Ng Lik Bor

Ng Lik Bor was born in Hong Kong in 1951 and his ancestral home is Machong, Dongguan. His family had settled in the county town, Dongguan since his grandfather’s era. The family owned no ancestral house in their native place. Ng Lik Bor’s grandfather died young. Shortly after the Second World War, his grandmother came to Hong Kong with her son and daughter. She rented a bed space in an old building on Temple South Street and earned her living by selling vegetables and sweet soup in the vicinity. Ng Lik Bor’s parents were intellectuals. His family could be considered to be a ‘pre-historic family’ for their complicated associations with the struggle between the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party. Originally, his father was a primary school teacher in Guangzhou.

To escape from the Kuomintang persecution, he came to Hong Kong with his wife in 1948 and stayed in Ng Lik Bor’s grandmother’s home. He rented a room in the building she was living. Her mother was a teacher at the Mong Kok Worker’ Children Secondary School after she came to Hong Kong. Later on, she was transferred to the Hung Hom Workers' Children Secondary School. When Ng Lik Bor was one year old, the family moved to the 3rd floor of a building at No. 2 Cooke Street so it would be more convenient for his mother to go to work. The building at No. 2 Cooke Street was a post-war building. His parents rented the rear room of the flat that had an area of 100 sq. ft. or so. His mother hired a carpenter to build a bunk bed. Other furniture included a folding table, a book shelf and a flat top cabinet. There were several households living on the 3rd floor. They shared the kitchen where they placed their own kerosene stoves and water tanks. In Chinese New Year, the children made an interesting scene when they rivaled to be the one who opened the door because they thought it was their relatives who came for a new year visit.

Seven years after the family moved into the flat on Cooke Street, Ng Lik Bor’s mother gave birth to his younger brother and younger sister. Because of the small living space, they moved to the 3rd floor of a building at No. 8 Wan Fuk Street. They purchased the flat with $14,000. At the time, more new buildings were completed one after another on the thirteen streets and Eight Wan Streets. Each flat was priced at $15,000 which shall be paid by installments. Ng Lik Bor’s mother thought paying $300 a month for the rent was not a wise choice, so she borrowed $10,000 and purchased the flat. She paid the remaining sum by installments. At the time, there was no low priced buildings in Hung Hom and the Matauwai Apartments was in similarly poor conditions as the resettlement blocks. Therefore, she chose a building on Wan Fuk Street near  her workplace, Hung Hom Workers’ Children Secondary School

The 8-storey building at No. 8 Wan Fuk Street was unnamed. Under the Buildings Ordinance at the time, fire escapes must be provided in each building. To save construction costs, two adjacent buildings would use each other’s staircases as the fire escapes. As a result, there would be four households each floor and two staircases each building. The back stairs of the building at No. 8 Wan Fuk Street led to Wan Shun Street. It was a corridor (aisle) between the two staircases. Although the law stipulated that a smoke door should be installed there, the officer who came for inspection would usually go no further than the 4th floor, so no fire escapes were provided on the floors above the 4th floor in the building Ng Lik Bor lived. There was no balcony or veranda in the flat he lived, his parents partitioned two unauthorized rooms. There was a private kitchen and washroom in the flat. A bathtub was provided in the washroom and it was extraordinary in those days. The family cooked with a kerosene stove. As no wash basin was installed in the kitchen, they built their own hearth with cement. On the hearth was a vegetable/dish wash basin with space reserved for a refrigerator next to the hearth.

Things were new to Ng Lik Bor when he moved into the new home in Wan Fuk Street. There was a large bathtub in the washroom and he learned swimming in it. When they first moved in, they had no furniture. His father found an abandoned radio cabinet on the street and carried it home. It had an electric speaker box in the lower part. Ng Lik Bor liked climbing inside the box for fun when it was first brought in. Electricity was unavailable for the first 4 to 5 days after they moved into the new home and they had to light up the flat with kerosene lamps and candles. When the water rationing measure was implemented in the 1950s, they bathed with water fetched from flush tank of the water closet with a hose.

