Kwong Kwok Hung

No. 33 of 1st Lane was only the correspondence address because the houses in Nga Tsin Wai were given no house numbers. It was thought that the former owner of the house was Ng Fat Tsai (Ng Yau Fat), who was the father of Ng Chi Wing the incumbent village headman. A transaction deed was signed between Kwong Kwok Hung’s father and Ng Yau Fat when the house was purchased. At the time, marriages between Nga Tsin Wai residents and Sha Tin villages were common. Many women married the villagers of Nga Tsin Wai. Ng Chi Wing’s mother was a villager of Wong Nai Tau, which was separated from Tai Lam Liu Village by a pit. Kwong Kwok Hung’s mother had known Ng Chi Wing’s mother since childhood. As a matter of fact, they were cousin sisters. It was for this reason that the Kwong family was able to purchase a village house. Kwong Kwok Hung grew up in Nga Tsin Wai. He lived there until 21 when he got married and moved out while his parents continued to live in the house. Kwong Kwok Hung’s parents seldom told him anything about their past probably because the old generation was so conservative that they seldom talked with the younger generation. It was by putting bits and pieces together that Kwong Kwok Hung gradually formed a picture of their life.

When Kwong Kwok Hung was 6 years old, the family moved from Yau Ma Tei to Nga Tsin Wai. Each floor of the new home had an area of more than 200 sq. ft. But, Kwong Kwok Hung was too young to have the concept of ‘area’. He only felt that the house was spacious, and there was a playground outside the porch. In the old home in Man Ming Lane, there was no place for him to play. The only place he used to play was the Temple of Tin Hau where his elder sister took him to. He used to slide down the ramp in front of the Temple as a game. To him, the new home was a great contrast with the old home. The Kwong family lived on the second floor. The room was made his parents’ bedroom, his two elder sisters and he slept on a bunk bed in the living room. In summer, they would be most glad to sleep on the cool tiled floor, which was very clean because they would take off their shoes before climbing the stairs to the second floor. The Kwong family had meals and listened to the radio on the ground floor and the bedroom was unoccupied. When the sons of his father’s hometown friends came to Hong Kong and took Nga Tsin Wai as the foothold, the ground floor would become their temporary home. There was a bunk bed in the ground floor bedroom. Usually, 1 to 2 relatives would stay in their house, which could accommodate 3 to 4 persons at most. Their relatives only stayed for a short period from several months to one year. They would move out when they had found a job.

There was a water tank next to the kitchen. Because the government frequently implemented the water rationing measure, Kwong Kwok Hung’s father, who was a plumber and electrician, built a water tank with cement so as to eliminate the trouble of fetching water from the public standpipe with a bucket. The tank, which had the capacity of several buckets of water, was not a facility in most of the village houses in Nga Tsin Wai. But, with the water tank built, the Kwong family could not open the back door as some other village houses. Kwong Kwok Hung’s father did all the repair works for the water pipes and household electrical appliances. Kwong Kwok Hung and most of his peers had equipped themselves with some kind of ‘technical skills’ for practical use, so all households in the village painted their own houses.

When Kwong Kwok Hung’s family moved into Nga Tsin Wai, no electrical lamp was available and illumination was provided by kerosene lamps. Later on, the kerosene lamps were replaced by the gas lamps (a kind of gas illuminating lamp) on the ground floor. When they first moved in, they did not have a television and refrigerator. They only had a radio for the Rediffusion programs. There was a screen-door cabinet on the ground floor. It had two compartments each fitted with two doors. The family kept bowls and plates in the lower compartment and food in the upper compartment. It served the purpose of today’s refrigerator. The upper compartment was fitted with threaded screen which protected against mosquitoes and could preserve the leftovers for several days. In those days, the villagers led a thrifty living, they ate the leftovers as long as they did not stench.

