Master Kong

When Master Kong first arrived in Hong Kong, Chung Hwa Book Co Ltd Hong Kong Printing Works’ back then had around 2,100 workers and was divided into two departments – one for printing banknotes and the other for printing books. About 2,000 staff were engaged in printing banknotes with only about 100 workers in the book section. When Master Kong first joined Chung Hwa, there were three main methods of wage payment, namely a daily, monthly and piece rate. Daily-wage earners were the most insecure of all staff as they could only come to the plant and earn when there was work to do. Master Kong was among the monthly earners such as plant managers, apprentices, masters and office workers. During his early days with the company, he earned a salary of around HK$70 per month. At that time, it was stipulated that if Chung Hwa’s boss were to sell the company, all of the apprentices there would also be transferred to work for the business’s new owners. Master Kong feels that piece rate workers enjoyed more advantages than any other sectors and were able to earn more by working more. Employees entrusted with ensuring that banknotes and their identifying numbers were free from error were paid under the piece rate system. The printing and plate-making workshops had no guaranteed wage earners. 

Once, a colleague asked Master Kong to join him on a cycling trip. As Master Kong had never learned to ride, he could only sit on the back of his colleague’s bike. The pair eventually rode along To Kwa Wan and Hung Hom where they were blocked and stopped by a private car. The driver said it was an offense to carry someone on the rear of a bicycle and took Master Kong and his friend to the police station where he reported them. Because of his mainland background, Master Kong had difficulties in communicating with the police officers there. The desk sergeant subsequently called a man who spoke a little Shanghainese and informed the two that Hong Kong laws did not allow cyclists to carry passengers. Master Kong and his friend subsequently faced a fine of up to five dollars each. At a period when Master Kong’s daily wage was only about HK$2, this was a lot of money! Luckily, the police officers let the pair off on the grounds that they were unfamiliar with local laws. While Master Kong did not really understand the words of the interpreter, he remained insistent that he broke no law! 

Chung Hwa’s printing plant had no dormitories itself, just security guards stationed at its entrance and workers who lived offsite. When Master Kong joined the company as an apprentice, he stayed at the Lok Shan Road dormitory which was comprised of a row of seven identical bungalows. The company’s dormitories were all located on the hillside at the junction of Lok Shan Road and Kau Pui Lung Road near areas of farmlands. The dormitory was provided free of charge to Chung Hwa by a wooden box company which supplied it with containers for transporting finished orders. All unmarried workers including apprentices and masters were eligible to stay at the hostels. Most of those who did so were natives of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. Each bungalow was about 200 square feet in size and had to accommodate six staff. Master Kong’s roommates were all apprentices and the dorm they shared had no kitchen. Worse still, the residents of all seven houses had to share just one shabby outside toilet.

On the rooftop of one of the three-storey buildings inside the Chung Hwa compound was a basketball court which regularly hosted tournaments between Hong Kong’s news and publishing industries. As they published pictorials and belonged to the publishing industry, Great Wall Movie Enterprises and Feng Huang Motion Pictures were among those who entered these competitions. The competing teams were selected by a draw and could meet up regardless of whether they came from the publishing or the news sectors. The movie studios had both male and female players, but top female stars like Hsia Moon and Shu Hui never played in the matches, preferring to cheer their colleagues on from the sidelines. Players representing Chung Hwa were all male workers. While Master Kong did not play in the games, he was a member of the cheerleading team. Because Chung Hwa flew China’s red, five-starred flag from its plant roof in what many saw as a political act, all participating teams came from leftist organisations. Chung Hwa never hosted competitions for factories from other industries. 

1946 to 1949 was something of a ‘Golden Age’ for Chung Hwa Printing Works. Back then, the senior masters with the best skills tended to come from Shanghai, while local workers usually filled the lower skilled and lower paying jobs. In those days, Chung Hwa employed over 1,000 workers - some 90% of them local people – to examine and count banknotes. In 1949, the company stopped printing banknotes causing the size of its workforce to shrink dramatically. After this time, the plant only printed books, cheques and pictorials. While most of the female workers handling banknote examination were laid off, permanent staff with monthly salaries were kept on. After 1949, Chung Hwa only had a staff of about 300, most of them from Shanghai. 

Following the Liberation of China in 1949, many Shanghainese capitalists came to Hong Kong. To Kwa Wan saw the setting up of four or five spinning mills as a result of senior managers and skilled staff’s migration to the Territory. Following this increase in population, shops in To Kwa Wan became more prosperous. Since new arrivals from Shanghai were not used to Cantonese dishes after first arriving in Hong Kong, many Shanghainese shops and groceries began opening their doors in To Kwa Wan. Very few of these Shanghainese businesses survived today. Such grocery stores tended to sell winter bamboo shoots, bamboo sprouts, salt pork, ham, bean curd sheets, broad beans and other popular ingredients in Shanghainese recipes. Many of the immigrants from Shanghai brought their wives along to cook them meals at home.