Cheung Chi Kong

Cheung Chi-kong was born in 1970 in Hong Kong. At his birth his family was living at Man Yuen Building of Ferry Street. His parents set up a sidewalk stall outside Yen Yen Tea House, at the corner of Canton Street and Nanking Street (now Fourseas Jade Centre). At 5 Cheung stayed with his parents at the stall. Other stall owners also brought their children to the street stalls, and many of these children were Cheung’s classmates. Cheung had studied at Canton Road Government Primary School and every day at around 7 to 8 he set off from home and walked southbound to school via Ferry Street. He would walk through Jordan Road Ferry Pier and Bus Terminal, a wharf, a fire station, and a Government Offices Building. At 12:30 when school was off he took the same way back and met his parents at the street stall. Upon closing up stall his parents would have lunch at Yen Yen Tea House around 1pm, where Cheung would most often have roasted pork with rice. After lunch Cheung would go to the Jade workshop run by his parents at Man Wah Building, where he would do his homework.

On holidays Cheung’s parents would bring him to the stall; he was not allowed to run free in fear of damaging the goods of other merchants, so he would sit at the front entrance of the building and read comics. After lunch his parents would go to work at the workshop at Man Wah Building, where Cheung would help with picking up jade beads and polishing jade. When he was a small child, he was allowed to move around on Nanking Street; at the age of 9 he was allowed to walk further to Reclamation Street and Ning Po Street, though crossing Ferry Street was out of the question. Cheung used to frequent the Cheung Cheung Kee toy store at the corner of Reclamation Street and Ning Po Street. Cheung was well acquainted with the store owner as he frequently bought toys there, and was allowed to look into the new toys in the store. In secondary school he often rode the bicycle at the vacant lot at Ferry Street and Jordan Road Ferry Pier, and would fish on side of the boarding area of the pier at night. Sometimes he would go play football at King George V Memorial Park and Kowloon Park.

The section of Canton Road that spanned Nanking Street to Jordan road was filled with street stalls selling jade, which were more concentrated at the corner of Canton Road and Nanking Street. The stalls were setup on the sidewalk on the side of Yen Yen teahouse, later expanding northwards to Ning Po Street and stopped at Saigon Street. Shui Heung Yuen Teahouse was located at the corner of Jordan Road and Canton Road, and was the gathering place for many jade traders. In the early years Cheung’s parents, like other jade traders, only set up sidewalk stalls (by placing jade goods atop a piece of paper on the ground). Later, the Hong Kong Jade Association allocated an area facing Yen Yen Teahouse (now Jade Plaza) allowing members to set up stalls on folding tables and majhong tables, so that the operators could save energy from moving their goods back and forth. Cheung’s parents and grandmother moved in and set up two stalls side-by-side. The early jade stalls closed at around 1 pm, and in the 1980s some traders started to do business in the afternoon, most of whom are jade carvers. They carved in the morning and sold the goods in the afternoon. The customers were different in the morning and in the afternoon: the morning customers were mostly tourists and shop owners; the afternoon ones were mostly trolley hawkers. During 1982 to 1984, many jade stalls moved to the Yau Ma Tei Jade Hawker Bazaar, including the stall of Cheung’s Parents’.

The early 1970s was the budding period for the Jade market at Canton Road. During this period Cheung’s grandparents and parents had already set their street stall at the corner of Canton Road and Nanking Street. During his grandmother’s time she only conducted a retail business, buying old jade stones from Mainland and selling them in Yaumatei. At the time of his father’s, the retail business took up half of all sales, and another half was done by purchasing raw jade stones from Yunnan and processing them into jade figurines, taking the shape of Kwan Di, the God of Longevity, and Gwun Yam. At late 1980s the Jade market was in full bloom, and Cheung was still a student. From 1986 to 1989 he spent the summers learning at his father’s jade factory in Guangzhou, following his father to purchase raw stones at Yunnan. They travelled to border towns neighboring Myanmar, including Tengchong and Ruili, where Cheung gained knowledge of thejade sector. In 1990 upon his graduation Cheung joined the trade. He helped at his parents’ stall at the Yau Ma Tei Jade Hawker Bazaar  At the time the market was already canopied with a permanent ceiling, and installed with telephone lines and electric fans.