At the time, the buildings on Wan Fuk Street was not provided with tap water or salt water for flushing the toilet, so buildings of different numbers would jointly create an artesian well. They would dig up the ground and insert a pipe to extract underground water for distribution to different households through a pump. What perplexed Ng Lik Bor was the fact that although Wan Fuk Street was a coastal street, the underground water was fresh water. They had to pay for the artesian well water as part of the refuse fee. Due to absence of management, the artesian well became useless very soon. When they first moved in, there was no refrigerator or television set. The family did not buy one until 1963 when Ng Lik Bor graduated from primary school.

After Ng Lik Bor’s father came to Hong Kong in 1948, he worked as a secretary in the Hong Kong Union of Chinese Workers in Western Style Employment. The family led a western lifestyle. Ng Lik Bor had his first birthday cake when he was six years old. His father encouraged his children to broaden their experience so that they would not be ignorant. One year, when a Chinese tea restaurant nearby closed down, his father took the advantage and bought a glass teapot cabinet. The cabinet was too big to go through the narrow staircase so his father hired a carpenter and cut the cabinet into two halves. He reassembled the cabinet when it was moved into the flat. The family did not understand his purpose. Unexpectedly, several days later his father went to a bookstore which would soon cease its business. He bought 200 to 300 books from the bookstore and stored them in the teapot cabinet. As a result, Ng Lik Bor and his siblings had fostered the habit of reading in their childhood.

Ng Lik Bor had read the famous Chinese and Western literature, including books published by the leftist publishers and Soviet children literature. One day, when his brother went downstairs to put a wadded quilt on the railings behind Wing Kwong Street for drying, he was too immersed in reading that the wadded quilt was stolen. Ng Lik Bor had been an active participant of extra-curricular activities when he was a child. When he was in primary 4 to primary 6, he was a member of the Cantonese opera club of the Mong Kok Workers’ Children Secondary School. He would perform once every one to two months in the festive occasions of the trade union. In a fundraising activity held in 1962, he had performed 5 Cantonese opera programme which lasted for 3 hours in total.

The Eight Wan Streets were developed in different stages. Wan Tat Street, Wan Lok Street and Wan Fat Street were developed first, followed by Wan Fuk Street, Wan Shun Street and Wan King Street one to two years later. When Ng Lik Bor moved into Wan Fuk Street in 1960, it was a quiet street. In the early days, there were few shops on the Eight Wan Streets. There were only 1 to 2 stores around. An old-style store operated on Wan On Street somewhere near Bailey Street. When the customers paid, they put the money in a basket hung down from the ceiling.

Most of the shops on the ground floor were family-based plastic factories which manufactured plastic flowers and small plastic toys. When the workers operated the cutting pressers, their whole body vibrated as if they were ‘trapeze artists’. A family-based factory had an area of several hundred square feet. Several masters (permanent workers) were employed and most of them were friends of the factory owner. A family-based factory highly depended on family productivity. In those days, it was easy for a housewife to get outsource tasks. Some family-based factories would even beseech them to take the processing tasks. After Ng Lik Bor’s grandmother moved from Yau Ma Tei to Wan Fuk Street, every time she went outside, she would return home with a lot of semi-finished products which she processed at home with simple tasks such as sticking. She did not know anyone working in the factories, but the factory people knew she lived nearby, and would let her take products home for processing after registering in a book. Ng Lik Bor had helped her grandmother with her tasks after school and his grandmother would give him pocket money in return.

