The "Garden Estate Redevelopment Community Support Programme" mainly serves the residents residing in the second phase of the Estate. The programme aims to strengthen residents' abilities, deepen neighbours’ relationships, explore the assets of the community, unveil life experiences of different cultures and backgrounds, and improve residents’ awareness of the redevelopment plan, ultimately imagine the future of the community collectively.
02 ������������������������������������ 花園大廈簡介 About Garden Estate
The economy of Hong Kong developed rapidly after the war, in the 1950s, due to saturated land development in Hong Kong Island and part of Kowloon, the government actively developed Kwun Tong into a new industrial area. Huge reclamation took place, creating land for new factories along the promenade. Yet, due to the inconvenient transportation of Kwun Tong, it was difficult to attract workers, the government thus allocated a land lot in Ngau Tau Kok to the Hong Kong Housing Society to build single workers’ dormitories, which later became current day Garden Estate. In the early days, factory owners in the area could nominate their employees to stay here. Gradually, some former dormitory units were transformed into senior units.
Garden Estate is divided into two phases. The first phase was completed in 1958 and 1959, with seven buildings named after flowers. The second phase was completed in 1966 and 1967, with five buildings named after birds: Yin Chee Lau, Pak Ling Lau, Wah Mei Lau, Hung Cheuk Lau and Hay Cheuk Lau. While the first phase was redeveloped in 1985 and completed in 1991 as Lotus Tower, the second phase has a history of more than 50 years and is expected to be redeveloped in 2025.
With the advancement of technology, one can easily search for information regarding daily needs, current affairs, historical stories, or solutions to any issues by just typing a keyword online. The information society has changed the mode of communication. Online communication software makes it easier for us to connect with others — we can learn about the situation of friends and family on social media; those abroad are just an online call away —technology seems to bring people closer. However, with such convenience, did we spend more or less time meeting each other? The younger generation grew up in the online world, they have spent less time meeting people in the traditional way, they prefer leaving audio messages, not even phone calls. Dramatically speaking, even during a meal, everyone at the table stays in their virtual world of mobile phones and chat via communication software, instead of a direct chat.
Over the past few decades, Hong Kong has been through huge-scale development and transformation in our urban fabric and economy: old districts were redeveloped, historical buildings were knocked down, mum-and-pop shops shut down due to a rise in rent or forced removal. The old urban fabric stays perhaps only in the memory of the middle-aged and the seniors, the younger generation can barely get a glimpse via historical photos. Every generation responded to their unique societal situations and contexts and developed their ways of living, of course, each individual within the same generation leads their own trajectory, but a shared generation always reveals similar values and spirits. If such stories and experiences special to each generation are not recorded and preserved, they will gradually disappear alongside urban redevelopment. In today’s Hong Kong, with new replacing the old rapidly, it requires community effort to safeguard and pass on the history and memory.
With over 50 years of history, phase 2 of Garden Estate will undergo redevelopment soon. The estate’s construction interweaves with Kwun Tong’s industrial development: it first provided dormitory for workers in then newly developed and satellite town, residents of later days found jobs with ease due to the proximity to the factories, with ample opportunities in freelance jobs. Many have written about the relationship between public housing and industrial development, yet few have recorded the personal stories: how residents worked in the factories, how family members coordinated, and how kaifongs formed relationships and solidarity. This oral history project aims to unveil these stories via interviews, understanding how these residents persevered through Hong Kong’s industrial heydays and fading era to build their families. Their bittersweet stories reflected how the generation always stayed contented with gratitude, their great sense of family responsibility and attitude rooted firmly amidst the ever-changing times. Every kaifong is a craftsman, making ends meet with their pairs of hands and skills, creating their own legacy. The documentation of ten kaifongs’ stories in this book brings one into an intimate dialogue with our masters in Garden Estate, one that teaches us life lessons and yields wisdom.
Tang Po Shan Kwun Tong Methodist Social Service
千 錘 百 鍊 SPIRIT OF STEEL
鐵要經過千百次用錘子敲打； 用火燒煉才能鍛鍊成鋼。
工作者抓緊工業的向上流動性， 幾經磨練，努力上游。
It takes countless repeated hammering and smelting for a piece of metal to be refined into steel. Similarly, workers take on challenges and temper themselves through hardship to move upward.
杜文龍 Antony To
入住年份：1970年代
行業：五金工模、模型手板
Year of move-in: 1970s
Industry: Metal moulds, figures and industrial models
Antony To, a chatterbox when it comes to his past, always charging his work memories with positive energy and punctuating his sentences with laughter, almost as if all the struggles and privations in his life never existed. At the age of 8, he moved from Guangzhou to Hong Kong and lived in the Tai Hang Tung Resettlement Area with his mother and younger sister. Their lives as immigrants were extremely arduous and the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs Association next to their home became their lifeboat — for 50 cents a year they were provided with milk, snacks, lunchboxes and even free schooling. However, they were back on the school hunt when he turned 12, following the close-down of the branch: “There was this public school right across my home, but I got rejected because I didn’t own a birth certificate. It was the moment when I realized I was so close, yet also so far from the life of a normal child.” In desperation and through a recommendation made by a friend, old Mrs To ended up sending his son away to become a child apprentice at a family-based metal factory in Sham Shui Po. Mr To distinctly remembers every detail of the day: “It was the 26th of October in 1961. I was illiterate but I managed to copy the date from a calendar. I carried a fibre suitcase with me and showed up at their doorstep that evening.”
