Ma Sui Wai

Ma Sui Wai’s father came to Hong Kong from the Mainland illegally. His mother also came to Hong Kong in 1945. Ma Sui Wai was born in their Sung Wong Toi home in 1946. After he was born, his father tried to look for a new home. He could not afford to rent a flat in Nga Tsin Wai, so he built a wooden hut on Pei Pin Street, which was adjacent to Nga Tsin Wai, with the consent of the Nga Tsin Wai village headman. At the time, on the right of Nga Tsin Wai was Nam Pin Street. Some brick houses were built on Nam Pin Street, but most houses were wooden huts. Ma Sui Wai remembered that a dozen houses were built on Pei Pin Street when he was 8 to 10 years old. His neighbours were mainly Haifeng natives who moved there from Sung Wong Toi along with them. Both his parents were Haifeng natives, they spoke Haifeng dialect. Ma Sui Wai talked with people outside the family in Cantonese, and talked with his mother in the Haifeng dialect. Usually, his mother only spoke Haifeng dialect because she was shy and felt uncomfortable talking in Cantonese. Besides, all her neighbours were Haifeng natives. (Editor’s Note: Ma Sui Wai and his wife supplemented that his father knew Ng Fat Tsai the village representative. It was with Ng Fat Tsai’s consent that his father built the wooden hut. Ng Fat Tsai was a celebrity in the village and he used to frequent the small tea house at the corner of Tai Hang Street and Pei Pin Street. The wooden hut of Ma Sui Wai’s family was built on the crown land and they did not have to to pay the rent. The complete address was Ground Floor 2A, Pei Pin Street, Nga Tsin Wai.) 

When Ma Sui Wai was a child, he attended a school run on the rooftop of a 7-storey building. Later, he transferred to a school opened by the Kai Tak Evangelical Church and had studied there for 1 to 2 years. Both schools offered free education. Later on, Ma Sui Wai and his elder brother were enrolled in the Lok Sin Tong Primary School in Kowloon City where they completed their primary education. In those days, the School still adopted the half-day system, lesson fees were charged. Upon graduation from the primary school, Ma Sui Wai passed the entrance examination and was enrolled in the St. Joseph’s Anglo-Chinese School in Ngau Chi Wan. He was granted government subsidies, and only had to pay $16 or $32 for the tuition fees.

Ma Sui Wai’s father had two wives. Ma Sui Wai’s natural mother was the ‘principal wife’. When Ma Sui Wai was in his twenties, he father married his second wife - the ‘non-natural mother’. The non-natural mother blessed his father with 2 sons and 2 daughters, who were 8 to 10 years younger than Ma Sui Wai. The whole family lived together in the flat at 2A Pei Pin Street. His younger brothers and sisters had different prospects. Some quitted studies after primary school, his two younger sisters completed their secondary education. Some of his siblings worked as drivers, others were salary earners. All members of the family are on good terms, they still keep in touch now. Their 400- to 500-sq-ft home on Pei Pin Street had a square layout. There were three bedrooms and one living room where friends and relatives would sleep on the floor during their short stay in their home. There was also a kitchen and a pit toilet. A public pit toilet built of wood was also provided by the government on the open space between the houses.

The hut was mainly built of wood planks and iron sheets. It was terrible on windy days when the hut swayed. Besides, there was the problem of flooding. Ma Sui Wai remembered that when it was announced on the radio that the typhoon signal would soon reach No. 8 or higher, his father and relatives would dangle several pieces of granite stones from the roof with ropes to prevent the roof from being blown away. One some occasions, however, the roof was partly destroyed inevitably. Ma Sui Wai always sighed at the memory of the family’s poverty when he was a child. They had no toys but entertainment which needed no money, such as soccer, pogs or catching jumping spiders. His wife’s elder brother (Ng Chi Wing the incumbent village headman of Nga Tsin Wai) was one of his playmates with whom he grew up. Most of the children who lived in Nga Tsin Wai and on Pei Pin Street became playmates. The resettlement area was visited by all kinds of people, some of his soccer playmates were triad society members. Ma Sui Wai had no further interaction with them other than soccer, he was glad that he had not been led astray.

