Poon Kwai Hoi

Biography

Poon Kwai Hoi was born in 1928 to a farming family in Baon. Following the referral of his elder uncle who was worked as a sub-contractor at Whampoa Shipyard, Poon Kwai Hoi came to Hong Kong in 1946, initially working as a caulking apprentice under his uncle’s employment. Three years later, he became a caulking master after completing his apprenticeship and formally joined his uncle’s permanent staff. When the shipyard moved to Tsing Yi in the early 1970s, Poon Kwai Hoi changed jobs and began working at the Bryanko Textiles Inudstries Limited in To Kwa Wan. After two years he moved again, finding a job as a quality inspector at the Standard Knitting Factory and Comitex Knitters before finally retiring in the mid 1990s. Upon first arriving in Hong Kong, Poon Kwai Hoi lived in tenement buildings, initially residing in a ‘single resident occupancy’ with other ship repairing masters and workers in Wuhu Street. In the late 1960s, he moved to a tenement building opposite what is now Ko Shan Theatre. After that, he relocated to To Kwa Wan’s Thirteen Streets in 1980 and six years later to Kowloon City Road where he still lives to this day.