To Sui Wan

Woollen knitting use undyed woollen yarn as raw material. The production process starts with yarn dyeing, followed by cutting and knitting. In the early 1960s, pattern knitting was popular in local woollen knitting factories. For example, once some factories produced see-through woollen jackets by knitting leaf-shaped pieces first. Some workers sewed patterns onto the pieces and then cut the patterns with a nail clipper into see-through patterns. Hong Kong’s garment industry attracted orders from foreign buyers because it supplied high quality garments at cheap prices. In the past, button holes were stitched by hand. Workers earned 0.1 cent for each button hole stitched. When the knitted pieces were done, the seams  were linked with a linking machine. At the prime time of the woollen knitting industry, factory workers used linking as a metaphor of female workers dating a boyfriend. The knitted pieces were linked with a yarn thread. Excessive yarn threads were removed mostly by older female workers. And then workers stitched the remaining parts by hand into a finished knitwear. The finished knitwear products had to go through the quality control section.  If there were holes on the clothes, the holes are labelled with a clip and the knitwear were sent to the mending section to fix the holes. Knitwears that passed through quality check were cleaned, ironed and packed.

In the factory in Tai Kok Tsui where To Sui Wan worked as a child labour, there were 20 workers in the packaging section. Before packaging, all knitwears had to go through quality check again under a light. Defects had to be fixed otherwise the factory had to pay compensation when it delivered bad quality knitwears. As most orders had a tight work schedule, workers had to work days and nights to meet deadlines. In one occasion, a garment factory received an order of 1,000 pieces of pants within 2 days. In the earlier period, woollen knitting factories were large-scale factories employing more than 100 workers. To Sui Wan had worked in Yee Sing and Fung Lee, which were both large-scale factories. They seldom outsourced production to other factories. Local woollen knitting factories concentrated in San Po Kong, Tai Kok Tsui and Castle Peak Road. Knitting workers joined a factory through the introduction of friends. The first job that To Sui Wan worked for in Hong Kong was introduced by a neighbour. In the late 1960s, open recruitment became more popular. Factories posted recruitment notices on the notice boards of factory buildings. To Sui Wan felt she was lucky that she had friends and relatives who introduced her to the jobs so that she didn’t have to pay the introduction fee.

To Sui Wan shared her insights of knitting woollen pieces: workers had to be focused and patient. It was easy to handle a knitting machine. The workers had to understand the coding system when operating a knitting machine. However the most difficult part was to manage the tensile strength of a woollen yarn. Only workers with good experience knew the tensility of different types of woollen yarn and to apply the appropriate tension to produce a quality knitwear. The skills required for knitting patterns by hand were more complicated. Workers had to pay careful attention to the marks on the machine to avoid mistakes. Knitting workers were paid piece-rate. Some large factories outsourced the knitting process to small-scale home factories. In To Sui Wan’s experience, the factory manager coordinated the outsourcing jobs and earned commission from giving outsourced orders. For example, the factory paid 40 dollars for a dozen of knitwear, but the home factory taking the outsourced jobs received 35 dollars because the factory manager took 5 dollars as commission. This was a common practice. Many home factories installed several knitting machines and worked for outsourced orders. They recruited apprentices who learned the skills by working. The home factory owners promised to introduce them to jobs if they completed apprenticeship. That was what To Sui Wan did: she paid HK$ 150 for the apprenticeship and learned to knit woollen pieces in a home factory. When she completed the apprenticeship, she worked for the same factory until she recovered the apprenticeship fee from the wages. But she found herself not interested in knitting, she left the factory after 2-3 months.

Workers who did linking and looping were paid piece rate. A new worker had to pay apprenticeship fee to learn the skills from senior female workers. There were few positions for workers to do linking. Usually a factory installed some 20 sets of linking and looping machine. The senior workers usually filled a vacant position by recruiting their relatives and friends. The supervisor had the power to pick new workers and they trained the new workers to share their work. At that time, new workers had no difficulty joining the positions of linking and looping because bosses could save labour cost by hiring new piece-rate workers who were paid less as they did less. Later on, not many workers preferred to do linking and looping because it was a hard job. To attract more workers, factory bosses offered basic salary to linking and looping workers. In the early 1980s when many Hong Kong factories were relocated to mainland China, industrialist James Tien advocated for the importation of sewing workers so that more knitting factories could remain in Hong Kong. At the same time, the problem of labour shortage was solved by the influxes of Chinese immigrants, which became a source of cheap labour. To Sui Wan felt it a pity that Tien’s proposal was not accepted, resulting that the woollen knitting industry was in sharp decline now. She criticized the government of short-sightedness. The policy of importing labour was not in time, as many factories had already moved to mainland China and Hong Kong is no longer attractive to mainland immigrants.