Ng Lik Bor thought it was because moving goods along the staircases was difficult that very few family-based factories operated on the floor above him in the building he lived. But, there was a suitcase workshop on the 7th floor. As professional skills were required, the factory seldom outsourced any tasks. Later on, other small factories began to emerge on the Eight Wan Streets, including ironware factories, lathe factories, blacksmith factories and jeans factories. Due to inadequate space, no vehicle repair garage was operated there. Ng Lik Bor first attended the Hung Hom Workers’ Children Secondary School and he was then transferred to the Mong Kok Workers’ Children Secondary School in Ho Man Tin for primary 3. He mainly attended the afternoon sessions so that he had time for rehearsals after school. In the morning, he would stay at home for reading and the outsourced tasks. When his father worked as an editor in a film company, he took home a lot of novels. So, Ng Lik Bor no longer needed to rent books for reading. In those days, book leasing was popular. There were book rental stores operating on Wing Kwong Street (near today’s Lux Theatre).

Ng Lik Bor went to school unescorted when he was a child. When he was in primary 1, his home was on Cooke Street and he attended the Hung Hom Workers’ Children Secondary School on Bulkeley Street. When he was transferred to the Mong Kok Workers’ Children Secondary School in Ho Man Tin for primary 3, he walked to school from Cooke Street via the Oi Sen Path next to the train track. When the family moved to Wan Fuk Street, he would generally take a stroll in To Kwa Wan before walking to school along Tin Kwong Road. The walk took about 35 minutes. He took no fixed route to school. Sometimes he would turn into side streets for fun, such as Chi Kiang Street, Shansi Street, Lok Shan Road and Maidstone Road. He would pass the glass factory and the factories of Tien Chu Ve-Tsin Chemical Limited and Watson’s soft drinks which operated on San Shan Road.

When Ng Lik Bor attended the morning session in Mong Kok Workers’ Children Secondary School, he would leave home at 4am or 5am on rainy days and waited under the street light on Ma Tau Wai Road. When the light was out, the predaceous diving beetles and scarabs in the air would become dizzy and fall down. Then Ng Lik Bor and other children would collect them. There were many swallow nests under the balconies of the post-war old buildings on Ma Tau Wai Road. A billboard of Vitasoy was erected on Ma Tau Wai Road, Chatham Road and To Kwa Wan Road. It was the ‘ghost landmark’ of To Kwa Wan. Although it is getting smaller in size, today minibus passengers who are alighting still notify the driver by saying: ‘Vitasoy please!’ (Editor’s note: The billboard is now erected on the external wall of Chat Ma Mansion).

Later on, Ng Lik Bor was transferred to the afternoon session which started at 12pm and ended at 6pm. He would leave home at 11am everyday so he had more time for fun on his way to school. At the time, the police quarters on Tin Kwong Road and the Chiap Hua Flashlights Factory on Bailey Street was under construction. He would collect cartridge cases from the ground and sell them to the shops trading useless copperware and ironware. He would listen to ghost stories told by workers of the construction site on Tin Kwong Road. He heard that the construction site used to be an execution ground. There was a scrap recycling shop operating on Kiang Su Street. The shop owner attracted children to barter the cartridge cases they collected for electronic model sailboats and model trains. Ng Lik Bor was given a toy with an out-of-order motor in return for the cartridge cases he collected.

When he attended the afternoon session, his grandmother used to give him 40 cents every day to buy snacks. He would spend them on popsicles at a store after school. Ng Lik Bor walked to school with his classmates and the store naturally became their meeting point. There was the Kam Ling Store on Ma Tau Wai Road and it was still in operation until 1990s. Not far away from the store was the Chin Chow Wool Company. He would walk past the factory everyday on his way to school. The factory is still in operation today. When he reached the Tang King Po School, sometimes he would climb up the knoll behind the school and walked towards the King George V School. There were many urns containing human bones scattered on the knoll. Ng Lik Bor’s parents never limited his scope of activities. He could go for a swim in Tai Pau Mai and he knew it was safe to swim there by the presence of floating planks on the sea. At the time, To Kwa Wan was good in public order. The children were always warned by the housewives of the child abductors. Ng Lik Bor bore it in mind and was always oversensitive and suspicious.

