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Yeung Bo Yee
Yeung Bo Yee
Committee Memebr, Owners’ Corporation for the building at No. 13 Hung Wan Street
Sex: Female Birthyear: 1946 Age at Interview: 67 Education: Lower Secondary Occupation: Factory Worker Theme: Industry, Community Yeung Bo Yee recalls often hearing the oink of pigs and the roar of aircraft taking off and landing at Kai Tak from the family’s Hung Wan Street home. Out of curiosity, she sometimes went to the rooftop to watch the planes flying overhead. On the street downstairs outside her home were located many different stores selling a variety of daily necessities and foods. Back then, there were two poles installed on every street corner in the Thirteen Street area. The idea was to prevent cars from entering the inner streets. Each intersection was also home to tent-style stalls selling fruit, incense, candles, liquor, rice and food. As a result, the district was always very noisy. Starting in the 1970s, the Government began taking back the streets, dismantling the two iron poles at the street corners, so that vehicles could pass through the inner streets. As a result, most of the tented stalls were forced to close down and the fixed shops eventually became garages.
Title Living environment in Thirteen Streets, To Kwa Wan Date 03/04/2013 Subject Community Duration 1m52s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. TKW-YBY-HLT-001 After Yeung Bo Yee’s father quit living on the rooftop in Hung Wan Street, the family sold the hut they owned there to the son of a key stall proprietor who operated downstairs in Hung Wan Street. When Yeung Bo Yee’s father built the hut, the son of this stall owner had helped him out. This rooftop unit has subsequently been rented to mainlanders right up to the present day. The culture in the Thirteen Streets area back then was that once people saw that rooftop huts had been built on an adjacent building, they would erect similar structures on their own properties. The result was that rooftops as far as the eye could see were full of illegally constructed shacks. As the rooftop of a building belonged to all households, no one really cared overmuch about this.
Title Rooftop huts in Thirteen Streets' tenements Date 03/04/2013 Subject Community Duration 2m7s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. TKW-YBY-HLT-002 Beneath the Yeung Bo Yee'ss new home were various plastics factories which later switched to manufacturing velvet flowers. At that time, each plastics factory had about six male workers whose main task was to put plastic raw materials into machines and press out plastic moulds. When the area in the middle of each mould was cut out, all the moulds could be threaded together. Plastics factories back then often outsourced this threading process to workers like Yeung Bo Yee who then brought the moulds home for stringing together.
Title Getting outsource works in small plastic factories downstairs Date 03/04/2013 Subject Industry,Community Duration 2m38s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. TKW-YBY-HLT-003 After leaving the cleaning company, Yeung Bo Yee got a job at Asia Watch Dials Factory in San Po Kong. There was insufficient space in the plant later on. Her boss rented half a floor at Pang Ching Street adjacent to Hung Wan Street and asked Yeung Bo Yee to hire workers to produce watches’ steel stamps, printing the factory logo, packaging and other processes. The Pang Ching Street plant was located in a rented flat equipped with a wooden table whose owner was well aware of what the unit was being used for. At that time, Yeung Bo Yee only had to stick up a few street bills to recruit new staff. Often her friends’ daughters joined a very young processing plant team whose junior member was just 17 or 18 years old.
Title Running a watch dials processing factory in a tenement in Thirteen Streets Date 03/04/2013 Subject Industry,Community Duration 1m46s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. TKW-YBY-HLT-004 After Yeung Bo Yee got married in 1968, she started taking outsourcing jobs from local factories and then doing the work at home. Her mother had worked in a garment factory at Tung Po Building and urged her daughter to learn sewing processes by taking a job at the garment factory. Once Yeung Bo Yee was comfortable working with the processes, she took materials back home for sewing. Operated by a husband and wife team, the Tung Bo Building factory consisted of four or five sewing machines which were located in the proprietor’s own residence. After receiving orders, the couple would personally buy the materials and do the tailoring themselves. Back then, Yeung Bo Yee had to personally collect orders from the garment factory, take them home and run them up on a sewing machine that had cost her around HK$1,000.
Title Taking outsourcing jobs from factories after her marriage Date 03/04/2013 Subject Community Duration 2m33s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. TKW-YBY-HLT-005 After her retirement, Yeung Bo Yee teamed up with the Home Affairs Department to form an Owners’ Corporation for the building at No. 13 Hung Wan Street. Establishing such a body was of huge benefit when it came to matters such as the installing of metallic security gates at the building’s entrance. Applications for general funding could also be handled more efficiently. Back then, the Chairman of the Owners’ Corporation needed to take the title deed and make a declaration at Cotton Tree Drive. Yeung Bo Yee however thought that as a female she was not suitable to be the chairman. As a result, the male owner of an electrical appliances business in Hung Wan Street became Chairman instead. Yeung Bo Yee did, however, take on several other roles. She subsequently not only oversaw management of the Owners’ Corporation, but also took responsibility for liaising with the owners in issues such as applying for electricity bills, maintenance and other everyday matters. She was involved in almost every aspect of the property’s running.
Title Taking part in Owners’ Corporation to serve the neighbour Date 03/04/2013 Subject Community Duration 2m19s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. TKW-YBY-HLT-006