The Lee Kung Man Knitting Factory is an old brand in Hong Kong which mainly produced wool sweaters. In the early 1970s, Lee Kung Man first imported leather materials and attempted to launch sweaters with a collar. Some years ago, Tat Lok Mei hired professionals to paint on leather. The new products were pretty but not durable. They were not well-received by the market. In the past, workers rarely considered the reputation of the factory when looking for jobs, relationship with the supervisor and factory’s turnover were their main concerns. A factory with high turnover was attractive because it could offer more work to do. To Sui Wan emphasized that a factory’s performance depends on the cooperation between employer and employees. An employer must trust competent staff, a lack of trust and jealousy will cause problems in operation.

In the past, a woollen knitting factory needed much space for the storage of bulky sweater products. Besides, the process of overlocking also needed a large area. In the workplace, the workers had to wear a mask to protect themselves from breathing in woollen particles. Generally, electric fans were installed to clear the suspended wool particles so the factory conditions would not pose health risk for workers. Among all knitting workers, the female linkers earned the highest wage. Linking was a task that required great patience and attention.  As the process did not involve physical labour, the female linkers preferred to dress up to work. Besides, as most of them were relatively younger, they always gave people an impression of “being arrogant”.  As the cutting and repair departments were constantly in labour shortage, the factories usually would recruit workers through labour contractors and hired them on daily wage or piece rate basis. Packaging was a task which could be easily handled by workers of all ages, including one aged 70 or above. After the 1980s, fewer and fewer people were willing to join the garment industry. To Sui Wan emphasized that if foreign workers had been imported at that time, Hong Kong’s garment industry would have survived until now but not completely disappeared.”

One of the factories To Sui Wan had worked for was the Tai Chung Fabric Factory on Castle Peak Road. The factory occupied the whole block of a 3-storey building. The ground floor was used as the framing workshop, weaving was carried out on the 2nd and 3rd floors. The workers worked under hazardous conditions, exposing to mechanical noises that could damage their hearing ability. Tai Chung Fabric Factory did not have any stock of finished products as it produced only when the factory received orders. The workers were assigned to work one of the three shifts, 8 hours each. Employed as a child labour, To Sui Wan worked the early shift only. This arrangement was to reduce the risk of industrial workers as young people easily fell asleep in night shifts.  She was less than 16 years old then, which was below the legal working age under the labour. However, she applied for the job with a identity card borrowed from an adult friend (at that time the holder’s photo was not shown on the ID card). The factory also employed several 14- or 15-year old child workers. When the government officers made  the factory inspection, the child workers hid themselves in the toilet. When were asked, they would say they came to visit their family who worked there.

Learning the pedal model was a turning point in To Sui Wan’s garment profession. After leaving the wig factory, she worked as a sewer in a home factory doing different tasks such as overlocking (to sew over the margin of cut cloth to prevent them from fraying), blindstitching (to hem the bottom of a trouser leg by hand) and sewing labels. She learned from practical work but she found no problem in it because she had previous experience in knitting sweaters and was knowledgeable about the production process of clothes. When the factory proprietor could not afford to pay their wages, 10 workers reported the case to the Sham Shui Po police station. To Sui Wan was owed several hundred dollars which she has never received so far. Through a friend, she worked in a home factory which specialized in ‘locals’. ‘Locals’ mean produced and sold in the local market. The factory was in Wan Chai operating with only 8 to 10 sewing machines. To Sui Wan was assigned the overlocking and blindstitching tasks. The skilled worker there (usually called “master”) patiently taught the workers various tasks such as ‘decorative edging’, and the workers also learned with an open mind. The factory was one floor above the Golden Phoenix Dance Parlour. After lunch, some workers would have a stroll at the St. Michael’s Catholic Cemetery in Happy Valley. When they returned to work, they would meet the dance hostesses. To Sui Wan said production of the ‘locals’ was more flexible, the faster one worked, the more one earned. When the building was demolished, the home factory closed down.