It was common that residents on Pei Pin Street partitioned part of their house into a grocery store and earned money by selling snacks. Some made a living by pasting match boxes or sewing gloves at home. When Ma Sui Wai was a child, he had helped his mother with these tasks. When his wife was a child, she and her sisters earned money by fetching water from the public standpipe outside Nga Tsin Wai for the people who lived a long way from the standpipe and had difficulties in fetching water. They made daily delivery of water to their homes. They earned around $10 every month. In the past, water supply was inconvenient. Occasionally, water was supplied once every 4 days. Sometimes, the bad-tempered Haifeng natives who lived on Pei Pin Street would quarrel with the Nga Tsin Wai villagers over water fetching, but the Pei Pin Street residents had to concede because the standpipe was within the area of Nga Tsin Wai Village.

Electricity supply was difficult too. Very few households succeeded to get individual supply of water and electricity. They had no television set too. The radio of the grocery store at the entrance of the village provided precious entertainment to the residents. At night, Ma Sui Wai and other villagers would go to the store and listen to the Midnight Ghost Stories. Ma Sui Wai still remembers vividly how he ran home with fear after hearing the stories. Such memories still amuses him. Ma Sui Wai’s wife said life was hard but happy. In those days, the girls would have fun for the whole day from biscuits bought with several dozen cents. Other games they had were similarly simple, such as rubber band skipping and pogs. (Editor’s note: Ma Sui Wai and his wife supplemented that because the Squatter Control Unit sent staff to Pei Pin Street for population registration regularly, many people chose to rent the squatters hoping that they would be rehoused to the public housing. Because of poor living conditions and constant threats of fire and typhoon, the Pei Pin Street squatter dwellers were eager to move out. So, notifications of demolition from the Squatter Control Unit were never met with resistance from the dwellers. The dwellers were mainly rehoused to the public housing estates in Tung Tau Estate, Kai Liu and Choi Hung Estate.)

Tung Tau Estate was close to Nga Tsin Wai, a journey between them only took a 5-minute walk. When Ma Sui Wai was a student, he used to visit Nga Tsin Wai and had entertainment with the villagers. He did the same after he started to work after graduation. The choices of entertainment were few in the 1960s, most people would gather in the village after dinner for a chat. After Kong Chi Yin started to work, he would treat Ma Sui Wai and several friends, who were still students, to a movie in the Ritz Theatre in Mong Kok. A villager who worked as an usher in the Ritz Theatre would get them the cheapest tickets (30 or 40 cents) for the morning session. Ma Sui Wai remembered that there were the Loong Shing Theatre and International Theatre when he was a child. In the past when people lived in poverty, children who wanted to watch a movie’s only chance was to beg a kind-looking middle-aged woman at the theatre entrance to take them inside.

When Ma Sui Wai was a student, he always had parties in the home of his girlfriend (now his wife). In those days, St. John’s Secondary School was a popular venue for night parties. It still amuses Ma Sui Wai when he recalls how he asked the girls to dance in the parties. Ma Sui Wai made good friends with the Nga Tsin Wai villagers because they were classmates and shared common hobbies, so it was the Nga Tsin Wai villagers but not the children who lived on Pei Pin Street that he always met. As children from poor families, they had simple fun such as picking fruits from the mulberry tree planted by a fellow native on Pei Pin Street or keeping silkworms. The choices of entertainment were not many when Ma Sui Wai started dating a girlfriend and shopping and going to movies were the usual activities. Sometimes, they would go to the cinemas far from home such as the Princess Theatre in Tsim Sha Tsui, Royal Theatre on Bute Street and Paris Theatre which was situated at the current site of Yue Xiu Plaza.

When Ma Sui Wai was a child, the activities held in celebration of the Jiao Festival would last for 3 days. They were officiated by Ng Yau Fat the village representative (his father-in-law later). During the Jiao Festival, the villagers would put on new clothes as a symbol of purity if they could afford it. The activities included vegetarian feasts and puppet shows, which were the children’s favourite. Tin Hau was received from the Tin Hau Temple by 4 so-called ‘good-fate’ women. They would carry Tin Hau on their shoulders from the Temple to the gatehouse entrance where she was seated facing Nga Tsin Wai. Devout followers would donate new clothes to Tin Hau and decorations to the Temple. The difference between the Jiao Festival and Chinese New Year was that the whole territory was flooded with boisterous merriment in the Chinese New Year, but Nga Tsin Wai was the only mirthful place when the Jiao Festival was celebrated. In the New Year period, the villagers would set off firecrackers and had the game of throwing the 5-cent coin at the gatehouse. In the period between the 1960s and 1970s, the horizontal ladder in front of the site at the gatehouse where an herbal shop now stands was a popular hangout of the young people. 

