Grandma Leung

Grandma Leung was born in Hong Kong in 1933 and lived in Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. The area back then was home to many workshops which made camphor chests. She and her family occupied the fourth floor balcony of a tenement building. In front of their home was located Kowloon Wharf and to the rear was Mosque Hill (Editor’s note: which is now Kowloon Park). In the basement of the building was one of many local workshops that made camphor chests. Grandma Leung’s father worked in a qianzhuang or old style Chinese bank in Tsim Sha Tsui where he changed money and his wife brought him meals every day. Grandma Leung began to make sense of the world when aged just 7. At that time the Japanese army attacked Hong Kong at 8:00 am on the morning. While her father was trapped on Hong Kong Island, her mother joined the crowds looting rice from Kowloon Wharf, but unfortunately lost the basket she intended to pack with food for her family. Life during the first month of the Japanese occupation was very harsh. Like many others, Grandma Leung’s family was desperate to escape to their building’s basement for shelter every time they heard an alarm. A month later, her father returned home, taking the family to Chashan in his hometown of Dongguan.

Grandma Leung’s father had a little bit of money he used to start a small business, but quickly lost everything when the enterprise failed. Although he was a man who had risen to clerical work level, he soon found himself having to make ends meet by carrying clothes on a shoulder pole and trying to sell his wares to people in the walled village in exchange for food. Grandma Leung’s mother sent her to help people to do odd jobs for which she was paid two bowls of rice. Her father returned to Hong Kong after the war, selling things in Go Shing Theater before subsequently dying of edema. When he passed away, only Grandma Leung’s mother and two younger brothers were by his bedside. Following her husband’s death, Grandma Leung’s mother worked at the airport as a site labourer, earning a daily wage of HK$2. She slept on other people’s shabby balconies, laying straw on the floor as a kind of makeshift bed. When her way of life began to improve, Grandma Leung’s mother took her daughter back to Hong Kong from her hometown in Dongguan. Aged just 12, Grandma Leung then began many decades labouring in weaving mills with her mother.

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.

Grandma Leung’s father had come to Hong Kong as a young man and subsequently went back to his Dongguan hometown to marry his wife and bring her back to the Territory. Grandma Leung’s mother was from Shilong in Dongguan and gave birth to six children. Grandma Leung ranked third and in addition to an elder brother and sister, had two younger brothers and a small sister. Before Japan invaded and occupied Hong Kong in December 1941, Grandma Leung’s father had foreseen that war was coming. He consequently sent her elder brother and sister to his hometown for their grandmother’s care there. Grandma Leung’s father died shortly after the war ended and her mother took her and her younger brother back to Hong Kong leaving the other children behind in Dongguan. Grandma Leung, her mother and younger brother subsequently lived in a dilapidated house in Kai Tak Road in Kowloon City. The owner later took back the property for redevelopment. As her mother earned her living by working as a site labourer at Kai Tak Airport, she rented a bed space in a tenement building at No. 61, Kai Tak Road for HK$12 a month. Occupied by more than 20 tenants, the floor was subdivided into several rooms and bed spaces with each bed space shared by at least two people. The living environment was very crowded, and everyone mostly worked in nearby factories. The residents cooked and bathed in the kitchen, while someone came up to collect the night soil each evening. The Government conducted an annual clean-up operation, clearing bedbugs from residents’ bed boards.

Back then, Grandma Leung was employed in a factory, working 12 hours a day while her brother studied in Lok Sin Tong Primary School, paying a tuition fee of HK$4 per month. The boy eventually dropped out of school to become an apprentice in a factory. Next to No. 61, Kai Tak Road were several weaving factories and workshops that made copper pots. Today, many of these old buildings have been redeveloped. South Wall Road was a relatively busy street in Kowloon City, with many stalls selling used clothes and old shoes. Tak Yu Restaurant was one popular hotspot for finding jobs and recruiting staff – mainly unskilled daily wage casual workers such as site labourers or coolies. Just up the street from Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society was Loong Shing Theatre which charged 20 cents for a ticket.

Grandma Leung’s husband, Mr. Wan, was a Nga Tsin Wai villager and the matchmaker who brought them together was a female colleague whose elder brother was a friend of Mr. Wan. 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. Grandma Leung loved to go swimming in the sea because she had once been able to cure a skin disease by soaking it in salt water. Since then, she often walked to Tai Wan Shan’s swimming shed after clocking off from her job at the weaving factory.

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 joined a trade union when he was a young man. Back then, it was popular for workers to go to the beach for swimming, bringing with them accordions and cooking tools for picnics. Sometimes, they even brought along ingredients to cook sweet soup. 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.

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. Each time Grandma Leung bought seafood, she was given a discount, paying just HK$4 for a catty of small abalone and only 25 cents for a catty of tiny fish. 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. The once-thriving bazaar disappeared in the 1980s and Grandma Leung went to Tai Shing Street Market to do her shopping instead. By this time, she no longer had to work, so she could go along to the shops any time she liked.

