun knew all of them. In those days, the street children who lived in the same street usually formed a group and hanged around near the coastal area, Lee Tat Street, Canton Road and Cheung Shui Street. Sometimes, different groups played together such as burning wax with pomelo skin on Mid-Autumn Festivals. Most of the group members were boys but they were occasionally joined by a 3- or 4-year-old girl who was the younger sister of one of the boys. Street children entrusted by parents to take care of their infant sisters or brothers would appear with a child on their backs. Ng Kin Sun was the eldest child of the family. He has 6 younger sisters and brothers. In those days, he always took the lead with his younger brothers to ‘wander the streets’. When he was promoted to secondary school, he took the same route to school but concentrated more on his studies and spent less time on the streets. He formed a revision group with well-acquainted classmates and revised their lessons in group members’ homes after school. He also earned pocket money by giving tutorials to his classmates’ younger brothers or sisters. Ng Kin Sun thought that in the Yau Tsim Mong District the residence could not reflect the residents’ financial status because many wealthy families lived in a humble residence. His secondary school classmates were diverse in family class backgrounds but the difference did not affect their friendship.

Title	Popular entertainment during his primary school period. Groups of street children in Yau Ma Tei
Date	21/02/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	12m50s
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.	YMT-NKS-SEG-003

Ng Kin Sun’s family rented a flat on the ground floor of a building on Lee Tat Street. They sub-leased the 800-sq-ft flat to three small workshops including a pastry bakery, a goldsmith shop and a signboard producer. The Ng family lived in an attic above the workshops. It had an area of 400 sq. ft. and a ceiling less than 6.5 ft high. The only furniture was a bed and a cabinet. The young Ng and his siblings slept on the floor mats. Because of the small living space, Ng Kin Sun and his younger brothers spent most of their time on the streets. Under the attic were the kitchen and squat toilet which the Ng family shared with the tenants. Because the kitchen was the makeshift bathroom, the tenants were not possible to take a bath during meal preparation time. As to the workshops, one or two employees would stay overnight there and one of households would hire catering service. Ng Kin Sun used to watch the workers work. He considered that in the past the workers cared less about work safety. In those days, the children played marbles on the drainage covers of Lee Tat Street and Cheung Shui Street where traffic was light. There were a few laundry shops and stores on Cheung Shui Street. For Lee Tat Street, the buildings were mainly 7-storey Chinese tenement house built of concrete. These tenment houses had two units on a storey but no elevator connection. The residents were either the owners or landlords/landladies. On the Lee Tat Street was an iron warehouse which occupied the space of eight shops. Only one of its units was open for business at ordinary times. The street was quiet and it was even quieter at night when the warehouse was closed.

Title	Tenement houses, shops and workshops in Yau Me Tei Six Streets
Date	21/02/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	24m56s
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.	YMT-NKS-SEG-004

In the period between 1950s and 1960s, the six streets in Yau Ma Tei were the hangouts for street children. The buildings on the six streets were mainly 7-storey Chinese tenement houses built of concrete. These tenement houses had two units on one floor and the residents were either the owners or landlords/landladies. The former occupied the whole flat and the latter divided the flat into a number of rooms for subletting to more tenants. One of Ng Kin Sun’s classmate was his neighbour on Lee Tat Street. Ng Kin Sun’s family of four lived in a flat with an area of 600 or 700 sq. ft. To Ng Kin Sun and other classmates, the flat was a paradise where they could play heartily. In those days, many family workshops operated on the six streets. The Ng family took outsourced tasks from the workshops such as assembling plastic flower, painting dolls and cutting thread ends.

The surrounding areas of the six streets were relatively busy. Ching Ping Street, which was along the coast, had relatively heavy traffic flow because the ships loaded and unloaded at the pier. Behind the Yau Ma Tei Police Station was the Royal Bridge where an open space was provided for distributing goods. The typhoon shelter off Ching Ping Street was dwelled with many boat people. On the Birthdays of Tam Kung, Guan Yin and Tin Hau, the boats were colourfully decorated. They celebrated the festivals with dragon dance, lion dance and god-worshipping Chinese opera on boats. A classmate who lived in the typhoon shelter had invited Ng Kin Sun and other classmates to his home. They took a barge to his boat home. Ng Kin Sun moved out of Lee Tat Street when he was in Form 3. The Ng family had lived in a partitioned room in a Chinese tenement house on Saigon Street before a suitable place was found. It was the year when the water rationing measure was implemented.

