Grandma Leung

Biography

Although a native of Dongguan, Grandma Leung was born in Hong Kong in 1933. During childhood, she lived in Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui and her father worked in a qianzhuang or old-style native bank. She returned to her hometown after Hong Kong fell to the Japanese army in December 1941. Her father died soon after the war ended in 1945, and she then followed her mother back to Hong Kong where they rented bed space in a tenement building in Kai Tak Road in Kowloon City. Grandma Leung began working in weaving mills when she was aged just 12. She subsequently spent many years sweating in such factories until she changed to a different job when aged around 50. Following a little matchmaking by a fellow worker, Grandma Leung dated and married a Nga Tsin Wai villager called Mr. Wan towards the end of the 1950s. After their wedding, the couple moved into Nga Tsin Wai and had three children. In the mid-1980s, she and her husband ran a grocery from their home, selling fruits and drinks. The move helped Grandma Leung to establish very deep friendships and bonds with her fellow villagers and neighbours. In the early 2000s, the owner of her and her husband’s house cum store took back the property. She and her family reluctantly had to call time on their grocery business and move out of the Nga Tsin Wai home where they had spent so many years.