In the early 1970s, Ng Lik Bor returned to Hong Kong upon completion from his studies in Guangzhou. By then, every household in the Eight Wan Streets had their own television set, so it was a noisier environment as compared with the past. His family bought a second hand black and white television set in 1972. At the time, many family-based factories were still operating on the streets. No more ‘trapeze artists’ were seen in the plastic factories because the electronic plastic feeders were used and the forming technology was also adopted. Neighbour relationship in the Eight Wan Streets was average. Every household lived behind a constantly closed iron gate. Unlike the pre-war tenement buildings which were shared by many households, each flat was shared by 3 households at most. Ng Lik Bor only knew the people who lived in the opposite flat and those who accessed by the same staircase he used.

In the late 1970s, unauthorized squatters built of iron sheets began to emerge on building rooftops. They were mainly homes of the new immigrants. By the 1990s, the 7th and 8th floors were partitioned into subdivided units. Robberies rarely happened in the Eight Wan Streets, theft was the only crime. In day time, Ng Lik Bor and his family would take the alley behind Wing Kwong Street to return to their home on Wan Fuk Street, and took Wan On Street when they went home at night. There was the Nam Kwok Restaurant operating on Wing Kwong Street. The back door (backyard) of the restaurant opened to Wan Tat Street. 2 or 3 dining tables were set there. It was the hideaway of policemen who ignored their duties and came for eating. At the junction of Wan On Street and Bailey Street was a cooked food stall which operated until 2am or 3am. (Editor’s note: Ng Lik Bor supplemented that in the 1970s, most of the family-based factories on the Eight Wan Streets manufactured plastic toys of different models and outsourcing work was still common, but it was increasingly difficult for them to operate in the early 1980s.)

In the early days, the market stalls in To Kwa Wan did not do business in the Urban Council complex. Instead, many vegetable and meat stalls and shops were operated on Hung Fook Street, Bailey Street, Shek Tong Street, the lower section of Kai Ming Street and a small section of Ngan Hon Street. Shops with a long history included Liu Ma Kee the fermented bean curd seller on Ngan Hon Street and the Cheung Wing Kee Noodles Factory Co. Ltd. on Bailey Street. Generally, the vegetable sellers operated a stall, and the meat sellers operated a shop.

The site where Sunshine Plaza now stands on Bailey Street used to be the Chiap Hua Flashlights Factory Building. Several floors of the building were rented to Uniden, which was a Japan-funded factory. On the ground floor of the building was a cold store. Every day, trucks would deliver ice for storage. In the 1960s, Ng Lik Bor used to return to Hong Kong from Guangzhou every year for the summer and winter holidays. Knowing that the female factory workers liked reading magazines such as Daily Pictorial and Daily News for the movie stars’ photos and intending to save up money for Western movies, Ng Lik Bor thought out a way to make money. He stole the outdated magazines such as the Southern Screen from his father and sold them at the entrance of Chiap Hua Flashlights Factory at the start and end of working hours. He sold them for 50 cents each and business was good. (Editor’s note: Ng Lik Bor supplemented that the large garment factories in To Kwa Wan included the Ting Sun, May Jenny and Wearbest. There were several large garment factories operating on Ha Heung Road, they employed workers by all means.)

After Ng Lik Bor returned to Hong Kong in 1971, he joined the electronic industry. At first, he worked in electronic factories in North Point and Kwun Tong. Later on, he worked in electronic factories such as Atlas Electronics, Lok Dor (Editor’s Note: transliteration) Electronics and World Electronics, in Hung Hom and To Kwa Wan. Atlas Electronics was an ordinary Chinese-funded factory. It competed with other factories by ways of overtime work and product price. Lok Dor was a French-funded factory which manufactured computers. The factory was newer and quieter and the workers did not make a sound when working. Ng Lik Bor was more impressed by the World Electronics. It was a US-funded maker of car radio and car recorder and was the first factory which implemented the 5-day working system in the trade. The workers worked 9 hours a day without overtime arrangements. US-funded factories were more spacious than Chinese- funded ones and were air-conditioned. But, the Chinese-funded factories were more considerate of their employees. The factory would pay more severance payment than the minimum sum required by the labour law and it applied to the daily rate workers too. It was because the proprietor wanted ‘begin well and end well’ with the workers.

