Lau Wing Kwong

Biography

Born in Xinhui in 1931, Lau Wing Kwong came to Hong Kong before World War II to seek shelter with his mother and uncle at their home in Wan Chai’s Spring Garden Street. After the Japanese occupation ended in 1945, he subsequently took a job at the Naval Dockyard. While there, he attended evening classes in Mechanical Engineering at Hong Kong Technical College (“HKTC”). Upon the dockyard’s closure in 1958, he transferred to Cable & Wireless (“C&W”), engaging in building maintenance work until he retired in 1986. In 1957, Lau Wing Kwong moved to To Kwa Wan, initially renting rooms in tenement buildings in Kowloon City Road and Tin Kwong Road. In 1960, he bought – and moved into – an eighth floor unit at No. 13-15 Fung Yi Street. He then stayed there for the next few decades, witnessing many developments in the Thirteen Streets area as he did so. Significant changes he lived through included the operations of ground floor factories, the emergence of garages, the deterioration of law and order, the relocation of the airport and the transfer of title ownership. Beginning in the 1980s, Lau Wing Kwong started participating in the management of the building in which he and his family called home. When the residents there formed an Owners’ Corporation (“OC”) a few years ago, he was appointed as its Secretary. Lau Wing Kwong finally moved out of the Thirteen Streets area in 2010.