Yau Suk Fun

Yau Suk Fun was born in Hong Kong in 1945 and lived in Wan Chai when she was young. Her father operated a wholesale garment business. After she got married in 1969, she moved to Yau Ma Tei and lived with her husband's family in Ferry Street, Yau Ma Tei. The mother of Yau Suk Fun’s mother-in-law had engaged in jade business in Guangzhou before the World War II. After the war was over, her mother-in-law came to Hong Kong to work and followed her mother’s footprint of selling jad about ten years later. In the 1960s, jade became very popular as it was widely believed that jade could improve health and develop one’s potential. In 1965, her mother-in-law started to sell jade although it was not her major business. Later, she was issued a temporary hawker licence and began to sell jade in 1968 by the roadside at Bowring Street. At that time, "hand bargain" was popular among jade hawkers on Canton Road and Nanking Street. Sellers and buyers covered their hands with a cloth or newspaper so that other people wouldn’t see the negotiation. Buyers and sellers negotiated the price by moving each other’s fingers. At that time, jade hawkers set up temporary stalls by displaying their goods on the ground along the side of Canton road. The stall areas were not defined or divided, and the hawkers undertook business without any license.

Hong Kong Jade Association was formed in 1968/1969 and the admission fee was HK$ 200. The Association provided boxes for its members to exhibit their goods by the roadside, instructed them to be self disciplined, so that the business activities on the street could be more tolerated by the police. After moving into an apartment in Ferry Street, Yau Suk Fun obtained the temporary hawker licence as advised by her mother-in-law. At the beginning, she helped at her mother-in-law's stall. Then in 1972, she started her own stall. She set up a temporary stall at Canton Road and sold goods supplied by her mother-in-law. At that time, Jade business was at its prosperous period and a pair of white jade bracelet could be sold at more than HK$ 1,000. In 1980, a hawkers’ inspection team was sent to regulate the activities of jade business on the street. Every 10 days or a month, they came to check the temporary hawkers’ licence. The hawkers’ team introduced this measure to confirm the identity of a hawker: If a hawker was found doing business at their stalls for five times, they were entitled to register for a permanent licence. By the middle of the 1980s, the government moved all the jade hawkers into a temporary market at Kansu Street. The temporary market was divided into Area A (for small stalls) and Area B (for large stalls). About 500 stalls were moved into the market and their stalls were allocated by drawing lots. Each hawker was given a sun umbrella for them to shield themselves from direct sunlight. Not long later, the market was installed with electricity and electric fans. As many jade hawkers grew old and had no one to succeed their business, the hawkers simply returned their licence to the government when they retired. Currently, the number of the stalls reduced to about 400.

Yau Suk Fun moved to Ferry Street in 1969 and began to help her mother-in-law at her jade stall in Bowring Street. Her mother-in–law’s jade stall was located on the roadside in front of a cloth shop (currently a subway exit). They placed their goods on a cart and worked from 9 am to 5pm. After work, her mother-in-law pushed the cart back home. When her mother-in-law had lunch, Yau Suk Fun would take care of the stall. There were many gold shops but few jade shops in Bowring Street at that time. So her mother-in-law thought it a good idea to set up a hawking stall there. The stalls in Bowring Street sold their goods to both retail hawkers and ordinary customers”. The ordinary customers bought the jade for their own use.

At that time, jade business was not flourishing in Yau Ma Tei and the “jade street” had yet to be formed on Canton Road. People usually bought jade from jewellery shops, but they would feel pressured if they only did window shopping.Shopping at street hawker stalls made them feel more relaxed. It was more convenient for the customers to come and go as they liked. Her mother-in-law’s jade stall sold real jade, including jade bracelets, rings and decoration pieces. The decoration artifacts included carved jade items such as Ruyi, Jigong, Guanyu, Guan-yin, dragon and phoenix. Prices varied from a few dollars to several hundreds dollars . Jade artifacts were very popular in the late 1960s. Some people even bought defective jade with a few dollars and put it into drinking water because allegedly it could pacify frightened minds. At that time, the streets were peaceful. There were not many robberies because it was harder for a layman to estimate the value of jade than that of gold. The two women running the jade stall were not worried about robbery. However, when jade market became prosperous at Canton Road in the 1980s, there was a serious robbery incident at a jade shop.

In early 1970s, Yau Suk Fun and her husband opened a jade stall in Canton Road, an exchange market of jade. Before stalls took shape on pedestrian road, retailers usually packed their goods in paper and sold to other traders. When Yau Suk Fun initially started her business, her goods were supplied by senior sellers. There were a lot of upstairs workshops in Canton Road,  processing jade rough and sold them to the retailers. Since 1970s, the workshop owners began to set up stalls in Canton Road to sell their own products and the “jade street” was gradually formed. The value of jade fluctuated caused heated speculation. Some traders who understood the quality of the stones and had a wide range of customers could even multiply their profit. Apart from local jade shops, overseas buyers from Southeast Asia, USA and Japan were welcomed to trade with the upstairs workshops with proper trade refereence. In 1980s, Yau Suk Fun and her husband began to purchase rough stone and process by themselves after accumulating adequate professional knowledge.