The family cooked and bathed in the house. They used the spittoons for defecation and urination, and collected them in a honey bucket for disposal of the collector who came every night. The spittoons were placed inside the house day and night. Kwong Kwok Hung was used to the bad smell they emitted. When the 7-storey buildings nearby were completed, they used the buildings’ communal flush latrines instead of the spittoons. When Kwong Kwok Hung was a child, he was unaware of the dangers that the rain and typhoon might cause, neither did he know whether the hut they lived was safe. He thought the construction of the resettlement area had affected the free flow of the drainage. He told from memories that when flooding occurred in Nga Tsin Wai one year (probably the year when Hong Kong was hit by typhoon Wendy), the water level was as high as the mid-calf of the leg. The nullah was slow in draining water because its opening was blocked by large baskets and stones. He dived down the nullah and removed the baskets and stones. In the incident, one house on the 3rd Lane collapsed.

After quitting school, Kwong Kwok Hung took up different odd jobs in Nga Tsin Wai. There was a Ko Kee operated next to the gatehouse by a non-indigenous villager whose surname was Ko. It was a vegetarian food shop which wholesaled glutens, vegetarian abalones, spring rolls and white sugar sponge cakes. Kwong Kwok Hung did not want a formal job but wanted to earn some pocket money, so he worked in Ko Kee as a cook helper and deliverer. He worked irregular hours and divided his time between work and play. Several young villagers also worked in the shop. In the morning, Kwong Kwok Hung would deliver goods on a bicycle. He mainly delivered goods to the herbal tea shops, but sometimes he might travel as far as Cheung Sha Wan and To Kwa Wan. When Kwong Kwok Hung was free in the afternoon, he would play mahjong in the Village Office to kill time. A great majority of the old villagers was conversant with gambling games. At night, he cooked vegetarian food in Ko Kee and dyed the gluten pieces red, yellow or blue. He used to eat the vegetarian food while working. Sometimes, he would sell white sugar sponge cakes in the resettlement area for his employer. He was never serious with his job until he became a vessel machinery apprentice in a factory in Ap Lei Chau when he was 14 or 15 years old.

During the period of apprenticeship, he lived and had meals in the factory and earned a monthly salary of $20. He would have 1 or 2 days off after working for a considerable period of time. When he had holidays, he would go home with several young Nga Tsin Wai villagers. Kwong Kwok Hung and other apprentices did not complete their apprenticeship. They collectively resigned after one year or so. By then, they had barely learned the basic skills. Later on, Ng Chi Wing and Kwong Kwok Hung were employed by the Pepsi Cola freezer manufacturer which operated factories in San Po Kong and To Kwa Wan. They were employed as semi-skilled blacksmiths and earned a monthly salary of $80. Shortly afterwards, Ng Chi Wing became a sailor through referral of Ng Sui Mo. Originally, Ng Chi Wing was supposed to be employed by the Jardine Shipping Services, but he joined another company, so he asked Kwong Kwok Hung to fill the post he was supposed to take.

Kwong Kwok Hung was under 18 years old when he first sailed. The shipping company operated the Southeast Asian routes and each voyage lasted for 1 to 2 months. He carried out junior duties in the cabin’s engine room. He decided to quit after one voyage. Before the ship reached Hong Kong, he wrote to his father and explained why he was going to resign. His father immediately started a job search and found for him an apprenticeship in an electrical appliance shop on Castle Peak Road probably opened by his father’s senior or junior fellow apprentice. Therefore, Kwong Kwok Hung joined his father’s trade and started his apprenticeship in the shop when he was 18 or 19 years old.

Plumbing and electrical works were different with blacksmithing and mechanical works in terms of technical skills. The apprenticeship in the electrical appliance shop was a three-year training. Before it was completed, his father referred him to the Public Works Department. He worked in the Diesel Section and was responsible for diesel supply to the generators and heavy machines of the government departments such as police stations, fire stations and hospitals. He liked machineries, so work was smooth for him. He was employed as a semi-skilled labour and was promoted as the qualified worker after 1 to 2 years with a monthly salary of $300 to $400. A qualified worker had similar duties with an apprentice but greater responsibilities. After working in the Public Works Department for 9 to 11 months, he resigned because he was going to operate a factory. By the time Kwong Kwok Hung resigned, he earned a monthly salary of nearly $1,000. Kwong Kwok Hung felt it was a pity that he had not worked there for 10 years. It is because according to the rules of the Public Works Department, any staff who has worked in the Department for not less than 10 years shall be eligible for a monthly pension of about $1,000 after he or she retires at the age of 60.

