Ah Ying

Ah Ying started her schooling at 7, attending the special class of Rosary Church in Chatham Road. She had always liked reading newspapers since childhood. When a neighbour upstairs took note of the admission notice for Rosary Church School he referred her for enrollment. At that time, Ah Ying lived in the back room at the ground floor of a tenement building in Parkes Street. The room was only 5 x 7 feet large. After putting in a bed of 4 feet wide, there was no space for activities of any kind. Every day after she got up in the morning, Mother would tie the younger brother to Ah Ying’s back so that she could take care of the baby. Her parents did not agree that girls should go to school and ordered her to stay at home to take care of her younger brothers. Ms Lui, a neighbour who lived in the front room at the ground floor, convinced Ah Ying’s parents about the benefits of literacy, such as the ability to read street plates when walking on the streets. Ah Ying’s parents reluctantly agreed to let their daughter go to school. Therefore Ah Ying walked with Man Chai (Ms Lui’s son), who was more than three years younger than Ah Ying, to go to school and back home from school every day. To register with the special class, Ah Ying had to go to the school to send in an application. As her mother was illiterate and had to stay home to do the laundry and take care of the children, Ms Lui helped out to complete the formal procedure. Specifically set up for the poor, the special class was free of tuition fees. Each lesson ran for two hours daily from around 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm, and students had to wait for the day school to be dismissed before they could go to the classrooms. There was no opening ceremony for the special class, and students were informed which classroom they belonged to at the start of each school term. Ah Ying was very happy on her first day of school and felt glad that she had the chance to study.

Ah Ying thinks that the school campus of Rosary Church was beautiful. With blackboard, tables and chairs in the classroom, it was the same as a regular school classroom. The special class had no recesses or activities. The students simply attended their lessons and went home after school. Ah Ying and Man Chai were in the same class with around 20 other students of varying ages, all of them from poor families. Some of the Rosary Church teachers were nuns in formal religious clothes. One of them was a foreign nun who taught English. At that time, Ah Ying already knew that Rosary Church was a Catholic primary school and understood that some of the teachers were nuns. The subjects taught in the special class included English, Mathematics and Mandarin. Topics in English included alphabets and vocabulary for everyday use. Students had to buy textbooks and exercise books for the Chinese lessons. As Ah Ying’s father could not afford to buy these items, they were paid for by Ms Lui. Ah Ying cherished very much the opportunity to study and was very obedient to the adults in the school, fearing that if she broke any rules she would no longer be allowed to study. The day school students all wore pretty neat uniforms, while the special class students wore everyday clothes to the class. Ah Ying envied those who had uniforms to wear. Ah Ying studied in Rosary Church for less than a year because her family moved home away from Yau Ma Tei. She was unhappy when she left the school.

As Rosary Church’s special class was a new programme, class hours were limited. There were also no formal subjects such as General Studies, Natural Science, Singing and Painting, with only basic knowledge such as word recognition and calculation. Students learned simple addition and subtraction in calculation lessons and were taught words and vocabulary in Chinese lessons. Teaching was conducted via the class blackboard. There were only one to two teachers in the special class to teach all subjects. In addition to textbook knowledge, the teachers also explained the Catholic faith and had the students read the Bible in class. As Ah Ying was too young, she could not really comprehend the religious doctrine. The special class had different grades of which Ah Ying was in Primary 1. There were no age limits on admission and the teachers outlined the school rules to everyone on the first day of class. The students were reminded to take care of the premise and keep them clean and tidy as they were using a borrowed campus. Students did not have much interaction with the teachers and went home immediately after lessons. Ah Ying brought a stool outside their home after school and did her homework sitting on it on the sidewalk. Homework consisted of exercises such as writing words, numbers and English alphabets. As Ah Ying’s parents had no schooling and her goldsmith neighbours had no time, she generally asked her neighbour Ms Lui for help if she got stuck on her homework.

Ah Ying ‘walked with Man Chai to school every day, setting out from Parkes Street in Yau Ma Tei and passing Austin Road and Chatham Road en route. No adults accompanied the two children to school. At the junction of Austin Road and Chatham was a grassy slope with two swings where the two children liked to play before the lessons started. The swings were also one of the main reasons why Ah Ying liked to go to school. Best of all, when going to school she did not need to carry her younger brother on her back. From the grassy slope Ah Ying could read time from a clock tower at a far distance. At home, Ah Ying’s household chores were endless as she had to carry her younger brother around the house all day. Her mother also told her to be ready to run for chores such as buying grocery in Ningbo Street. When she had to carry her younger brother, Ah Ying couldn’t play hopscotch or rope skipping with the local kids. Even when her neighbours had volunteered to take care of the baby boy on Ah Ying’s back, Ah Ying was still worried of being found and scolded by her mother. Her mother would come out of the house to check on her regularly and scold her if she was not seen around. After moving to Lo Fu Ngam in Kowloon City, Ah Ying left the Rosary Church School as it was far away from the school.

Ah Ying only resumed schooling two years after moving to Lo Fu Ngam when she enrolled in BGCA Free School. In the early period after the move, she stayed at home and had nothing to do except watching her Chaozhounese neighbour doing embroidery work. A mother with several daughters took in materials from the factory and embroidered at the corner of handkerchiefs with flower patterns. Back then, large manufacturers used to outsource work orders to the residents in local squatter areas. After sending out a batch of materials, the factory would return a few days later to pick up the completed orders and distribute new materials. Ah Ying’s neighbour found she was interested in it and so encouraged her to learn the craft. She was asked to embroider a pattern shown on a sketch. Once she knew the basics, Ah Ying happily did the embroidery work with her neighbour, taking the materials from a local factory. At that time, Ah Ying was only 8 or 9 years old. During that period, she had also joined other workers to some factory to embroider larger tablecloths for export.