Title	Land uses of tenement houses in Yau Ma Tei Six Streets. Landscapes of Yau Ma Tei's seafront and typhoon shelter
Date	21/02/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	23m2s
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.	YMT-NKS-SEG-005

Before Yung Shue Tau was developed into a public park, it was a vacant land in the 1960s and it was the popular hangout for old men where they sat, chat or had chess games. It was also a place of drug trafficking and other illegal activities of the triad elements but the drug addicts mainly concentrated on the six streets. When Ng Kin Sun was a child, he did not know drug trafficking was illegal. His friends who played on the streets had been bullied on the vacant land. They were fisted thrice and extorted for $3.90 but such thing never happened to him. Some of these friends went astray and engaged in illegal activities but it did not affect their friendship. They still called him his nicknames such as ‘school boy’ or ‘four-eyed boy’. When his triad friends knew that he was a Christian, they did not ask him to join the triad society. Ng Kin Sun became a Christian when he studied in Lai Chak Primary School and attended religious activities at the Kowloon Tong chapel of the Pentecostal Church. His triad friends feel uncomfortable about Jesus Christ and they admitted their illegal activities to him. Ng Kin Sun always advised them to leave the illegal trade and reform themselves.

Ng Kin Sun was a street child when he was 10 to 13 year old. For two to three nights in the week, he would spend the night in Yung Shue Tau and Temple Street night market with other street children at six or seven after dinner. The night market consisted of two sections. One section was from Jordan Road to Pak Hoi Street, the other was from Public Square Street to Wing Sing Lane. Both sections were packed with street stalls. The hawkers did their business under illumination of a pressure kerosene lantern as there was no electricity supply at the time. In the mid-1960s, the street stall hawkers started operation around 5-6pm. When the the site of the night market was developed into a park in the 1970s, they moved to operate outside the park. Ng Kin Sun enjoyed the performances at the night market such as the hair wax seller Big Silly and Hermit the literomancer who operated in the north of the temple. In the front area of the temple were “Naughty Seven” who played the musical saw, monkey show, fortune-telling, drug promotion and singing. Big Silly was a well-known figure on Temple Street in the 1950s and he would demonstrate the quality of thepromade withhis own hair. Ng Kin Sun liked squatting on the ground and listened to the physiognomist’s fortune-telling, although he would not frequent him for religious reasons. His most favourite stalls were “Naughty Seven” and literomancy. He would watch on for one to two hours. “Naughty Seven” was a well-known musician who played the erhu, violin and musical saw. He played Cantonese opera and songs and the audience could ask for any song with a payment of 10 to 20 cents. He had some loyal fans. The literomancy stall was operated near Wing Sing Lane and it was the only one of its kind in the night market. In Taoist attire, the plump literomancer opened his business several hours every night. People who wanted to know their fortune would write a Chinese character on a blackboard and the literomancer would tell a fortune by analyzing the structure of the Chinese character. It was interesting to Ng Kin Sun.

Title	Drug trafficking and triad elements in Yung Shue Tau. Stalls and performances at the Temple Street night market
Date	21/02/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	23m7s
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.	YMT-NKS-SEG-006

When Ng Kin Sun was 12 or 13 years old, his parents gave him greater freedom and allowed him to go anywhere so he always roamed about the street aimlessly as pastime. He would stroll northward along Nathan Road to Argyle Street and Prince Edward Road or walked southward to Tsim Sha Tsui Ferry Pier. He visited every corner of Yau Ma Tei in a pair of slippers with no money in pocket. In secondary school, he joined the running contest on Sports Day every year and he would practise by running along Wylie Road, Waterloo Road and Nathan Road repeatedly. His most favourite pastime was a visit to the boisterous Yung Shue Tau. In summer holidays, he went swimming in Tai Wan Shan, Hung Hom. It charged a low monthly fee of $3 for student swimmers. It was a 40-minute walk from Temple Street and he went there on foot with two Lai Chak classmates although his parents gave him 20 cents to take a bus from Jordan Road Ferry Pier. He would save the bus fare for tofu pudding. In those days, the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market stood next to the poultry market and his father would go there to stock up for his poultry stall which he operated in the Central Market. Ng Kin Sun had a relative who worked in the fruit market but he seldom visited the market because it was too small for him to play.

Title	His sphere of influence during his adolescent years: Yau Ma Tei, Tsim Sha Tsui, Ho Min Tin and Hung Hom
Date	21/02/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	12m38s
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.	YMT-NKS-SEG-007

In the period between 1964 and 1992, Ng Kin Sun lived with his family in a 400- to 500-sq.ft flat on the 4th floor of a building at No. 113, Temple Street. It was a Chinese tenment house with two units on a storey. When the family first moved in, they rented the whole flat and divided it into a number of rooms. Ng Kin Sun’s family occupied two rooms and the attic and sublease the other two rooms and a bed space. The flat had been occupied by 20 tenants from three families at its prime. All tenants shared the kitchen and pedestal toilet. They cooked with their own kerosene stoves in the kitchen. The Ng family and tenants adjusted themselves with each other. They lived in harmony and conflicts never occurred over the use of household facilities. After his younger brother grew up and moved out, the Ng family no longer leased the rooms and they had the whole flat for themselves.