To Sui Wan joined the Tat Lok Mei Woollen Knitting Factory in Tai Po which was introduced by a friend. The factory had a long history. It manufactured knitted clothes and sweaters for some years and then changed into a weaving factory. The high-class garments it produced, such as hand-made patterned leather jackets, were exported to Japan. At first, she did the blindstitching. When the factory manager asked her to become a supervisor, she resigned from the job because she thought she could not do it. She joined the Kin Tai Woollen Knitting Factory in Kwun Tong to make sample knitwear. During the four years in Kin Tai, she completed Primary 4 to Form 1 in an evening school. When was told by a relative that Tat Lok Mei Woollen Knitting Factory needed a worker to make sample knitwear, she joined toTat Lok Mei the factory again. Later, one of the masters there started his own factory. To give her support, To Sui Wan resigned again and joined this new factory. Several months later when the factory became stable, she returned to Tat Lok Mei and was appointed the ‘line supervisor (to supervise the sewers). To Sui Wan got married in her thirties. After marriage, she preferred to make sample knitwear again because the supervision job took up too much of her time.

In order to take care of her daughter, she left Tat Lok Mei and took and knitted outsourced samples for factories at home. Through the referral of a friend, she joined Hero, an American listed company (Hero Industries Inc., Hong Kong Branch). Hero was a local factory producing sample clothing which operated in six to seven units in the Conic Investment Building in Hung Hom. It specialized in producing quality samples of evening wear, underwear, sleepwear and sweaters, especially evening gowns. The factory hired more than 70 sewers and more than 50 masters (skilled workers) when business was at its prime. Eight or nine years after she joined the factory, the American boss died and his family bankrupted due to improper wealth management. To Sui Wan joined the Sam Yeung to make sample clothing. The factory specialized in producing samples of high-class garments such as evening gowns and clothes decorated with beads. It had about 100 workers in the Hong Kong branch and 500 to 600 workers in the Shenzhen plant. In October 2008, she joined the company she is now working with. The company offers services of character design for artists. To Sui Wan makes the designed clothes which the artists would put on in the commercial advertisements.

Most garment factories which manufacture ‘local’ goods were home factories run in old tenement houses. Most workshops operated in a premise of 1000 sq. ft. with 10 sewing machines, carrying out simple pressing and cutting tasks. A home factory had only 10 workers with unclear division of tasks. Many factories which produced goods for local sale operated on Prince Edward Road. They manufactured suits and one-piece. In those days, the local sales were good because the economy was good in Hong Kong. There was a great demand for local cutting masters because they were all very skillful. Most masters preferred to work in the home factories because they enjoyed much autonomy in the sizing of cut-and-sewn garment.

The first home garment factory To Sui Wan worked for occupied two storeys of a building. The cutting workshop was set up on the rooftop, and sewing and pressing workshops were on the 3rd floor. The sewing machine operators were responsible for manufacturing all parts of the garment. The blindstitching and button attaching were done by hand. After pressing, the products would be ready for delivery. The home factory would first design the apparel, and then make the samples and do the promotion. A home factory usually would not keep any goods in stock and produce when an order was received. It also consigned goods for sale. The proprietor of a home factory must keep abreast of the trends. If the factory could supply popular products, it would receive orders more than it could handle, especially during change of season. Foreach design, a home factory might receive orders ranging from several dozens to several hundred. To maximize revenue, the cutting room had to know how to make the most of the fabric. Sometimes, the factory received no order during off seasons, so it might have no income for one or two months. When this happened, the male workers would leave for the export factories. When To Sui Wan first joined the trade, she did blindstitiching and overlocking. Because she had learnt the pedal model sewing machine previously and had knitted for years, she had no difficulty with sewing garments. In the home factories, her workmates taught her all they knew and she was willing to learn modestly so she mastered a lot of skills in a very short time.