In recent years he had taken over the family business and revamped the model of operation to a thru-train model: handling all processes from purchasing raw stones, design and production. Cheung saw Jade as more than a token for good omen or fengshui; many youngsters now treasured jade for its ornamental value, for collection and investment. He conceived products mostly out of the shape of the raw stone: jade conches, jade crabs, jade chicken’s feet were some of the newer products. He recalled when he went to Myanmar to purchase jade materials, the whole entourage of some 100 traders were all from Hong Kong; in 2011 the number of jade traders visiting Myanmar was up to 5,000, but only some 100 of them were from Hong Kong. The local jade trade was at its twilight years, far less prosperous than what it was like in the 1980s. The production processes and the market of the Jade trade had moved northward to mainland China. All that remained in Hong Kong was the retail trade. With the business growing difficult, Cheung stressed that products must be constantly updated to cope with the market trends.
 

Cheung Chi Kong grew up at Yaumatei and spent most of his childhood at his parent’s jade stall. He took his parent’s orders to heart and did not linger around streets with busy traffic. When he was studying in the secondary school, he went to school and back home by bus, which passed through Jordan Road. Before and after school he loved to linger around Jordan Road Ferry Pier, where many cooked food stalls were set up. Cheung was used to buying from carts selling noodles and fish balls. These carts were gathered near the  ferry and bus terminals, and although they operated without a licence they kept regular opening hours all year round, and rarely needed to run from hawker control inspection. Near the ferry terminal to Wanchai there were many seafood stalls, and on the sea there were many walla-wallas selling seafood. In those days Cheung loved to fish at the pier; he also cycled and played remote-control toy cars there. In those days he rarely went to the typhoon shelter as the smell of the seawater repelled him. Yaumatei Typhoon Shelter was parted into southern and northern sections by an embankment. The northern section near Tai Kok Tsui was more boisterous and many Tai Pai Tongs (street cooked food stall) were set up near the sea. The southern section near Jordan Road and Eight Man Building was relatively quiet; it was also where the dragon boat races were held during the Duanwu Festival. As a teenager, Cheung also frequented the swimming pool at Kowloon Park and the football grounds at King George V Memorial Park. When playing football he usually went with his cousins and some dozens of classmates; a large group of teenagers would protect themselves from triad scoundrels.

In 1990 after he began to work, Cheung’s area of activity covered all of Yaumatei: north to Waterloo Road and south to Jordan Road. He considered the corner of Canton Road and the Nanking Road the heart of Yaumatei, where he worked and grew up over the past several decades. Although his business was located at the Yaumatei jade market, he often returned to Canton Road to purchase raw materials and promote his products, where jade stores littered the section of the Road between Saigon Street and Jordan Road. In the early years he had lunch at a family bistro that featured MSG-free cooking at Wai Ching Street. Some of the food bistros in the market were formerly Tai Pai Tongs (street cooked food stall), for example Bo Kee which was a famous food stall some years ago.

Behind the Alliance Française de Hong Kong on Jordan Road there used to be a cooked food market (known locally as a “concentration camp” of Tai Pai Tongs). He found Nathan Road the dividing line of Yaumatei; it felt like another place. In his childhood the traffic at Nathan Road was busy and there were few places offering entertainment for young people, so he rarely frequented there. He found Yaumatei divided into several zones of different classes: those who frequented Kwun Chung Street exuded a more genteel air, while those in Canton Road and Battery Street were more ruffled. Cheung lived for a long time at the eight Man Buildings, and after marriage in 2005 he moved to Prosperous Garden. Prosperous Garden featured a garden area downstairs and was nearby King’s Park; the area was quiet and peaceful. It was also close to the Jade market where he worked, so he never considered moving out of the district. He was born, grew up and worked in Yaumatei, and had developed a love to the community.