Ah Ying lived with her family at the hill foot of Lo Fu Ngam close to a junction where many residents walking up and down the hill would pass by their front door. One day, a man saw Ah Ying reading newspaper outside the family home and asked her if she would like to study in school. He suggested she could enroll in BGCA Free School in Kowloon City. At that time, Ah Ying had already been doing embroidery outsourced work orders at home for nearly two years. While her parents again objected to her going to school, she went to the school herself for enrollment and felt excited to be able to go to school again. The free school had just opened, at the junction of Argyle Street and Ma Tau Chung Road, with a classroom in a metal hut similar to a barrack. At the beginning there were fewer than 10 students and the metal hut was still under decoration. The teacher and students tended to carry out lessons on the grassland outside the hut. Without tables, chairs and blackboard, the students sat around the teacher and listened to him. As there was no electric light in the classroom, they had to start classes at around 3 or 4 pm for about two hours and finish classes when it turned dark . A month later, the classroom was ready and the students moved inside. They were arranged to sit on long wooden benches . Each bench was matched with two desks and accommodated four students in a row. After studying in the free school for half year, 11-year old Ah Ying had to suspend her studies and start supporting her family by working in a wool weaving factory.

When Ah Ying studied in Rosary Church’s special class, she used a rattan case as her satchel. While at BGCA, she had no such schoolbag and instead had to use brown paper to wrap up her books when carrying them to school. How she envied those classmates who had proper schoolbags! Ah Ying recalls today that classroom facilities at Rosary Church were better. The tables and chairs at BGCA Free School were cruder and scantier with the students having to sit on benches usually found in outpatient clinics. That said, teaching content at the two free schools was similar. Subjects taught in Primary 2 of BGCA Free School included basic arithmetic, English, general studies and mandarin. There were no Art and Physical Education, but there was singing during music lessons. Before her classes began, Ah Ying played rope skipping with her female classmates and sometimes even joined the boys in playing football on the grassland. All subjects at the free school were taught by teacher Mr Law according to a timetable which had no recesses. Ah Ying soon caught up with the course progress. Saying that she was clever and obedient, Ah Ying’s teacher had no hesitation in approving her to jump forwards to Primary 4.

Mr Law was a teacher at the BGCA free school. He had a full-time job, and was at his 20s at that time. As he planned to study abroad, he quit the teaching job at BGCA. It was later heard that he became a lawyer after completing his studies. Teachers at Rosary Church were all female and taught on a voluntary basis. Ah Ying believes that the BGCA teachers cared more about the students than the teachers at Rosary Church free school. While Ah Ying was studying Primary 4, Mr Law occasionally bought food for the students at his own expense.  He would order takeaways to the school from a restaurant in Kowloon City Road. Students who joined the meals had to sign up and name their favourite dishes such as fried rice noodles with beef. All students were excited about the food and enjoyed it with a good appetite. In one of these occasions, Ah Ying could not join the class because she had to work overtime. Attracted by the good food, she returned to the school halfway from work and Mr Law kindly shared his own food with her. Ah Ying dearly remembered the generosity of the teacher. As the girl was habitually late for school, Teacher Law inquired about the reason why and she told him of her difficulty in juggling between work and study. Ah Ying had to quit school again as her home was destroyed by a fire.

The BGCA Free School which Ah Ying attended conducted flag-selling days to raise funds. Preparation began one month before the event with students helping to make the flags two nights per week during class. Each time half of a class time was used for making flags. BGCA also organised sports day with games like racing and four-person relays at which schools in various districts under BGCA participated. The free school also held an annual picnic where teachers and students caught fish in mountain streams. Of all her memories, Ah Ying thinks that camping at Silvermine Bay in Mui Wo was the happiest. Boys and girls were segregated by separate trips each taking place on different days. As there was generally no need to pay any fees, the students – including those from other BGCA schools – were enthusiastic about going along. Thinking that going camping freed her from having to do the housework, Ah Ying signed up happily! While her mother initially did not agree to the trip, she eventually gave in to Ah Ying’s repeated requests. The students camped in a large stone house of several floors. The facilities were shabby with only one canteen for everyone. The campers had their activities and slept in the same area on mats placed on the floor. Ah Ying says now that her going to Mui Wo was just like “a country bumpkin venturing out to the city”. She was so excited at the beauty of the beach and camp house and felt very comfortable listening to the sound of the waves as she fell asleep. The teachers led the students to the beach to catch crabs, paddle and visit the silver mine cave on the mountain. Ah Ying picked a grey shell egg at the beach and took it back home as souvenir. Her teacher told her it was a turtle egg, but her mother soon threw it away for fear that it would hatch a snake.

BGCA Free School’s teachers occasionally conducted home visits to learn more about their students’ family background and to ask their questions about the students’ behaviour at home. Each time, the teacher left after sitting for a while. Ah Ying thinks that home visits allowed the teachers to better understand their students’ character. For example, she had seen one student refusing to eat during a camping expedition. The teacher’s visits eventually established the fact that that student’s family habitually fasted on the fifteenth day of each lunar month. Today, Ah Ying says she welcomed the home visits, agreeing that these could enhance teacher-student communication and that she felt sad that the system eventually became obsolete. Occasionally, some guests visited the school during lessons, but even if they were famous, the students rarely knew who they were at that time. As the teachers had to show the visitors around the school, they would cut one or half a session on those days.

While glad that she had the opportunity to study, Ah Ying laments that hardship at life made it difficult to be happy in those days. Her favourite teacher at BGCA Free School was called Mr. Law. He held meal gatherings for students once every one to two months at his own expense. Once, having strong desire to try the food, Ah Ying went back to the school without having signed up for the day’s meal gathering. Mr Law kindly offered to share his own portion of food with her. Ah Ying says she still feels grateful to this treat! Back then, she pretended that she could not finish the food and took the leftovers back home to share with her younger siblings. It so happened that the British Queen’s coronation occurred around the time Ah Ying was attending classes on the BGCA Free School’s grassland. Each student was given a mouthwash mug printed with a crown as souvenir of the big day. Occasionally the school distributed milk to the students who then used their mouthwash mugs to collect it! At Mr. Law’s meal gatherings, Ah Ying brought the mouthwash mug to school so that she could take food home.