In early 1970s, Yau Suk Fun's husband faced difficulties in his western-suits business and the couple began to put all their effort in jade business. In 1972, they set up their own business by displaying their jade items on newspaper and white cloth outside Jan Jan Tea House in Canton Road. At first, Yau Suk Fun got the goods from her mother-in-law and paid her back after closing a deal. The couple earned the margin between the cost of goods and retail price. As jade business was prosperous at that time, the couple made a good living by trading. It also attracted many young people to join. There were several hundred jade stalls in Canton Road, which extended from Shui Heung Yuen to the Saigon Street Parkentrance, but the stalls were only set on one side of the pedestrian road along Jan Jan Tea House. Unable to find a spot under the arcade, Yau Suk Fun often risked setting her stall by the road. She had to pack up her goods when the police came. Yau Suk Fun was often caught by police. Although the police would not confiscate her goods since she had a hawker license, she still had to pay the penalty.

After giving birth to her second child, she continued to run her stall by carrying the baby with her. and had to push the cart during the police raid. She felt worried and decided to set up her stall by renting part of a newspaper stall located in front of Jan Jan Tea House. The rent of the 2x4 feet space was 300dollars. Yau Suk Fun thus did not need to run away from police again. Later, she and her husband rented a workshop at Man Wah Building and employed several workers. They purchased rough stones and stone cutter to manufacture jade beads, bracelets and other decoration pieces. Their customers included both experts and laymen. If the customers made profits by reselling goods that were purchased from their workshop, they become return customers. A foreigner frequent customer cooperated with Yau Suk Fun for more than ten years. In the middle of 1980s, they moved their stall to jade market underneath an overpass of Gascoigne Road. At that time, their eldest son started helping at the stall when he was a primary 6 student and Yau Suk Fun could then focus on speculation. He went to Singapore and Malaysia on business trips with his mother. Now he took over her mother’s business and operated independently. In 1980s, Yau Suk Fun and her husband began to purchase rough stones from Thailand and Myanmar and to process them in Hong Kong.

Yau Suk Fun traded in both local and overseas markets. Different markets preferred products in different colors and sizes. The jade sold to Singapore was called the “Singaporean style”. Singaporean people favored small designer jade goods. The jade sold to USA was called the “western style”. People there liked red, purple and pea green jade ware in large sizes. The traders bought the Western style jade ware from Yau’s stall in canton Road and reselled them in the USA. The jade sold to Taiwan was called the “Taiwaese style”, which were mainly cyanine and oil green jade ware. Merchants would determine which style to produce  by the condition of the rough stones. In late 1960s, Yau’s mother-in-law began to expand the business to Singapore and established a stable clientele.

In 1974, Yau Suk Fun began to do business in Singapore. At that time, jade business had just come into vogue. As Singaporean merchants had not learnt to purchase jade in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong merchants could earn a profit 50%more in Singapore. Singaporean experts purchased small quantity of goods while Hong Kong experts in Canton Road always purchased by lots. When customers purchased goods by lots, they bought a batch of goods mixed with quality and defective items. Yau Suk Fun often stayed in Singapore for 2 weeks to a month. She usually delivered her goods to local warehouse in Singapore as there was no tariff for Hong Kong jade ware. She did business with the Singaporeans in restaurants. The buyers paid and  she remitted the money back to Hong Kong before  leaving Singapore. As the Singaporean customers often purchased on credit and, the trip to Singapore was time-consuming, Yau Suk Fun always had to give up some of her business in Hong Kong every time she went to Singapore. Now she only stays in Hong Kong and focus on garment business with frequent customers. Many customers visited her stall and became frequent customers as they made profit by reselling the goods. Nowadays, few young people choose to join the jade industry. New comers in the industry are usually successors of their parents’ business. Established relationships were an important factor for survival in jade industry, as there is no mentor-mentee system in this business.

The public order in Canton Road was fine at that time, thanked to the successful negotiation between the Chairman of the Jade Association and the local gangs, making clear thatthe jade trade was a decent and clean business. The gangs agreed not to collect protection fee from the traders. As jade business went prosperous, new comers could not find any space to set up new stalls in Canton Road and had to cooperate with other hawkers. The cooperation model was called “company”. In 1984, stalls in Canton Road were moved to the temporary jade market, which was a piece of wasteland The Government marked out boundaries for the stalls. The move  affected little on Yau Suk Fun’s business as this temporary market soon got its fame. At first, with each stall sheltered by a large umbrella, the hawkers sat on stools to do business in the market surrounded by mesh wire fence. In 1986, a roof was installed for the market. The hawkers paid for their license annually, on which stated “Jade Trading”.

Later, the temporary market was moved to its current address, where hawkers began to do business in counters. The Jade Association hired cleaning staff at the cost of 100 dollars per month to arrange the counters and tidy up the market place. After moving to new address, business hour was from 8 am to 5 pm. However, the market was often closed at 2 or 3 pm due to hot weather. Later, the authority installed electric lights in the market and allowed the hawkers to set up permanent counters so they did not need to move around. The Jade Market operates from 8:30 am to 6 pm now. The Jade Association worked with the Urban Council before the handover and now the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and the Home Affairs Office. Yau Suk Fun was grateful to the Jade Association for fighting for the members’ benefits, including bringing electricity and installing roofs for the market.