When the oil crisis broke out in 1974, the World Electronics suddenly downsized. The layoffs were paid the minimum compensation under the law. The workers concerned were not given any advanced notice. When they registered on the card machine at the end of the working hours, each of them received a notice of dismissal telling them that they need not go to work the following day. Ng Lik Bor told the workers not to accept the letter, and should ask the US proprietor to announce the matter through the public address system. When the oil crisis was over, the electronic factories in the region were unable to employ large number of workers. (Editor’s note: Ng Lik Bor developed great interest in electronics when he was a child. When he attended secondary school in Guangzhou, he studied a radio engineering programme offered by a correspondence school in Hong Kong. After he returned to Hong Kong, he worked as assistant engineer in an electronic factory. His duties included producing product samples based on his superiors’ designs, assessing feasibility of production methods and implementing them, and random checking of product specifications. He changed jobs frequently to the extent that he might work in 3 to 4 different factories in a single year. In 1971, he became a member of the General Union of Electronic Industry.)

The electronic factories in Hung Hom and To Kwa Wan provided no shuttle bus service for the workers and most of them lived in the same district where the factory was operated. Besides, most of them were young women aged about 14. They got the job with a borrowed adult identity card. They were considered to be old when they turned 20. Those aged above 20 were regarded as ‘old ladies’. Female workers were recruited by posting notices in the factory. Most female workers came from Ka Wai Chuen or the resettlement blocks in Tai Wan Shan. The skilled labours were employed through newspaper recruitment advertisements. Ng Lik Bor and his friends would look for a job from the Sing Pao Daily News.

The Atlas Electronics ran a number of factories and employed many workers. They recruited workers from all districts in Hong Kong by way of central recruitment. The successful candidates would be deployed according to their residential addresses. They were sent to the nearest factory to their home. The female workers of an electronic factory earned a low wage and the factory attracted workers to stay with employee benefits. The new-style factories and foreign-funded factories had a personnel department which would organize various activities for employees, such as make-up class, etiquette class, hiking and parties. The General Union of Electronic Industry also organized activities in coordination with the personnel department, including hiking and singing groups. The electronic factory workmates related well with each other and the factory was good in creating a harmonious atmosphere. Workers who worked in the same production line and workplace would go swimming, bowling or rowing. But, workers of different production lines and workplaces only had activities organized by the factory or the trade union. For inter-factory socializing activities, they were usually organized by the trade unions or community centers.

Ng Lik Bor thought the working environment of electronic factories was satisfactory when comparing with other industries. Of them, the semi-conductor factories provided the best working environment. There were relatively fewer electronic factories in To Kwa Wan and the Luks Industrial was one of the major electronic factories operating there. There were more electronic factories in Hung Hom and the Portland House had accommodated many of them. After the Green Island Cement Plant was demolished, the site was redeveloped into 3 buildings, namely Portland, Tsing To and Tsing Chau.

The electronic factories in the district he had worked included the Atlas Electronics, Lok Dor, World Electronics and the Luks. The Atlas Electronic originally operated in the Lei Wah Technology Building in Sheung Heung Road, but it was moved to the topmost floor of the Portland House later. The working environment of the factory was average with poor ventilation and a strong smell. The Atlas Electronic had once operated in Portland House and it was moved to Eldex Industrial Building after a fire. The World had a neater and larger factory installed with a public address system. The Lok Dor factory (Editor’s note: It operated in the Portland House) was also neat and quiet with a glass-partitioned office. After the Portland House was redeveloped into the Hung Hom Commercial Centre, many electronic factories moved to Hok Yuen Street. (Editor’s note: The Atlas had about 200 workers, the Lok Dor factory occupied one half of the flat with a more than 100-strong workforce and the World Electronics operated a factory which occupied two and a half floors and employed 600 to 700 workers at its peak.)