BGCA’s evening school only taught around 10 students and had more boys than girls. As girls tended to be more mature than boys at a younger age, they had to work for earning for their families. Boys in those days were allowed more freedom to play and have fun. Ah Ying’s classmates were often absent from school due to work – sometimes for as much as two weeks at a time. As home phones were not commonplace, it was difficult to apply for leave from class in advance. The fact that the teachers worked on voluntary basis also made it difficult for them to spend time for home visits. Many students lived in huts with messy house number plates made such visits even more problematic. The evening school at BGCA had classes for Primary 2 and Primary 4 only, with only one teacher for the entire school. In order to save manpower, the school did not run Primary 1 and Primary 3 classes. The teacher adopted a combined teaching mode with pupils in Primary 2 and Primary 4 being taught at the same time. In practice, while instructing one class to do copying, the teacher was teaching another group of pupils to do something else! When it came to singing class, the two classes joined together as one! When Ah Ying was promoted from Primary 2 to Primary 4, she mistakenly thought that she was being expelled from the school. She shed tears believing that her school result was poor. After her teacher told her that she would soon catch up with the progress, Ah Ying felt proud of herself. When she was studying in Primary 4, she took her second sister to attend Primary 2. As this sister had to take care of the younger siblings, she could not attend school for very long.

As pupils were busy making a living and seldom worked for an employer permanently, there was not much contact among classmates at the Motor Worker’ Evening School. Without home telephones, it was difficult to keep in contact and classmates generally only chatted with each other when they met. The evening school students worked in industries such as metal, plastic and masonry. Ah Ying continues to feel deeply that labourers on construction sites put in a lot of effort and that “Hong Kong was sweated out from their labours!” In those days, factories were not popular so many people worked in construction sites and cutting i mountains for reclamation. Having only toiled for half-a-day, Ah Ying’s father found such work to be too tough for him to continue. As a result, he lost the day’s wages. Her mother was also once a labourer carrying brick lumps from morning till night. Ah Ying thinks it was less labour intensive working in the factory than in construction sites, but the factory workers earned more or less the same as construction workers.

Teacher at the workers’ evening school really cared about their students. If pupils did not attend classes, the teacher would sometimes go together with other students to their homes to check on them. At that time, classes at the evening school finished at 10:00 pm. Class monitor and row leaders had to stay behind late and discuss national affairs. Being a row leader, Ah Ying arrived home late well after 11:00 pm. As she seldom had time to eat properly, she suffered from stomach pains that caused her to miss class. As a result, teachers came along to visit her at home with other students two or three times. Ah Ying’s father harshly said that the the young male teacher had bad intention to pay such frequent visits: to date his daughter ! Ah Ying cited her health problem as the reason to drop out of school. She ended up studying in the evening school for less than a year. As she only attended classes to learn literacy, teaching content was not her concern. She merely hoped to complete the primary education so that she could be qualified to apply for jobs such as a nurse or policewoman. Today, she laments that it was not easy to finish the primary education. Later, Ah Ying frequently asked her co-workers looking for other evening primary schools that ran Primary 1 to Primary 6 classes, but was in vain. .

The fire at home remains Sister Ying’s most profound memory of the time when she was studying at BGCA evening school. One day before Christmas the year following the fire that swept through the six villages of Shek Kip Mei, Ah Ying was walking home from school. Some time after 9:00 pm, she passed Kowloon Walled City and the nearby vegetable field approaching the entrance to the squatter village at the foothill. While there, she discovered fire and smoke in the village and immediately ran home, alerting others to the danger as she sped past. It was cold winter at that time and Ah Ying’s family had gone to bed early. When her mother became aware of the fire, she kicked open the door and woke up the children, putting clothes on Ah Ying’s younger brothers. Just twenty days before the fire, Ah Ying’s mother had given birth to her seventh daughter! Once she reached home, Ah Ying carried another younger brother in her arms to a nearby vegetable field. She then returned home with her father to pick up their belongings while her mother and her younger siblings sheltered in the safety of the vegetable field.

A distant uncle of Ah Ying who lived in Nga Tsin Wai immediately rushed to help carry their belongings upon learning of the fire. Never met the man before, Ah Ying did not know who the man was at first and thought that he was looting her family’s burning house! The distant uncle subsequently invited Ah Ying’s mother to take the children to his Nga Tsin Wai home for temporary shelter. Ah Ying and her father did not follow as her father had to go register with the victim registration to be eligible for future government relief and resettlement. Ah Ying sat alone in the vegetable field to look after the family’s few belongings. She was cold, hungry, tired, and also soaked in rain. Her feet became numb and could not move after running and carrying all of the family stuff. She felt like weeping but had no tears left to cry. In the middle of the night, her father returned to the field after completing the registration. He had just 30 cents in his pocket to buy a bowl of wonton noodles for Ah Ying from a hawker. As Ah Ying and her father had no money to pay the deposit for the bowl, the hawker just put the noodles in an enamel basin which restaurants used for cup washing! Ah Ying was so exhausted that she did not care about hygiene, eating her first ever bowl of wonton noodles which she still remembers fondly to this day! After Ah Ying and her father had taken shelter in the vegetable field for a few days, the family was moved to temporary shelters on the To Kwa Wan Road. At that time, the road had been built but not yet been open for traffic. As a result, the authorities set aside half of the road so that the fire victims could live in tents until more permanent arrangements were made. While there, Ah Ying went to the BGCA every day to collect rice meals and relief clothing. Meanwhile, her family lived outside the door of a battery factory, using clothes and fabrics to make a tent and to place on the floor for sleeping. The weather outside the tent was so cold that it was virtually impossible to get to sleep. After the outbreak of the fire, classes at BGCA’s evening school were suspended. The metal hut classroom was instead converted into a store house for relief items.