The electronic component factory continued to expand in scale, so the Kwong brothers rented two factory flats with a total area of several thousand square feet. A large labour force was not needed, they only had to hire workers who had the skills to adjust the molds and operate the die cutting machines. Kwong Kwok Hung guided the workers on work safety. After engaging in the electronic factory business for several years, he quitted because of inharmonious relationships with the partners. Kwong Kwok Hung worked as a taxi driver after he left the factory. He got the truck and taxi driving licences when he was working in the Public Works Department. He did not work as a taxi driver for long – only one year or so – he was under 40 by then. Kwong Kwok Hung said he had a complex life and unsmooth career path so he had worked in different trades.

Chi Tak Public School was built behind the Nga Tsin Wai Village. Although not all the village children attended the school, they always went there for games, such as playing hide-and-seek in the basketball court. As Ng Chi Wing’s father was the supervisor of Chi Tak Public School, his children were allowed to visit there anytime. One day, when Kwong Kwok Hung, his younger brother, Ng Chi Wing’s younger brothers and sisters and Ng Siu Kei’s two younger brothers were playing in the school, a man took a group photograph for them. Sometimes, Kwong Kwok Hung would play ping-pong in the Temple of Tin Hau by drawing lines of a ping-pong table on the floor next to the altar. When he was in his teens, he always visited the Village Office where he would listen to conversations of the adults or watch their mahjong games. When he had learnt gambling, he would take part in the game. The old Village Office was half as large as the current one (equivalent to the area of a house). The old Village Office had a balcony with a toilet at a corner. A white brick wall was built on the balcony to prevent people from peeping into the toilet from the street. However, people could still peep in through a narrow opening of the balcony, so it was made the gentlemen’s toilet. In the past, the villagers seldom took photographs because they could not afford a camera. If they had money, they preferred to spend it on eating or gambling. The village children would have their first cigarette behind the back of adults when they were as young as several years old. They would share a cigarette and inhale in turn.

On joyous, funeral or festive occasions, Kwong Kwok Hung’s mother would visit her parents at their home in Tai Lam Liu. Kwong Kwok Hung would visit his grandmother’s home with his mother in the Spring Festival and summer holidays. He would stay for a month in the village in Sha Tin almost every summer holiday. Kwong Kwok Hung and his family would take a bus from Nga Tsin Wai to Tsim Sha Tsui where they took a train and got off at the Sha Tin Station. This was followed by a 1-hour walk along a winding path amid the fields. To him, it was a joy to visit Tai Lam Liu because he could frolic freely in the mountains and fields. Other must-have activities included joining the adults in farming and shoot transplanting, fruit picking and swimming in the water trench. is father only visited his parents-in-law’s home with his wife and son on holidays because he had to workon weekdays.

In the past, joyous atmosphere was strong in Nga Tsin Wai on festive occasions. Everywhere in the village was decorated with lanterns and firecrackers were set off long before it was the Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival respectively. On Chinese New Year days, the children were allowed to set off the firecrackers and firework. They were also given red packets. Today, such festive atmosphere existed no more. Kwong Kwok Hung had no deep childhood impression of the Jiao Festival. When he was a child, he only knew it was an occasion for fun but nothing about its meaning. After he got married and moved out of Nga Tsin Wai, he had not visited the village for a long time until 2006 when Ng Chi Wing became the village headman and asked him to help with the village affairs. Kwong Kwok Hung promised to help him because Ng Chi Wing was a good friend with whom he grew up. Now he has resumed his link with Nga Tsin Wai and works for the village.

About 6 years after moving out of Nga Tsin Wai, he moved back with his family when Tsang Ngan Mui offered the 2nd floor of her house on the 1st Lane for lease. Kwong Kwok Hung rented the flat for a low rent, and his children were taken care by their grandparents. Tsang Ngan Mui’s house was a two-storey building which was obviously taller than the adjacent houses. About one year later, Kwong Kwok Hung moved into a public housing flat of Lek Yuen Estate in Sha Tin with his wife and children. Kwong Kwok Hung submitted the public housing application when he was still working in the Public Works Department. As a civil servant then, he had greater chance of success in the application. He had lived in Lek Yuen Estate for more than 20 years. Now he lives in an Home Ownership Scheme flat in Ma On Shan which he moved in some years ago.