To Sui Wan was both happy and worried on her first day at work. She was happy because she earned a daily wage of $4.50. What worried her was that during the 10 to 13 hours of doing boring job like packaging would make her feel sleepy and even fall asleep on the table. If this happened, she would be fired. The Labour Department inspectors visited the factory from time to time. When they came, the children workers had to run away from the inspection. Some hid in the toilets and others hid in the storerooms. To Sui Wan looked older than her age and was seldom investigated. She had been spotted by an inspector for a couple of times. When was asked what she was doing there, she said she came to visit her mother or her aunt. In the 1960s, the workers worked from 9am to 6-7pm for six days a week, and had a day off on Sundays, an entitlement under the labour law. In knitting factories, on the other hand, overtime work was common; the workers used to work seven days a week with no well-defined work hours. Sometimes when workload was heavy, they had to stay overnight in the factory. The woollen knitting factories rarely had off seasons, and there were almost no holidays in a year. They usually had holidays on festive days such as Winter Solstice, Mid-autumn Festival and Dragon Boat Festival. In the past, family life was more important than work. The married workers were usually permitted to have days off on festivals. To Sui Wan and other unmarried young female workers worked as usual on festive days. To them, the days without overtime work were ”holidays”.

To Sui Wan was the ‘elder sister’ (Editor’s note: the trade jargon of female supervisor) in Tat Lok Mei. She was responsible for arranging overtime work and outsourcing tasks besides acting as a bridge between the factory manager and workers. In those days, workers only worked overtime when the deadline was tight. It was the factory manager who decided whether the workers should work overtime. To Sui Wan always worked extra night shifts when she worked in the woollen knitting factories. Sometimes, she had to work until 11 pm. When no overtime work was needed, she went with her workmates working in other factories to earn additional. Although overtime work brought additional income, the workers might not have the energy doing this. When she arranged overtime work with the factory manager, workers’ income was her top priority as she believed that the extra income would encourage workers to work harder.  If they could complete the orders earlier than expected, then the revenue of the factory could be increased by taking more orders. Generally, when the local garment factories outsourced their jobs, the person in charge would deliberately lower the offer to win the employer’s trust. When she worked as a supervisor in Tat Lok Mei, on one occasion she miscalculated the wages and the outsource workers refused to work unless a raise was given. She strongly advised her employer to compensate workers for the wage differences so the order would not be delayed, the loss could be offset in other ways later. The wages of outsource jobs such as sewing and pressing were different. To Sui Wan said the wages were determined based on the experience. She must consider the interests of all parties concerned, that is, she had to secure the profit of the factory and at the same time offer reasonable wages for the workers. Sometimes, a supervisor might have to change the order of the production procedure to prevent the entire production flow from being affected due to the delay in one of the departments.

In her opinion, an ‘elder sister’ (i.e. a female supervisor) must have the management skill so she could allocate tasks to workers. Besides, she had to win her superior’s trust so he granted her the authority to do the job. An ‘elder sister’ needed not be skillful in garment production tasks. Some ‘elder sisters’ did not know how to use the sewing machine at all. However, it would surely be an advantage if she had good knowledge of garment production because she could do it herself if the workers were not cooperative. To Sui Wan emphasized that cooperation between employer and employees was as important as cooperation between workmates. In Tat Lok Mei, she got along well with all department heads so it was easy to arrange work. When she talked, she was always aware of using the proper language so as not to be in conflict with others. She also listen to different voices and allowed everybody to speak on  equal footing. She understood that  sometimes workers might be in bad attitude and speak improper language when they were in bad mood. Her philosophy of management was to give encouragement, appease the annoyed ones and listen to their grievances. This could relax any tensions. Sometimes when the workers (some were trained by her in their apprenticeship) were too exhausted and were working overtime everyday but the deadline was approaching, the ‘elder sister’ would advise outsourcing some of the tasks. Sometimes, her advice was rejected and this made her experience the role conflict of a supervisor. On the contrary, the home factories had no clear departmentalization. One sewer might produce a whole garment and they didn’t need an ‘elder sister’ to supervise them. The home factories had a relative short production lead time and no quality control. The clients would test the quality by trying on the clothes.”