When Ah Ying was living in the squatter area of Lo Fu Ngam, a fire broke out in one winter of the 1950s. A few days later, the fire victims were resettled to To Kwa Wan Road. Some of the fire victims returned and built houses on the original site, while others sought refuge with relatives and friends. Ah Ying’s mother took her family’s youngest daughter and twin brothers to find refuge with Ah Ying’s uncle. Ah Ying lived in temporary huts on To Kwa Wan Road together with her father and a younger sister near Sheung Heung Road and Ha Heung Road with other fire victims. At that time, as To Kwa Wan Road was not yet open for traffic, the government used half of the road to resettle the fire victims. The road surface was marked into grids of surface area of a dozen square feet and each individual grid was given a number. Registered victims then erected makeshift tents in the area marked with their designated number. Ah Ying and her family members put up four wooden poles, and then used clothes and fabrics to build a temporary house. Each household had its own spittoon and the fire victims used buckets to carry water, putting the fresh supplies outside their house. Ah Ying laid rough matting on the floor of her family’s tent and slept on it. As the tent was near the ditch and rats ran wild outside, sanitation inside was poor. When it rained, plastic sheets had to be used to cover the tents. The worst thing that could happen was for heavy rain to fall in the middle of the night as kids who were sound asleep got soaked to the skin. Ah Ying resettled in To Kwa Wan Road in winter and moved to Kowloon Tsai only in summer the following year.

Ah Ying and her father had to stay in the tent for a long time waiting for government staff who might visit them for surveys. The fire victims who stayed with relatives and friends as refuge still left some of the family members staying on To Kwa Wan Road waiting for the responsible staff, because they would be resettled only when their victim status was confirmed with these staff. The government sent working staff to conduct inspections, some of which were checks without prior notice. When they met these staff, they were asked about their actual address in Lo Fu Ngam squatter area, to avoid those who jumped the queue of resettlement taking advantage of the confusion following the fire. The victims came from different ethnic backgrounds and included Chaozhounese, Hakkas, Hoklos and local Cantonese. Sometimes such diversity resulted in conflicts. On other occasions everyone pitched in and helped each other. Victims of the blaze collected water from public standpipes and it was then that conflicts and sometimes fight occurred . Some people dumped waste water everywhere, even pouring it in front of their neighbour’s door causing quarrels. In those years, the Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society, a church and the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs Association of Hong Kong (BGCA) distributed relief supplies to the fire victims who spread the news among themselves. Ah Ying regularly went to BGCA to collect meals for herself and her mother . The rice and food were put in several large wooden barrels, with the main foods on offer often including cabbage, pumpkin and winter melon. As the food was just intended to fill victims’ stomachs, Ah Ying rarely seemed to find meat in her meals. As there was no one to administer the squatter area on To Kwa Wan Road, each family had to find their own way of living themselves.

Ah Ying and her family members stayed on To Kwa Wan Road waiting for resettlement while the government was busy building resettlement houses. Six months later, arrangements were finally made to resettle them in Tai Hang Tung Estate in Kowloon Tsai. Fire victims were allocated assigned units and went find their units with a number given to them. Ah Ying was excited about living in the resettlement house ending the harsh life by the roadside. All the residents in Tai Hang Tung Estate were victims of natural disasters from all districts in Hong Kong. Ah Ying’s family of seven members was counted as six persons, as a child under 10 years old being defined as a half member. it was stipulated that a family of 4 members was eligible for one unit, Ah Ying’s family was given one and a half units. Each of these units was 10 feet by 14 feet and had shabby doors and windows that air seeped through via shoddily built gaps. Ah Ying’s parents could not afford to pay for decoration. As the unit faced to the north, the whole family suffered from the cold wind seeped through the crevice of windows and the door during winter. Inside the family put a large bed facing the door as well as a bunk bed made by her father. Ah Ying’s family also shared half of the second unit with a single man with a line drawn along the middle of the floor as a boundary. A board was also used to separate the two households. The two households never, ever left their belongings lying across the boundary. Ah Ying’s family lived in the outer half of the unit near the unit entrance, while the single man lived in the inner half. Living in the outer half was more of a problem as both parties had to share the one doorway. Ah Ying’s family did not get along well with the single man and going in and out of the unit frequently led to conflict as there were allegations of things inside home were lost.

The housing block where Ah Ying’s family lived was like a matchbox. The buildings were quickly and shabbily constructed and had only one toilet and one shower room on each floor. As many households occupied one floor, residents inevitably had to wait in long queues to use the toilet and shower room. As the facilities had no door or curtains, peeping often occurred when women used the toilet when there were few people in the late afternoon. There were reports of men hiding in the shower room at a earlier time so that he could spy on women taking showers. Many residents hated using these facilities as they were so filthy and went peeing and pooing in the shower room instead. Failing to clean up their mess, they caused much dissatisfaction among the neighbours. At nightfall, there were fewer people using the toilet so local junkies and drug addicts used them as shooting dens where they could take heroin. They added to the environment’s air of squalour. Ah Ying thinks that public order in the estate was average at best. There were reports of theft where heroin addicts broke into the dwelling units stealing things and it was very difficult to get the police to take any kind of action. Public standpipes were installed in the middle of each floor and residents had to queue up to collect water. As the corridor was only two and a half feet wide and residents used some of this space for cooking, people who carried buckets of water home were often criticized when water spilled on the floor. Bloodshed and fights often occurred in the estate over matters such as the scramble for water, toilets and access to and from flats. Perpetrators included both men and women. Ah Ying thinks that life at the Lo Fu Ngam hut was more comfortable as there were no quarrels over bathing and fetching water. However, the unit was subject to threats of typhoon, rain and fire all the time. There were no more such worries after the family moved into the concrete resettlement blocks.

When Ah Ying moved into Tai Hang Tung Estate, she was about 14 years old and did not work outside home. Her daily life at her new home mainly involved doing the laundry and fetching buckets of water. Her father was a barber, while her mother was a housewife, taking care of children and household chores at home. As the family was big, there were a lot of clothes to be washed by two or three people. They had to spend a lot of time waiting for access to the public water taps. As the father wouldn’t allow the children playing downstairs, Ah Ying’s siblings messed around in the corridor. That said, there was a playground in the public space where people could play football. Ah Ying’s siblings rarely joined the games there as they were too young and small. It was popular in those years for factories to outsource unskilled processes such as assembling plastic flowers or weaving gloves. People from nearby factories came to distribute industrial materials to residents in the estates like Ah Ying’s. While there, the factory people asked housewives to do processing jobs at home and came back regularly to collect finished products. Those who took up the work had to finish it according to a strict schedule. To make sure that they could get back the finished products, the factory people only assigned work to the residents who had a middle person to introduce them. When she saw a van carrying materials of plastic flower  downstairs, Ah Ying would collect her part of materials from a neighbour. As her mother’s workmanship was not good, she focused on laundry and cooking, while Ah Ying and her sister did most of the assembling work. Her mother helped out after she finished the housework, while the boys at home never joined the work force at home. As they were slow in the work, they never really made much money. They later changed their job to sewing fingers into gloves. Ah Ying only did outsourced home-based work for a short period of time and subsequently went to work in a metal factory in Lok Shan Road.