In the early 1980s when Ng Lik Bor was employed by the Luks Industrial, the company set up its headquarters in Cheong Wah Industrial Building on Sheung Heung Road. The Luks Industrial occupied two floors of the building, with one floor equally shared by the Engineering Department and offices, and the other floor equally shared by the warehouse and Production Department. Each floor of the building was connected by cargo lifts. The Luks Industrial’s factory had old-style workshops installed with equipment such as oscilloscopes, air compressors, welding boilers and tuners. It had two production lines which employed about 100 workers. Cheong Wah Industrial Building was older than Portland House and Eldex Industrial Building. The staircases were dimly-lit and there were small electronic factories which manufactured computers and radio sets nearby. As the Luks Industrial manufactured television sets, it needed more space and capital. The cathode ray tubes and plastic shells alone occupied much of the space.

Later on, the Luks Industrial opened a branch factory on Hok Yuen Street. It was equipped with more advanced facilities and a central signal system. Later on, another factory was set up in Shekou and it produced with even more advanced equipment. Other factories run by the Luks Industrial included ironware factory, plastic factory, spray paint factory and circuit board factory which carried out all the upstream and downstream tasks. The parts and packaging cardboards were locally supplied. It also had suppliers outside To Kwa Wan because the factory could collect the products from Kwun Tong with its own vehicles. But the prerequisite was that the supplier must make arrangements to fit into the factory’s tight delivery deadlines. Ng Lik Bor thought the factories in Hung Hom and To Kwa Wan did not have a close relationship. The Chinese-funded factories seldom cooperated with each other, while cooperation between foreign-funded ones was limited to the exchange of personnel and financial information. No transactions were carried out between them.

When Ng Lik Bor returned to Hong Kong from Guangzhou in the 1970s, he lived in the old home on the 3rd floor of No. 8 Wan Fuk Street. He had lived there until he moved out in 1986. He planned to purchase a flat in Heng Fa Chuen, but he sold it before the transaction was completed in view of the rising property prices. He purchased another flat in Wyler Gardens because it was close to his mother’s home. Ng Lik Bor’s mother purchased a large flat on the 4th floor of the building she was living, leaving Ng Lik Bor and his wife living on the 3rd floor. After they moved out, she sold the property. He did not feel it was a pity to move out of Wan Fuk Street because the flat was old and dilapidated. He had spent more than $10,000 on the repair, but the flat was robbed after the scaffolding was built. In the 1970s, air quality in the surrounding area of Wan Fuk Street was poor. Clouds of fine particles came out from the Green Island Cement Plant and the air was filled with diesel exhaust emitted from the burning diesel in Hok Yuen Power Plant. Besides, the goose feather processing factory polluted the air with fine feathers. It was lucky that the abattoir gave out no smell. It was not until the 1980s that the air quality slightly improved.

Ng Lik Bor thought that boundary of ‘To Kwa Wan’ was constantly changing. When he lived in Cooke Street in Hung Hom in his childhood, he had the vague concept that ‘Hung Hom is a city and To Kwa Wan is a village’. To Kwa Wan lied behind the stone houses at the junction of Wuhu Street and Ma Tau Wai Road. (Editor’s note: It is part of the Chatham Road today) Very few houses were built there, the Green Island Cement Plant and goose feather processing factory stood in a distance to the north. Bailey Street used to be the Bailey Shipyard. After the shipyard was demolished in the 1950s, the Matauwai Apartments was built at its old site. The surrounding area of Pak Tai Temple was deserted with only a few squatters built of iron sheets. To Ng Lik Bor, this was To Kwa Wan.