After living on Pei Pin Street for years, Ma Sui Wai’s family was resettled to Block 5 of the Tung Tau Resettlement Estate under the government’s demolition policy. (Editor’s note: Block 5 of the Tung Tau Resettlement Estate was completed in 1959.) The family had lived there for about 30 years. Ma Sui Wai’s father originally worked as a luggage porter at the airport. When they moved to Pei Pin Street, he made a living by selling candies and snacks in the living room besides leasing the mahjong sets. Later on, he was given a street shop in the resettlement area for continual operation of the grocery store and two flats at the monthly rent of $10. Ma Sui Wai continued to live with his parents after he was married.

At the time, the flats in the 7-storey buildings had no private toilet and kitchen, it was common that the tenants cooked with petroleum gas stove or kerosene stove behind an iron sheet shelter outside the porch. Public bath rooms, flush latrines and water standby pipes were provided in the central portion of the building. To take a bath, the tenants had to pump water from the standby pipes to the bath rooms, but they had to prepare their own hot water. The 7-storey buildings had a complex population, including the locals and the Hakkas, but there were also good neighbours. The Ma family lived on the 2nd floor, but they had meals at the street shop. Because the flat was small, Ma Sui Wai’s natural mother would tend the shop in daytime and sleep there at night. His non-natural mother worked as a cleanser for the San Po Kong branch of the Hang Seng Bank. She had a job since she married Ma Sui Wai’s father; his natural mother took care of the family’s daily living. Everyone was equal in the family and they lived in harmony.

After graduation from the secondary school, Ma Sui Wai worked in a weaving mill in To Kwa Wan through referral. It was a hard job with working hours started early and ended late. After working there for six months (Editor’s note: It was 1969.), Ma Sui Wai got a job in the China Light & Power Company as a meter reader through referral of a relative. He earned a monthly salary of $380 and was responsible to visit every household in the New Territories and record the meter readings. He had worked as a meter reader for more than 10 years. During that period, he had tried to get a job at the airport but did not succeed. He had no alternatives but continued to work in the China Light & Power Company. Later on, through referral of a friend he was transferred to the Customer Service Department where he had had a number of promotions. Ma Sui Wai continued to work in the company until he retired in 2006. When he retired, he extended his service at the request of his superior who appreciated his work performance. Ma Sui Wai extended his service for 10 months and then left the company because of personnel changes. After that, there had been opportunities for him to continue to work in the trade, but they did not materialize because of either funding problems or unsuitable job nature. 

The whole family still lived in Block 5 of the Tung Tau Resettlement Estate after Ma Sui Wai’s children were born. (Editor’s note: He got married in 1969.) They lived in Bock 5 until it was demolished. (Editor’s note: Block 5 of the Tung Tau Resettlement Estate was demolished in 1985.) The government compensated them for demolition of the grocery store and allocated two flats in Fu Shan Estate for a monthly rent of more than $500. (Editor’s note: Fu Shan Estate was completed in 1978.) Ma Sui Wai’s family and his non-natural mother’s family each occupied a flat. Preferring to stay with the fellow natives in Tung Tau Estate, his natural mother rented a shop in Block 17 of Tung Tau Estate for continual operation of the grocery store. She slept in the shop at night. When Tung Tau Estate was demolished for redevelopment, she moved the grocery store to San Po Kong. She had a happy life there chatting and having mahjong games with the neighbors. His natural mother was more than 80 years old when the shop premise owner refused to renew the tenancy agreement. Under the family’s advice, she eventually agreed to move to their flat in Fu Shan Estate.

Fu Shan Estate is public housing, the saleable area of a flat was 370 sq. ft. Each flat is provided with a private toilet and kitchen. Besides, the tenants may decide their own ways of partitioning. Ma Sui Wai’s family had lived there for more than 20 years. When his children had grown up and the family’s financial conditions had improved, they were requested by the government to pay the market rent. Therefore, Ma Sui Wai applied to buy a Home Ownership Scheme flat after his younger brother got married, moved out of the old home and settled down in a new flat. At first, he purchased an uncompleted flat of the Tong Ming Court in Tseung Kwan O. However, they eventually moved into an HOS flat in Ma On Shan where they have lived for 11 yearssince then..

When Ma Sui Wai was young, he did not participate in the preparation of the activities in celebration of the Jiao Festival. It was not until 2006 that he started to take part in the preparation along with two close childhood friends, namely Kong Chi Yin and Ng Chi Wing the then village headman. They also took part in organizing the annual activities for celebration of the Birthday of Tin Hau. They worked in a transparent manner and each one of them undertook different tasks. For example, Kong Chi Yin kept the accounts, and Ma Sui Wai hosted the activities. They also joined other helpers in all kinds of tasks, including travelling to Shenzhen for purchase of inexpensive souvenirs.