Ah Ying’s younger siblings studied in the rooftop school which was run by a church on the top floor of their housing block at a monthly tuition fee of just a few dollars. Ah Ying’s mother sent the children to the rooftop school with other neighbours’ children. The school was popular because it was very convenient for parents to take their kids to and from school. The school used wooden desks and iron benches, but did not have many classrooms and classes. Two of Ah Ying’s siblings studied there from Primary 1 to Primary 6. Tai Hang Tung Resettlement Estate had a small shabby open-air wet market which was near to the Maryknoll Father’s School. If residents did not like to go shopping in this market, they had to go to Mong Kok. There was few gathering among the housewives in the estate, since they were usually busy doing outsourced home work . Very occasionally, the women might get together to play mahjong. The men gathered to gamble after work, playing mahjong or poker, whereas the local Hakka community mostly played 15 Card. Ethnic groups living in the resettlement estate included Chaozhounese, Hakkas, local Cantonese and Hoklos. The Chaozhounese gathered and performed Jiao rituals during the Hungry Ghost Festival, putting up a scaffolding stage in the playground downstairs for opera shows and worshipping. Ah Ying’s mother collected the blessed rice and went to worship during the Hungry Ghost Festival. Ah Ying sometimes also watched the shows, but could not understand the contents so she was simply a passer-by. In summer, some people set up canvas beds to sleep in the corridor. This was especially true for those living at either ends of the blocks. Such habits blocked the access and made it very difficult for residents to pass through. Those who had to fetch water found it the most inconvenient. Fighting over the water taps was Ah Ying’s most enduring memory of life in the resettlement estate and she was always worried while washing herself in the public shower room. There was little contact between neighbours with each household minding their own business. Adults often exchanged angry words when queuing up for water or the toilet. Having got to know the kids next door, Ah Ying had made some friends in the estate. She lost touch with them when she started working in To Kwa Wan.

When the rightist riots broke out in 1956, Ah Ying was only 14 years old. She was not too clear about what happened and only heard about the origin of the riots from the neighours. It was said that the rightists in Lei Cheng Uk Resettlement Estate were celebrating “Double Ten” festival on October 10 by putting up placards in the estate. A foreign police officer complained that the cards were too large. As his request to remove the signs was ignored, he used his baton to smash them into pieces. The residents demanded compensation. The police officer at first refused, but being outnumbered he eventually offered to boil paste in a spittoon and glue the damaged cards back together. The rightists found this act as an insult to the national flag which caused the outbreak of the trouble. Residents of Kowloon Tsai’s Tai Hang Tung Estate also celebrated the “Double Ten” festival by hanging flags in the neighbourhood. Ah Ying lived on the sixth floor and witnessed one of the confrontations between the rioters and the police from above. Policemen holding shields were being chased after by angry residents and were made to retreat backward. The cops eventually fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. The fumes were so strong that Ah Ying’s eyes were affected ! Shortly afterwards the whole territory was put under curfew. At that time, many neighbours watched the event from afar and did not make any move to go downstairs to join the action.

One evening during the time when curfew was in force, Ah Ying’s father came home from work in Central. As he reached Kowloon City, he learned that the main road was blocked and had to secretly negotiate his way home around back streets. One morning after this incident, the police ordered the men in the resettlement blocks to go downstairs on the ground level for questioning. As information was ineffectively disseminated at that time, people did not know what was happening and failed to respond. Cops holding shields and wearing helmets went upstairs to check who they had yet to be questioned. Ah Ying was one of those who had no idea what was happening and luckily her father was not at home. Looking down from upstairs, Ah Ying saw men squatting on the floor in rows. The police asked about their whereabouts on the previous evening and used batons to check their bodies for cuts and bruises. Those found with injuries were punched and taken to the police station for detailed interrogation. Those found clean were released home. The cops shouted their questions so loudly that Ah Ying could hear them from six floors above! Several of Ah Ying’s neighbours were arrested and kept very low profiles after being released.

Ah Ying got married in the early 1960s and moved out of her parents’ home. Her husband later suffered from pleural effusion that made him incapable of walking. He could no longer work for income and the family could not afford the rent. Ah Ying’s father suggested this  family of three returned to live with him so that they could take care of each other. Ah Ying’s family therefore moved back to the half unit she used to live in, while her two younger brothers lived to the larger flat. As ventilation in this tiny unit was poor and it was very crowded with three persons living in, Ah Ying was eager to apply to the Housing Department to have a separate unit for her own family. Unfortunately, she did not know the procedures so her applications were rejected several times. A friend suggested Ah Ying sought help from Elsie Elliott and provided her with Ms. Elliott’s Wang Tau Hom office address. Back then, Ms. Elliott worked in an office borrowed from the Housing Department and met members of the public one day each week after 5:00 pm. Ah Ying firstly queued up in the Housing Department in the morning to collect a ticket. And then she went to Ms. Elliott’s office on the specified date to explain her case. She brought her two little sons along, together with enough milk powder and diapers to feed and clean them while waiting. Sometimes when they finished the meeting, it was already late night at 11:00 pm or 12:00. Before she could go for her meeting, Ah Ying had to write a letter outlining a summary of her case. She also asked a doctor to write a reference letter stating that her husband was sick and could not work. Ah Ying appreciates the fact that Elsie Elliott took the time to meet personally members of the public and thinks that she was kind and sincere in making effort to help the poor. While Ms. Elliott did not speak Cantonese, her assistant helped in instant interpretation. Ms Elliott would listen carefully and occasionally asked questions. During her meeting with Ah Ying, she did not bother about the time insisting that the meeting would only finish when all matters had been properly discussed. Ah Ying explained that she wanted to have a separate unit from her father’s, hoping that it would be a home for herself and her own family. Ms. Elliott instructed her to add her husband in her father’s household registration and then apply for a separate unit. The then British Colonial system allowed son-in-laws to join the family household registration whereas daughter-in-laws were not accepted. Ah Ying knew that Ms. Elliott had her influence in the Housing Department, she did not make any promise to Ah Ying, but emphasized that she would try her best to help.