In the 1980s, Grandma Leung and her husband opened and ran a grocery store in Nga Tsin Wai. At first, they sold fruits they had sourced from the fruit market. Their store became a gathering place of neighbors. Whenever there were festivals or celebrations, Grandma Leung would hold an animal sacrifice to worship the Tin Hau. 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.

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.

The youngest son is smart and filial to his parents. Returning home from school at 12:00 noon and then waiting for his father to cook , this youngest son had already learned how to wash rice by the time he was just 6! The boy was also disciplined about going upstairs to do his homework. Grandma Leung’s house back then had a refrigerator where one hot day the young lad climbed and sat inside in an attempt to cool down! Mr. Wan was scared to death when he learned about this afterwards. The boy was taken care of by his maternal grandmother who he loved very much. After the old lady became sick when he was 12, he went to the hospital to take care of her and change her incontinence diapers every day after school. The hospital staffs were touched by his thoughtfulness. (Editor’s Note: Now the youngest son became a ward manager in a hospital)

Although Mr. Wan never seriously disciplined his children, they were very obedient. One thing he was strict about was forbidding the kids from fighting. One day, the family’s eldest son got involved in a scuffle on the street. Mr. Wan beat and scolded the boy without asking him for any reasons or causes. This caused their youngest son to dislike going out from a young age. As a result, he rarely played with the neighbouring kids in Nga Tsin Wai. Nor did the children often go to the village office. If not taking a nap outside the window, their youngest son would play darts using the door as a makeshift board. Back then, the youngest boy spent quite a lot of time at home alone as his elder brother had to study at night school after work. At the same time, his elder sister who worked in a garment factory was busy studying dressmaking after work. Grandma Leung’s daughter was very clever and skillful in making beautiful cheongsams (long gowns). When Nga Tsin Wai’s Tin Hau Temple was rebuilt in the 1980s, it was she who was asked to make the beautiful ribbon flowers and draperies that were hung at its reopening. Later on, Mr. Wan and Grandma Leung applied for a public housing unit in Shatin. As they continued to live in the walled village, their youngest son went to Shatin to look after their new house two nights a week while still only 14 years old. When Grandma Leung and Mr. Wan finally moved to Shatin in recent year, they closed down the grocery store in Nga Tsin Wai and formally retired to lead a stable life.

Grandma Leung and her husband were tenants at a house in Nga Tsin Wai. The rent was cheap. As was common at the time, the couple used wire meshes to enclose the open space in front of their home. In the afternoon old women used to take out and place shabby sofas in front of their houses so they could sit and chat with friends. A few years later, Grandma Leung and Mr. Wan opened a grocery store in their own enclosed space. By this time Mr. Wan had reached the 55-year-old retirement age, he felt he was not adapting well to new modes of working that had been introduced in his job. Furthermore, 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. They operated their business on the lower floor of their home while they slept on the upper level. 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. Business was initially poor with customers moaning about prices and the quality of the fruit on offer. One day, Mr. Wan went to pick up his goods from the Yau Ma Tei fruit market and accidentally knocked over a worker who was pushing a cart, receiving a vicious beating as a result. As many Nga Tsin Wai villagers served in the police, the perpetrator was finally found and came up to apologise to Mr. Wan.

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 to their housewife customers as gifts. Most of the housewives who became such firm friends for over a decade at the stall began passing away soon after its closure.

When they fell sick, Nga Tsin Wai villagers often used to go San Po Kong to see western-trained medical practitioners. Dr. Conrad Lam Kui Shing was particularly well known and had helped cure many residents back then. In the 1970s, Mainland doctors also regularly came to practice medicine in a mobile van every week, charging just HK$2 for each consultation. While older villagers relied on these Chinese medical practitioners, younger people preferred to visit western-trained doctors as they felt they could heal them faster. In the old days, the village office even operated its own clinic; a facility Lee Foo suggested reopening when he served as village headman. However, Mr. Wan opposed the idea as he did not want to expose residents to risks caused by so many sick people regularly gathering in the village. Over the years, Grandma Leung had given birth to three kids, the first two of them delivered in Jordan Road’s Worker Maternity Home. This was a specialised, low-cost midwifery clinic sponsored by a left-wing union. Her third child was born at Robert Black Health Centre. Grandma Leung did not really like giving birth in hospital because going there involved many complicated checks and examinations which prevented her from working.

As there was a real shortage of doctors and medicines during Grandma Leung and Mr. Wan’s youth, they relied on rural folk cures that had been handed down for generations. Remedies Mr. Wan had tried included yellow clams, incense ash and even cockroach feces and pigeon feces! For example, when a baby had a cold, pigeon feces was fried with salt and given to the sickly child. One Hakka traditional cure for the common cold used mountain herbs to spread over and bake upon the body. While living in Nga Tsin Wai, Grandma Leung had gone to Kowloon City to buy mountain herbs for her husband. “Seven Sisters Water” (i.e. rainwater that fell on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month) was believed to ease colorectal heat. In the old days, country folk used wine jugs to collect rainwater and soaked grass jelly and gooseberries inside, before storing the jars for future use. The water was so efficacious it would not start to emit an unpleasant odour for many years and could be taken out to drink each time someone felt a fever coming on.