Yip Kam Fook

To Yip’s mother, children should study hard in order to find a job in a bank or a foreign company, so that they would be working in a more comfortable environment equipped with electrical fans.

Title	A life-long pursuit drilled by parents
Date	05/01/2010
Subject	Education
Duration	30s
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.	TW-YKF-HLT-004

After graduation from Chu Hai English School, Yip was accepted for enrolment by National Taiwan University and National Cheng Kung University. He had planned to study Political Geography, but he could find universities offering this speciality in Taiwan and Japan only. Recommended by a Canadian university for furthering his studies in Canada, he had already completed the application process. However, Yip’s chance of studying abroad was ruined by the report of the medical check-up which stated that he had symptoms of an early stage of tuberculosis. During that era, tuberculosis was a horrible disease, so that the patients were prohibited from making contacts with their family and others.

Title	Infected by tuberculosis and unalbe to study abroad
Date	05/01/2010
Subject	Education
Duration	1s21s
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.	TW-YKF-HLT-005

Yip dared not go back to Chu Hai College to study after he had contracted the disease. Instead, he went to Hung Hom Technical Institute (TI, i.e. the predecessor of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University) to study mechanical engineering. At that time, his family was still trying to make ends meet, so Yip had to go home to take care of the family and treat his sickness right after school. This kind of life had lasted two years. Yip recalled that he had no childhood, no school life nor team life.

Title	Impact of sickness towards daily lives and study
Date	05/01/2010
Subject	Education
Duration	1m20s
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.	TW-YKF-HLT-006

The uniform of Confucius Tai Hang School included a white shirt and yellow trousers. Yip had only one white shirt, so he wore it from Monday to Saturday. After his shirt became shabby, he would have the collar and sleeves replaced by a tailor.

Title	Replaced the uniform's collar of Confucius Tai Hang School
Date	05/01/2010
Subject	Education
Duration	39s
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.	TW-YKF-HLT-007

The official exercise books sold in the School were quite expensive, so Yip made his own copies by sticking an old cover of official exercise books onto the exercise books bought from the outside store. The price for the official exercise books was about twenty cents each, but the ones he bought from ordinary stationery stores cost him only about five cents each.

Title	Replaced the cover of official exercise books to save his pocket
Date	05/01/2010
Subject	Education
Duration	26s
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.	TW-YKF-HLT-009

During his study in Chu Hai College, Yip and some schoolmates had been sent to South China Morning Post, Hong Kong Times and Red Green Daily (translation) to do proofreading work, and they were allowed to amend foreigners’ English writing. The students who were allocated jobs went to work irregularly after school for two weeks and were given allowance for transportation and meals. The level of secondary school graduates at that time was similar to that of the present university graduates.

Title	Being arranged an internship in a newspaper office druing his study in Chu Hai English School
Date	05/01/2010
Subject	Education
Duration	1m51s
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.	TW-YKF-HLT-013

To Yip, contracting tuberculosis was just a small problem, and his health was not poor. Every day he carried some water and went to the chest clinic to take medicine. This kind of clinic could be found in Argyle Street, and the districts of Wan Chai and Shau Ki Wan. In the clinic, a patient’s medical history was recorded on a card. Anyone who missed a chop on his card would be required to have an X-ray of his lung. At that time the needle of the syringe was disinfected by being boiled in the water. However, some of the needles were already blunt. When these needles were used for injection, it would be extremely painful; such experience would be bitter to the patient. Even if the patient’s condition was not serious, the treatment with injection would still last two years in order to calcify the bacteria infected, and it should not be stopped for even one day. It was Yip’s intention not to let his classmates know that he had tuberculosis, so he always ate alone both in school and at home.

Title	To cure tuberculosis
Date	05/01/2010
Subject	Education
Duration	2m3s
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.	TW-YKF-HLT-015