Each time she met Ah Ying, Ms. Elliott wrote a letter to the Housing Department immediately afterwards, and informed Ah Ying of the results at a later date. Frustratingly, Ah Ying’s initial application was unsuccessful. She cried bitterly upon hearing the bad news. Having heard nothing further for a long time and having no channel to enquire about the progress, Ah Ying later asked Councilor Chan Tsz Kwan in Central for help as suggested by a neighbour. While the journey from Tai Hang Tung to Central in those days was a long and arduous one, the prospect of getting a proper home made it worth making. Councillor Chan Tsz Kwan did not have a private office but used a room in the Municipal Services Building to meet members of the public once a week. Ah Ying had a very good impression of Chan Tsz Kwan, believing that he was patient and friendly. The Housing Department subsequently accepted her application, sending a letter to Ah Ying informing her of a date to meet the housing officer for flat allocation. She and her family moved within less than two months after receiving the letter! The officer asked Ah Ying to pick a choice out of Sau Mau Ping, Wong Tai Sin and Shek Lei Pui. Ah Ying did not like the older unit layout in Wong Tai Sin and thought that Sau Mau Ping was far away and over-populated with too many housing estates around. She finally chose a unit in Shek Lei Pui, as the buildings there were newer and the environment was less crowded. As it was also a place where she had happy memories of going on picnics when she was younger, she thought it would also be a good place for the development of her own children.

Ah Ying’s unit in Shek Lei Pui Estate (Editor’s note: formerly known as Shek Lei Resettlement Estate and renamed as Shek Lei Estate in 1973) had a small balcony. The left and right sides of the balcony were respectively used as a toilet and a stone table for cooking, with the middle part reserved for hanging clothes. The unit also had an independent water tap, toilet and kitchen. For Ah Ying, being allocated a public housing flat was every bit exciting as winning the Mark Six lottery! She had her own private space and could cook without having to worry about being spied on by the neighbours! Her children would also not disturb others when getting into and out of the house. She lived in a four-person unit, which together with its kitchen had an area of around 200 sq. ft., similar to the unit at Tai Hung Tung. At first, her husband did not want to move because he thought the place was too remote. He also complained that the unit was too small, and his head would hit the ceiling if he stayed on the upper level of a bunk bed! He was also dissatisfied that women living in housing estates only cared about playing mahjong. Ah Ying designed her own bunk bed, paying a higher price to have it custom-made. The railing of the upper bunk was extended to the ceiling with a door installed so that her sons could live in this “cockloft”. Ah Ying and her husband slept on the lower bunk, so it was easy for them to watch over the kids. When her eldest son grew bigger, he did homework in the cockloft with a stool. Ah Ying even installed a desk lamp in the cockloft for him to study. Ah Ying did not like to be looked down upon by others. She therefore promised her husband that she would not play mahjong and would not gossip with the neighbouring women. She was finally able to convince him to make this move. In the past, women living in the housing estates always gathered to play mahjong. Many Tai Hang Tung Estate residents, for example, played the game every chance they got!

Knowing that her family was poor, Ah Ying diligently did sub-contracting jobs at home to support her husband and sons. Referred by her boss and colleagues, she went to Sham Shui Po, To Kwa Wan and San Po Kong to pick up garment materials herself and then made whole-piece garments at home. Her workmanship was well received by the bosses and foremen at many factories. Near Shek Lei Pui Estate, there were garment factories too. As these factories assigned workers to sew a particular part of a garment, Ah Ying preferred to work at home sewing whole-piece garments. A manufacturer specialising in year-end products made women’s winter jackets . Ah Ying took the heavy materials back home to work. Each women’s jacket took her around two hours to complete.

While Shek Lei Pui Estate did not have a park, but the open space on the ground floor was used as a small playground. The regular playing field was far away from the estate. Neighbours greeted each other when they returned home from work and some people played mahjong after dinner. The Housing Department maintained strict management control in the estate. Ah Ying cherished her home and eagerly complied with the regulations. The Housing Department occasionally sent staff to patrol the buildings and investigate complaints. The households preferred to close their iron gates and open their main wooden doors, engaging in conversation through the gates. Ah Ying thinks that her neighbours at Shek Lei Pui were more decent than those in Tai Hang Tung Estate. That said, she only got friendly with three households who lived next to her . She did not make as many as friends as she did in Tai Hang Tung Estate. As the residents in Kowloon Tsai had to share the facilities, there were lots of conflicts but more opportunities for interacting with each other as well.

When she was aged just 11 or 12, neighbours in Lo Fu Ngam recommended Ah Ying for a job in a family-style wool factory in Tung Tau Village. The factory specified that they hired only girls. The Tung Tau Village in those days comprised rows of connecting stone houses. Next to the wool factory were dwellings for residence and grocery stores. At its rear were a blacksmith and plastic flower factories staffed by young apprentices of around 10 years old who were forced to work to relieve the financial burden of their parents. The wool factory that Ah Ying worked in was a stone house which was used for both manufacturing and residential purposes. Inside were three handlooms. The factory owners were a married couple who worked with the husband’s younger brother with each of the three looking after one loom.

Ah Ying was responsible for winding the wool and cleaning the fluff. The workshop was shabby and she had to work outside the door suffering cold in winter and heat in summer. The raw wool was placed onto a bamboo rack which looked like a windmill. Ah Ying had to turn the rack so that the wool would be turned into a ball. At first, she did not know how to apply force, causing the wool ball falling off from the rack. The wool was wasted. The factory owner demonstrated the operation to Ah Ying once and ordered her to start working immediately afterwards. The poor girl had to work out how to master the intricacies of the rolling machine by herself and was often scolded for failing to produce wool of approved standard. While working in the wool factory, Ah Ying had no mask and the flying wool particles made her nose feel itchy. Handlooms had few accidents unless the tool that was used to control the wool dropped onto the floor and hit her feet. The factory mainly produced woollen sweaters, firstly weaving the sleeves and other components. The different parts were then stitched together into finished products. Some sweaters were sold locally and Ah Ying sometimes delivered the goods to Ka Wah Department Store in Tsim Sha Tsui. While employed there, she worked from 9:00 am to 8:00 pm every day for a daily wage of HK$2. She walked home in Lo Fu Ngam for lunch every day. Though the journey between Tung Tau Village and Lo Fu Ngam was a long one, she saw the walking as a good form of exercise.

