Tam Sau King

Biography

In 1924 Tam Sau-king was born in her hometown Kaiping. She moved to Hong Kong in 1953 and afterwards she worked as cleaner and housemaid. In mid-1960s she applied for a mobile hawker’s license and set up her stall in Bowring Street. From the onset she sold miscellaneous goods. Later she specialized in jade products. Not long after she followed the advice of trade veterans and set up stall outside Yan Yan Teahouse at Canton Road. After the jade business prospered, she travelled to Singapore to sell jade rings. She also turned her apartment flat as a warehouse where she dealt with local and oversea wholesaler. In recent years, her jade stall had been moved to the Yau Ma Tei Jade Market. She retired in 2008/09 and now many of Tam’s children and grandchildren were jade traders themselves. She settled in Yau Ma Tei after she came to Hong Kong. She had lived in Kwun Chung Street and Man Yuen House at Jordan Road. In the 1990s she moved to a public housing unit in Kwun Tong.