Grandma Leung

Grandma Leung worked in a weaving factory with her mother when she was 12 only. When she first started work, Grandma Leung initially beat yarn for a company called Hung Fook in To Kwa Wan, toiling 12 hours a day from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. As she had not yet reached legal  working age, Grandma Leung had to hide and escape each time the Labour Department came around to inspect the premises. Only when she turned 15 or 16 did she get a valid Hong Kong ID card. When aged around 20, she moved jobs and began work for Hong Shing in Ha Heung Road where she learned silk weaving skills from Shunde masters. Her time here ended when the factory closed down a few years later because the proprietor was losing money.

Grandma Leung then began working for a company called Kau Sun. By the time she moved here, factory regulations had changed so she only had to work eight hours a day. Grandma Leung worked either the morning or middle shifts, alternating her hours every month. The Shanghainese boss of Kau Sun was notorious for treating his staff badly, even considering that those taking meals were timewasters. He demonstrated his meanness by only distributing two pieces of bread to each worker so they could fill their stomachs at mealtimes. Those workers wishing to eat rice they had brought had to do so in secret! There was a half-hour meal break each day later on. Grandma Leung spent many decades working her fingers to the bone in such weaving mills, changing employers many times.  She retired when aged around 50 and run a grocery stalls in Nga Tsin Wai with her husband.

Grandma Leung’s husband, Mr. Wan, was a Nga Tsin Wai villager and the matchmaker who brought them together was a colleague whose elder brother was a friend of  Mr. Wanher future spouse. One year, this female worker accompanied Mr. Wan and Grandma Leung to the flower market where she introduced them to each other. Although the future married couple each left on their own and had no further contact, all three of them met again at the next year’s flower market. It was around about now that Grandma Leung and Mr. Wan began their courtship. The Government of that time issued laws decreeing that factory staff could only be asked to work an eight-hour day with one day off each week. Grandma Leung’s co-worker continued her matchmaking efforts and arranged appointments for the pair.

Whenever there were holidays, Mr. Wan and her would rather go swimming or hiking than watch movies. On their excursions together, the two had been to Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park, Stanley, the Peak and Wu Kai Sha. While there, they just sat around chatting happily together, strolling to and from each destination. Back then, people were far more used to walking than they are today. Even if bus fares were cheap, they wanted to save up money. Mr. Wan and Grandma Leung married after they had been dating for four years. Actually, their first two years together did not really consist of “dating” as such. The two simply treated one and other as good friends and had fun enjoying each other’s company when spending time together during holidays.

Grandma Leung and her husband, Mr. Wan, had three children. This was a fairly small family as “average” families in Nga Tsin Wai usually had six or seven kids. Back then, the couple worked very hard for their living, toiling long hours every day. As Grandma Leung often took the middle shift in the factory, it was often past 11:00 pm at night when she returned home. Poor Grandma Leung often endured miserable hardships, not even daring to take time off when her children were sick for fear of losing her attendance bonus and daily wage. When such problems arose, she simply requested that the foreman let her leave work an hour early so that she could take her sick child to the doctor’s. By the time she and her charge returned home, it was frequently already 1:00 am! On the day her youngest son was born, Grandma Leung clocked off from work at 3:00 pm so she could collect her wage and attendance bonus! She then went into labour, suffering considerable pain until the boy arrived into the world at around 12:00 midnight.

When Grandma Leung worked in factories, she usually bought food at the market in Kowloon City each morning. She knew the proprietor of a seafood stall there who she had met at night school and had later gone on to become a classmate in a worker union’s sewing class. Having made her fortune, the owner eventually emigrated to Australia to run a seafood stall there. Outside Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng Clan Ancestral Hall was an open-air bazaar with a lot of fish, vegetable, pork and fruit stalls where Grandma Leung often frequented. Boat people sometimes sold fish here. Vegetables were on offer at 15 cents per catty, dropping to 5 cents per catty just before the market closed for the day. Grandma Leung sighs that the people of Nga Tsin Wai didn’t have a clue as to how to run a business, leasing the stalls at cheap prices to outsiders. Business at the bazaar was good, with many people from the resettlement estate coming over to snap up bargains there. All the vendors made money. The proprietor of a fruit stall even bought a property in San Po Kong.

Whenever there were festivals or celebrations, Grandma Leung would hold an animal sacrifice to worship the Goddess of the SeTin Haua. Some villagers in Nga Tsin Wai organised clubs for worshiping this deity, killing pigs and encouraging their members to worship on Tin Hau’s Birthday. Grandma Leung also organised a club with more than 10 housewives as members. Among them were the mother and elder sisters of Ng Chi Wing. The club ordered roasted pigs and chickens from the store and distributed the meat to each member during the festival period. Families who had newborn babies would receive special eggs that had been dyed red in the store in advance.

By the time Mr. Wan reached the 55-year-old retirement age, as some of his children had not started working yet and he did not have much savings, he therefore decided to quit his job and open a grocery store to earn money to fund his retirement. Although Grandma Leung was still working in a factory, she had to resign and help her husband run the store. As was common at the time, the couple used wire meshes to enclose the open space in front of their home and opened a grocery store there. Noticing that people loved to drink fresh fruit juices but could not buy them from supermarkets, Mr. Wan spent HK$4,000 on a juicer, selling both fruits and fruit drinks from the new store. Their store became a gathering place of neighbors.  

After the store had been running for more than 10 years, the owner of Grandma Leung and Mr. Wan’s house decided it was time to sell. The old couple could not afford to meet new rent. At this time, Mr. Wan was already over 70 years old and his kids urged him to close down the business. He finally collected the removal compensation and shut the store doors for the last time. The closure of such a gathering place made Mr. Wan, Grandma Leung and their customers all feel very sad. When the couple were finally about to leave the village for the last time, someone even hosted a meal in their honour. Mr. Wan and his wife gave away the tables and chairs and the remaining mahjong sets to their housewife customers as gifts. Most of the housewives who became such firm friends for over a decade at the mahjong stall began passing away soon after its closure.