When Ma Sui Wai helped prepare for the Jiao Festival in 2006, he still had a job. Therefore, he made use of the lunch time to do some preparatory work, such as buying lanterns. Due to the shortage of funds, Ma Sui Wai and other villagers donated money. They did not do this for fame and gain, but to serve Tin Hau. Ma Sui Wai was equally enthusiastic in other tasks such as cleaning the Village Office or flag planting. Besides, as Ng Chi Wing the village headman was his wife’s elder brother as well as a close childhood friend, he never hesitated to offer his assistance. He said with a sigh that he had to remind himself of his capacity as a non-clansman because there were always people who emphasized the superiority of the three surnames of Ng, Chan and Lee. He said he offered a hand just because the Chan and Lee clans had few descendents to undertake the preparatory work. His only intention was to serve Tin Hau. With a clear conscience, he always took the gossiping and adverse comments peacefully.

Ng Chi Wing the incumbent village headman set up the Nga Tsin Wai Village Committee for the purpose of laying foundation for the younger generations so work will be easier for them in the future. The existing members have more time for the tasks, and each of them has the opportunity to bring their strengths into play. At present,village affairs are also attended by non-indigenous people whose efforts may be responded with derision sometimes. However, they always tell themselves that they work for Tin Hau. As Tin Hau is the goddess who protects Nga Tsin Wai, so they actually work for the Nga Tsin Wai Village. This thought gives them a peace conscience so they can handle things peacefully. With a strong emotional tie with the village, Ma Sui Wai always visits it after removal. He visits the village with his wife every week because his wife’s younger brother still lives in the village. They also visit other villagers for a happy gathering, but the villagers are moving out one after another.

Nga Tsin Wai villagers had poor living conditions but strong emotion, high esprit de corps and good folkway. In the past, the public order was so good that the house doors could be left unlocked when the residents went out or go to bed at night. In daytime, the elderly women used to sit in front of the gatehouse. The village was almost like the villagers’ private place because the strangers all felt uncomfortable entering it. The villagers were helpful to each other. Anyone who had prepared the sweet soup would share it with the others. This is a contrast with today when every household closes its door and has no interaction with the neighbor. Kong Chi Yin and Kwong Kwok Hung are Ma Sui Wai’s good friends. Although they are only tenants not indigenous residents, they have lived in the village for decades, they are ready to give a hand when help is needed.

Although Nga Tsin Wai will soon be demolished, the Tin Hau Temple will be preserved. As the villagers keep their friendship through emotional tie with the village and the village headman’s efforts, it is believed that activities will still be held, although in different scale, to celebrate the Birthday of Tin Hau in the future. Under the current conservation policy, the Tin Hau Temple will be kept, 6 village houses will be preserved in the original form, a park will be built where residential buildings will be developed in the area up the park. Village Office will be rebuilt next to the Temple of Tin Hau. Ma Sui Wai thinks the policy can keep the originality of the village. In principle, he supports the policy, which is the best choice without better alternatives, but the reality is nonetheless different from his ideal. On the other hand, whether the plan will be fulfilled by the Urban Renewal Authority is another thing.

When Ma Sui Wai first left Nga Tsin Wai, he would return to the village with his 2- to 3-year-old children in the Spring Festival to pay new year greetings. His children visit the village no more after their grandparents were dead. Besides, they no longer attend the activities held in celebration of the Birthday of Tin Hau now. Ma Sui Wai will order a feast on the Jiao Festival for the whole family so his children can experience the atmosphere of the Nga Tsin Wai Village. His children do not consider their father’s enthusiastic participation in the Nga Tsin Wai affairs to be weird because they know their father is a close friend of Kong Chi Yin and other villagers. Besides, their uncle Ng Chi Wing is the village headman. They think participation in the preparation of such activities is good for their father because it gives him the opportunity to communicate more with his friends and maintain a tie with the society after retirement. To Ma Sui Wai, these tasks are meaningful. Although no monetary return is received, recognition from others is gained. On the other hand, he has developed a strong emotional tie with Nga Tsin Wai from years of residence. Besides, the village headman is his wife’s elder brother and a close childhood friend, and he needs someone to help him with the village affairs. Ng Siu Kei is also his childhood friend. Now, all of them are retired, they can free themselves from family affairs and have time for the preparation of the activities.