When aged just 11 or 12, Ah Ying was employed as a child labourer by a wool factory in Tung Tau Village. The bosses there regarded her as a maidservant fit only for the humblest tasks such as sweeping the floors under the bed. As a female worker, she had a low status and as she was not part of the owner’s family, they did not care about her. Though Ah Ying was not happy working there, she could not quit the job. As she was the only girl in the factory, she had no one to console her whenever she was negatively criticized. Her mother was also not considerate, only caring about the money Ah Ying brought home to supplement the family income. The wool factory operated seven days a week and Ah Ying always got off work late and never early. There were no overtime allowances and just a few days’ holiday during the Lunar New Year. In those years, there were no labour laws and workers had to live hand to mouth. Ah Ying got paid twice a month and had to pass over every cent of her earnings to her mother.

After leaving the wool factory in Tung Tau Village, Ah Ying was referred to a job at a metal factory in Lok Shan Road, To Kwa Wan. During the job interview, the boss asked Ah Ying about her age. Squatter factories had no written rules on wages. Younger workers were paid less and the mature adults were paid a daily wage of between HK$2.8 and HK$3.0, Ah Ying worked from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm for a daily wage of HK$2.20. The boss ordered his employees to keep working without making any conversation. Workers could only chat while the man was not around. The pressing machines produced big noise when operated.　There was no radio in the factory. Working seven days a week, the workers at the metal factory were hardly given any holiday. They were allowed to get off earlier on Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and payroll days. The factory did not provide meals. At lunch, Ah Ying used to pay a cooking woman 30 cents for meals that generally included soybeans and bean sprouts. Ah Ying did not need to serve the boss, only performing work related duties, but was occasionally deployed to other work sections.

Occupying the second floor of a tenement building, the factory adopted a family-style operation with the premises also being used as the boss’s residence. The boss’s family lived in two bedrooms, while the living room and balcony were used as workshops. As a master machinist himself, the boss was a local who usually repaired equipment while his mother also took part in pressing products in the factory. The factory employed about 10 workers working with three large and several smaller pressing machines. As only the larger pressing machine operated most of the time, the factory was rarely fully staffed. The metal factory produced torches and components of light bulbs. Those who operated the large pressing machine were skilled workers aged between 30 and 40. As injuries easily occurred among those operating the larger machines, female workers’ fingers could be cut short bit by bit. The boss’s wife helped binding up wounds with bandages casually for the injured female workers, while those with more critical wounds had to go to the hospital’s accident and emergency unit. Workers who obtained a doctor’s certificate could take sick leave and were compensated at their basic salary.

Ah Ying was responsible for a work step that facilitated welding the cap of a light bulb. Workers doing this work step easily got their fingers cut but they usually kept quiet when it happened. They seldom wore a glove to protect their hands. Each department of the metal factory was generally staffed by only one worker. While the age of workers there varied, most were unmarried females. Two or three workers were of the same age as Ah Ying and they did similar work in the factory. As a result, she sometimes had lunch with these colleagues and then went to Hoi Sham Temple for chat after lunch. To avoid being scolded by her mother, Ah Ying returned home straight from work. As all her wages had to be handed over to her mother, Ah Ying rarely had money for entertainment, only getting 30 cents every day for lunch. Sometimes Ah Ying saved up 10 cents for buying shoes and shirts, but she had to hide the money carefully to avoid it being confiscated should her mother ever find out about it.

Afterward Ah Ying moved to Tang Fun Kee Metal Factory in Larch Street, Tai Kok Tsui. New recruits there were recommended by the existing staff. Before doing so, referrers had to ask their foremen about the need for workers as they could not simply bring someone to the factory asking for a job offer. During the interview, the foreman enquired about the age of the candidate and young people were given higher priority. The relationship between the candidate and the referrer was also a consideration with relatives being given top priority. In those years, it was common practice to pretend to be someone’s relative. Ah Ying’s referrer was a neighbour in Tai Hang Tung Estate whom she pretended as her uncle. The man then accompanied her to meet the foreman of the factory’s watch band division. At that time, the statutory working age was 18. As Ah Ying was two years younger, the factory asked her to lie about her age. Before she could start working, Ah Ying had to borrow an adult’s identity card for registration. Tang Fun Kee was a large manufacturer in the trade offering better wages and benefits and safer working environment. It was also much closer to Ah Ying’s home so that she did not have to travel long distances each day. These were the good reasons that pushed Ah Ying to change her job.

Tang Fun Kee occupied a five-storey building in Larch Street, producing headlight cases, square torches and watches. Electroplating was on the first floor; the production of torches was carried out on the second floor and the production of watch bands was on the fourth floor. The higher the floor was, the smaller were the products. The workers could hardly meet the factory boss as he usually worked in an office on the ground floor. When the man conducted his inspections in the factory, someone would tip off their workmates he was coming. Ah Ying worked in the watch band division and dealt with both stainless steel and copper bands. Processes she was involved with included installing watch cases, putting in springs and pressing iron wires. Ah Ying mainly did the latter two jobs. There were dozens of workers in each floor of Tang Fun Kee with workers lined up in rows of seats, each equipped with pressing machines. When a division was understaffed, the supervisor would deploy workers from other divisions. Operating the pressing machines was a low-skilled job. Workers simply needed to be fast and diligent. The foremen inspected workers from the back of the workers. Those who were slow or found chatting would be fired. As a result, workers only tended to chat when foremen were elsewhere. The factory manager was very strict and had a stern face which made the workers feel frightened. Being unskilled labourers, most workers understood that it was not easy to find another job. Lives were not easy, they really cared for every work opportunity.