Ng Kin Sun described how the Temple Street operates in 24 hours in those years. The stall hawkers began to close their business at 12am and stored their goods in shops on the ground floor but left plastic bags and rubbish on the street. The street resumed to peace at 2-3am. Not a soul was seen except one or two people from time to time. At 5-6am, people who worked an early shift appeared on the streets and the cleaning workers also started their busy day to clean the streets. Students appeared at seven or eight. The labourers also went to work in the early morning and it was their habit to have breakfast at the street-side food stalls. The housewives shopped at the market at 9am. The shops along the street started their business at 10am and the patients went to the doctors at 11am when the clinics opened. Lunch hour of offices began at 12pm. At 2pm, the stalls began their business one after another. At this hour of the day, the Temple Street would be closed to vehicular traffic. By 5pm or 6pm, the lights were on and the stalls started their business. After a days’ work, people came for food, entertainment, shopping, patronizing a prostitute or playing mah-jong games. At 8pm or 9pm, tourists came in by tour bus. After 10pm, more and more people came for midnight snack. At 11pm or 12am, the stalls began to close and the last stall closed at 1am or 2am. In the 1960s when Ng Kin Sun was in senior forms, he developed the habit of studying after midnight. It was because in the afternoon and at night, the noisy Temple Street and the bright neon signs of the mah-jong parlour opposite his home made it difficult for him to concentrate on his studies. Therefore he would go to bed around 10pm and rise at 3am or 4am to study so that he could make full use of the quiet hours of the day for study. When he had to prepare for the examination, he rose at 2am.

Title	Operation of Temple Street in 24 hours. Daily lives in his tenement house in Temple Street
Date	21/02/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	11m53s
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.	YMT-NKS-SEG-008

In the 1960s, Ng Kin Sun lived in a building at No. 113, Temple Street with his family. At the time, no prostitutes went to that section of the road (the section between Gansu Street and Pak Hoi Street) for business and they were mainly active in the Temple Street section between Saigon Street and Jordan Road. In the past, the prostitutes waited for their clients in the flat upstairs. One can easily identify their whereabouts because there was usually an aged woman sitting beside the stairway of the building. A”Tze Fa” gambling stall operated by the triad society at the stairway of his home building at 113, Temple Street. The manager was a man in his thirties. The people gambled with a stake of $5 for a game. The banker wrote down the number bet on a note book and torn out the page for the gambler’s retention. Ng Kin Sun and the stall manager knew each other but they did not greet each other when they met. The triad society gave no troubles to the residents. Sometimes after the Tze Fa gambling stall was closed at 2am or 3am, the triad elements would settle their disputes. Ng Kin Sun could hear their quarrels and fights. When he first moved in Temple Street, he did not know Tze Fa gambling was not allowed by law. When he grew older, he began to realize the dark side of the triad society. His family was poor so he never asked his father to find a new home away from the Temple Street. Many of his Lai Chak classmates lived in Temple Street and they were also comfortable with it.

The stalls at the Temple Street supplied goods similar to what they did over since the 1960s. These include records, clothes, belts and lighters. In the past, most customers were locals who usually bought the goods for daily household use. Since some years ago, the night market began to be visited by foreign tourists who came in tour buses. In his teenage years, Ng Kin Sun used to hurry home after school and did not spend time browsing the Temple Street. To avoid the crowd, he usually walked home along Pak Hoi Street and Gansu Street. He only visited certain stalls when he needed to buy the things but sometimes he would meet his classmates at the Temple Street stalls.

Title	Prostitutes, gambling stalls, street stalls and traid activities in Temple Street
Date	21/02/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	14m48s
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.	YMT-NKS-SEG-009

When talked about the unique smell that made him remember Yau Ma Tei, Ng Kin Sun recalled the special body smell of the drug addicts. Today, the vicinity of the jade market is still the hangout for the drug addicts and one can identify them by their body smell. But he does not think it was not the smell of of Yau Ma Tei. In Yau Ma Tei, when you went the sea side, you would smell sea water rich in fish smell. As a matter of fact, the smell was emitted by the fish market on Tung Kun Street.

For sound, he recalls the singing and music he heard at Yung Shue Tau. Under the influence of “Naughty Seven” he came to know many years ago, Ng Kin Sun bought his first Qinqin in 1963 with $10 or so which he had saved up for years. With instructions from “Naughty Seven”, who nicknamed him ‘four-eyed boy’, he practised hard at home and planned to pursue a career of performing art. In secondary school, he had performed in music night shows but no Chinese orchestra was formed at his school. He said that a Qinqin was not meant for grand performance, it was commonly used by people who performed music on the streets. Ng Kin Sun has lived in Yau Ma Tei for more than 5 decades. Today, he still lives there because of his mother. More than 2 decades ago, he visited a villa on Castle Peak Road to find a new residence for his family, including his mother. During their visit to the newly constructed villa, his mother made this comment: ‘It will be nice to travel from here to Yau Ma Tei market to shop groceries.’ So Ng Kin Sun decided to stay in Yau Ma Tei and he does not consider moving elsewhere until he completes his responsibility to take care of his mother. Ng thinks his mother is accustomed to the lifestyle in Yau Mat Tei. For instance, she frequents the same stalls when she shops groceries in the market.

Title	Smell and sound of Yau Ma Tei. A retrospect of his lives in Yau Ma Tei
Date	21/02/2011
Subject	Community
Duration	13m11s
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.	YMT-NKS-SEG-010