After he moved to the Eight Wan Streets, he felt that his home was part of both Hung Hom and To Kwa Wan. He heard from the adults that the Vitasoy billboard at the junction of the four roads was the start of To Kwa Wan, and Bailey Street was the border of the two districts. (Editor’s note: The Vitasoy sign is now shown on the external wall of Chat Ma Mansion). But, today people think the area to the south of Chi Kiang Street is part of Hung Hom. No great changes took place in the northern border of To Kwa Wan. The Holy Trinity Church and Sung Wong Toi were the dividing line between Kowloon City and To Kwa Wan, but huge changes had occurred in the bordering area near the mountains. When Ng Lik Bor was a child, the Maidstone Road was the hillside. When he returned to Hong Kong in the 1970s, he was surprised to find that the Kau Pui Lung Road and public housing estates were built there. When the side streets did not exist in the past, they had to go up the mountain via Lok Shan Road. The site where Celestial Heights now stands was the police quarters.

When Ng Lik Bor was a child, there was a huge mountain in To Kwa Wan. It extended from the abattoir to Cheong Wah Industrial Building from north to south, and from Pau Chung Street to To Kwa Wan Road from east to west. The district residents dubbed it the ‘San Shan’ (New Mountain’) The name misled him into believing that it was ‘a newborn mountain’. Today, no one has heard of the new mountain, people only know there is the San Shan Road. When Ng Lik Bor was a child, he liked going up the mountain. On his way to school, he would walk all the way to the new mountain. He would walk from Tin Kwong Road to the foot of the mountain where he watched the workers blowing air into molten glass. There was a glass factory probably built of iron sheets. It looked like a hut to him. The factory had many workers and was equipped with many furnaces. The workers stirred the molten glass with a pole, and then pointed the pole towards the ceiling or floor and blew air into molten glass. The way they moved resembled dancing. The sizzling red furnaces around them and the dim light from the dusky sky which appeared at the time when he went home from school created a special light effect to form a splendid scene. It was a form of ‘performing art’. Later on, he found out that the factory was called the ‘Kowloon Glass Factory’.

Besides the glass factory, there was also a cow leather processing factory facing the slaughterhouse. The factory owner set up racks with bamboo sticks or iron rods for exposing cow leather under the sun. Ng Lik Bor had witnessed the progressive leveling of the new mountain. It was totally leveled out in the 1970s after the construction works of the airport tunnel commenced. The site where To Kwa Wan Sports Centre now stands is the last part of it. It was used for storing tools when construction of the tunnel was underway.

Ng Lik Bor thought Hung Hom was the home of many Shanghaineses. When he was living in Cooke Street and Wan Fuk Road, he had Shanghainese neighbours. He thought the Shanghaineses were attracted to Hung Hom because when they came after 1949, Yau Ma Tei was already densely populated, and new buildings were available on Cooke Street and Bulkeley Street. Many Shanghaineses were still living in Hung Hom in the 1970s. There were many Shanghainese shops on Wuhu Street selling Ci fans, tofu puddings and plain seasoned noodles. But, he thought there were no communities of any particular native place in To Kwa Wan. In recent years, To Kwa Wan has been pauperizing because it is dwelled by a large number of new immigrants from Mainland China and many South Asians. Unlike the illegal immigrants in the 1960s, they miss their homeland and are slow in integrating into the society.

Reflecting upon his experience in To Kwa Wan, Ng Lik Bor said what impressed him most was his childhood memories. When he was a child, he liked visiting the new mountain or swimming in Tai Wan Shan. When he walked past large factories such as Chiap Hua and the Coin brand maker, he would see many factory advertisement boards on the roadside railings. When he grew up, however, he thought the air quality of To Kwa Wan was poor. The newly purchased gold stamping machines of the factory were soon eroded by diesel exhaust, which also contaminated the laundry at home. It was agonizing that extra efforts had to be spent in rewashing them. In general, he did not have any special feeling about To Kwa Wan after he started working.