When Ah Ying began working in the Tang Fun Kee factory in Tai Kok Tsui, her daily working hours were supposed to be from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Oftentimes, the factory continued to operate overtime until 8:00 pm. Ah Ying’s daily wage there was HK$2.50 and she received 1.5 rates for the hours beyond normal working hours. While there, she worked seven days a week and had holidays only on the Mid-Autumn and Dragon Boat festivals. As usual, Ah Ying handed over all her wages to her mother. Because she went home for dinner after work at around 8:00 pm, she seldom made friends with her co-workers. Tang Fun Kee’s workforce consisted of mainly of female workers were responsible for pressing and packing, while the male workers took charge of transporting and electroplating. Electroplating workers were exposed to hot water and cyanide, resulting that they suffered from rotten hands and lung disease. In those years, workers were very hard working, paying no attention to work injuries and occupational diseases. The female workers were mostly married women, many of whom worked for many years long before they got married. There were few chances for new recruits to join the factory. The metal factories that Ah Ying had worked for all had ceiling fans with windows that opened for air ventilation. Such premises were very noisy and filled with machine noises. As there was no air-conditioning in those years, the workers sweated while they toiled through the hot, stuffy summer months.

Tang Fun Kee had factory managers and foremen to check on workers’ output with the head manager and second manager taking turns to make inspections. In the past, Ah Ying had worked in a squatter factory. She still thinks that the boss there had a better understanding of workers’ feelings than the unsympathetic foremen at Tang Fun Kee. That said, working conditions in larger factories was better and workers benefitted from their reputation in this respect. The working hours in large factories were regulated and overtime was less frequent. Tang Fun Kee’s workers enjoyed uniform salary increase and were treated equally. The foreman habitually shouted at the workers and fired those whom he found going to the toilet too frequently. As the toilet was located on the ground floor, Ah Ying had to go downstairs from the fourth floor and even had to queue up when there were many people waiting. At that time, electronics factories offered higher wages and Ah Ying had thought of changing jobs. She finally never tried electronics industry because she worried that she might be under great tension and her eyes might be hurt.

When Ah Ying was working at Tang Fun Kee Metal Factory, her mother required her to come home for lunch. The journey between home and factory was 40 minutes. She was given 10 cents for breakfast every day. Ah Ying did not want to go home for lunch as it was hard to walk with a pair of clogs back and forth for lunch within the lunch hour. The factory usually closed its gates sharp when work hour started. Those workers who could not reach the factory on time were considered absent and would be sacked if they were found repeatedly late. In those days, the workers mostly wore clogs or white canvas sneakers to work. The latter cost a few dollars a pair. Ah Ying’s mother objected to Ah Ying’s wish to buy a pair of student-style leather shoes. Ah Ying subsequently had her leather shoes tailor-made in a street stall at a cost of tens of dollars. She later wore the new shoes to Hoi Sham Temple where she had photos taken with her co-workers. Ah Ying usually wore Chinese-style clothes to work. In those years, people could tell whether you were rich or poor by what you wore, and those who dressed poorly would be criticised. Female workers were especially in the habit of comparing among themselves.

When she was 17, Ah Ying changed her career to sewing, believing that working in the metal industry did not offer her good prospects and her hands were frequently hurt. Sewing, on the other hand, required a higher degree of craftsmanship and could be regarded as a skilled trade. Best of all, married workers could stay home and continued to work for income. Ah Ying did not learn sewing in workshops, but at her cousin’s house where she installed several sewing machines. Ah Ying’s cousin taught her all she knew and was appreciative of Ah Ying’s positive learning attitude. So she did not charge Ah Ying any apprentice fees. There were no time limits for such apprenticeship which generally ended when the apprentices were seen able to master the skills. Ah Ying’s cousin taught her apprentices how to sew things like shirt buttons and cuffs. The skills taught depended on the needs of nearby garment factories. After giving her demonstration, Ah Ying’s cousin asked the apprentices to follow her way and then corrected them by sitting at their sides as they worked. The woman regarded teaching as a business. She not only had apprentices to help her finish off the orders she took in, she received tuition fees from them as well. Such apprentices essentially worked for no income while they learned sewing. Instead, they had to pay a lump sum of HK$100 as apprentice fee, irrespective of the length of their apprenticeships.

The apprentices who completed learning would find jobs elsewhere and Ah Ying’s cousin would find new recruits to take their place. Some apprentices were introduced by people who knew the cousin, while others simply walked in from nearby areas. Ah Ying’s cousin took sub-contracting orders from large manufacturers and sewed shirt plackets, sleeves and watch pockets in her home workshop. She then delivered the sewed parts back to the manufacturers. She never informed her apprentices about the source of orders so as to avoid taking risk of competing with her mature apprentices for the orders. Ah Ying was talented in sewing and was already earning her own income after learning for about two weeks. She earned around HK$2 to 3 a day shortly after completing her apprenticeship, which was roughly the same as what she earned in the metal industry. She did sewing work in her cousin’s home for two months, working about 10 hours every day, with no fixed hours for getting on or off work.

After working for a year at the garment factory in Tsuen Wan and learning the operation of compartmentalized production system, Ah Ying left the factory. She rented a ground floor shop in Shek Lei Pui Estate (Editor’s note: formerly known as Shek Lei Resettlement Estate, renamed as Shek Lei Estate in 1973) from the tenant. She installed several sewing machines to set up this workshop. She hired some workers to work in the workshop and also outsourced some work load to women working at home. Through an acquaintance, she took orders from large manufacturers, specialising in the production of silk fashions. She collected the materials for making whole piece of garments and then divide the work processes into sections in the production. Ah Ying posted recruitment notices in the estate and also advertised in the newspapers. She had high expectations of her workers’ workmanship and stringently assessed every applicant. Some of those employed were Ah Ying’s subordinates when she worked as an instructor of the garment factory. Female workers who lived nearby picked up materials from her workshop and did the sewing work at home. When Ah Ying obtained a driver’s license, she picked up materials directly from the manufacturers and then sent the materials to the most skilled outsourced workers’ home.