To Sui Wan had worked in the textile industry all her life. Her vocational life could be divided into three stages: 1) as a child labour in the woollen knitting factory; 2) as a garment factory worker at youth; 3) as a sample maker after marriage. To Sui Wan was 11 when she came to Hong Kong in 1963. In Hong Kong, she stayed with her concubine mother and elder brothers and sisters. Her natural mother and her younger brothers and sisters stayed in Guangzhou. Because her elder brothers and sisters were married and had their own children, she wanted to work so that she could support herself in living and education, and could provide for her younger brothers and sisters in the native place. She was eager to work. Through a friend, she started working as a child labour in a woollen knitting factory. Because she was under the statutory age to work (not less than 16 years old), she borrowed somebody’s identity card for the job interview. At the time, the identity card only showed the holder’s name but no photograph. In her opinion, child labour was nothing bad because it enabled an underaged to earn a living and it also served as a way for the children not able to go to school to have something to do. In those days, it was common for children of 8 to 9 years old to go to work. There were other children workers in the woollen knitting factory she worked, but they never talked to each other. The children mainly did unskilled jobs like cutting thread ends or packaging. A child worker showing his sense of responsibility and good handcraft would be respected.

To Sui Wan was both happy and worried on her first day at work. She was happy because she earned a daily wage of $4.50. What worried her was that during the 10 to 13 hours of doing boring job like packaging would make her feel sleepy and even fall asleep on the table. If this happened, she would be fired. The Labour Department inspectors visited the factory from time to time. When they came, the children workers had to run away from the inspection. Some hid in the toilets and others hid in the storerooms. To Sui Wan looked older than her age and was seldom investigated. She had been spotted by an inspector for a couple of times. When was asked what she was doing there, she said she came to visit her mother or her aunt. In the 1960s, the workers worked from 9am to 6-7pm for six days a week, and had a day off on Sundays, an entitlement under the labour law. In knitting factories, on the other hand, overtime work was common; the workers used to work seven days a week with no well-defined work hours. Sometimes when workload was heavy, they had to stay overnight in the factory. The woollen knitting factories rarely had off seasons, and there were almost no holidays in a year. They usually had holidays on festive days such as Winter Solstice, Mid-autumn Festival and Dragon Boat Festival. In the past, family life was more important than work. The married workers were usually permitted to have days off on festivals. To Sui Wan and other unmarried young female workers worked as usual on festive days. To them, the days without overtime work were ”holidays”.

To Sui Wan lived in a low-cost housing estate in Tai Hang Tung with her concubine mother, elder brothers and elder sisters. When she did not have to work, she helped her mother with the housework. In her first year in Hong Kong, the water rationing measure was implemented. Under the measure, water was supplied once every four days. They fetched water from outside their homes and washed their clothes using water from a public standpipe. When To Sui Wan came to Hong Kong, her elder sister already had 4 to 5 children, To Sui Wan always took care of them for her. To thank her contribution to the family, her brother-in-law would give her 5-dollar red packets on the Lunar New Year. At the time, there was no television in their home but she could watch television at an old man’s home on the 4th floor for a fee of 10 cents. If she paid 20 cents, she could sit on his ‘comfortable’ bed and watch television. In his home, there was a long bench which provided enough space for several children. It was always crowded because neighbours of all ages came to watch television. In those days, Rediffusion was the only television station in Hong Kong. Cantonese movies and opera performed by Leung Sing Bor, Ng Cho Fan, Bak Suet Sin and Fong Yim Fan were shown most of the time. She enjoyed them. If there were good programs, the neighbours did not mind standing watching if all seats were occupied. The movie she liked included Vigilante in the Mask. She thought she had a lot entertainment in her childhood.

When she first started to work, she gave all her wages to her concubine mother including the wage packet. Later on, as she did not have a stable income, she had no money for her family. She earned more when she worked in Fung Lee Woollen Knitting Factory in San Po Kong. She gave her mother $300 a month and kept the rest for herself. At the time, her elder brother mailed $100 to their natural mother in the native place. She would mail her more if money was urgently needed in the native place. She remembers that her mother had needed several hundred RMB when the house in the home village collapsed. At the time, the exchange rate of RMB to HKD was high, HKD100 would be converted to RMB30. This meant she had to send more than HK$3,000 to her mother. Not having so much cash in hand, she borrowed from friends. To Sui Wan visited her native place two or three times a year. When her concubine mother returned to her native place, she would bring along a large pot of home-made pork in black bean sauce, crusts, oil and fabrics. Her natural mother, younger brothers and sisters lived in Guangzhou city where supplies were adequate. They could convert the cash remitted from Hong Kong into vouchers and cloth coupons. They gave the unused coupons to friends. When their friends received the coupons, they would say ‘What a different life with a southern window (i.e. remittance).’ Her natural mother worked at a street side purchasing station and was entitled to social security.