Located on the 4th floor of a residential building, the cottage factory had a textile department in front and a metal factory at the back. As a 12-yearold apprentice, he was both excited and worried about starting a whole new
life under strangers’ roof. Luckily, he was well-treated by his new employer’s family, who nicknamed him as ‘Sai Lo Man’ (Little Man), helped him pick up work step-by-step and provided him with extra love and care: “I was too young for anything practical, so they had me taking up some chores and packaging work.” His life at the factory was fun-filled, also disciplined: “We got up before 8 every morning. We’d stand our bedboard upright, wash our cups and burn some incenses before heading down to the dai-pai-dong for breakfast. Afterwards, we’d come back and kick off a new day of work. There were two shifts — one between 8am to 7pm and another turn between 7pm and 11pm, so we’d see a lot of factory ladies here and there.” Once he had gotten older and grown more familiar with the routine, he started picking up all sorts of knowledge and laying a solid foundation with the assistance of his master: “Lesson one was all about sawing, hammering, filing and carving — these are the basics and essences of all metal works. I almost hurt my finger at first, but I became more skilful as time went by. Once I had to hammer a piece of steel that was four or five inches thick, and I handled it like a piece of cake.” Besides taking up chores, he also ran errands for the company: “I would carry a big bag of handbag accessories and walk all the way from the bus terminus at Jordan Valley to the Kwun Tong seaside where a great number of shipyards, lumber factories and rattan ware factories were located.”
As Mr To flips through old black-and-white photos of him at the factory, he is once again caught up in memories: “This photo was taken at the early days of my apprenticeship. We were having a feast at a tea restaurant in the tenement building just across the road.” His boss was certainly a generous man, who shared an equal love for his employees and for food. On the second and sixteenth day of the Chinese calendar every month, he would follow the tradition and hold banquets: “I really looked forward to those big feasts as a kid. In the beginning, we had them in the factory, later we headed out for seafood at big restaurants.” During his services, he was happy to witness the fast expansion of his employer’s business: “He was really good at what he did. We opened a few more stores and hired almost 60 workers at peak.”
After almost a decade of service, Mr To eventually realized that it was time for him to step out of his comfort zone: “No one would stay this long at a factory, except for me. I was there since I was a kid and they treated me like one of their sons, but I knew I couldn’t stay forever.” He carried his employer’s blessings and headed out for new challenges and explorations, and winded up producing metal moulds for watch cases, buttons, Christmas decorations and alike.
On the other hand, he was also granted a unit at Garden Estate through the assistance of his employer at the To Kwa Wan factory: “He helped me compose a salary proof which was required by the Housing Society. It was rumoured that you had to be absolutely honest about it and you weren’t allowed to write even a dollar more than what you actually got.” He was on cloud nine to move into a comfortable and spacious apartment with his mother and sister, and to also kickstart a whole new chapter in his career.
While many of Mr To’s friends followed the current and started their own metal mould businesses, he hesitated to give it a try: “It was really easy to own a business and take orders yourself back then, good with writing and numbers and "but I couldn’t make it — I was not." I don’t think I could have even written a receipt myself.” He capitalized on the flexibility of the industry and started
picking up jobs with his own set of tools at several places around the area. Sometimes he took freelance work at home, and other times at his friends’ factories to help out with rush orders: “You need just a pair of pliers for some easy metal mould works. I’d head to my friends’ places and borrow their machines for any tasks that involved a lathe.”
Over the years Mr To had been able to enjoy different harvests from his career, but the biggest gems of all certainly was a group of friends who had supported him throughout work and opened his horizons to all sorts of workers’ entertainment: “I really enjoyed hanging out with my friends, we’d play Mahjong and Show Hand — it was so much fun!” During his spare time, he also enjoyed watching Western films with his friends at places like Sun Wah, Royal Theatre, Broadway, Good World… it almost seems like he’s keeping a list of every cinema’s location, ticket price and genre at the back of his head. Besides his own fun, Mr To also recalls dancing as the most popular social activity among metal workers: “Many workers would go to dancing clubs at night to have fun and meet some girls. Some of them like visiting Saunas as well.” A shy man himself, Mr To handed his romantic fate to his sister who tried to play Cupid: “My sister was a textile worker and she told me about this yoga class that three of her female co-workers had been regularly attending. She asked me to pursue any one of them but I failed.” However, he winded up falling in love with another girl in the class, who has becomes his wife: “It was certainly fate that pulled us together. I was too afraid to even start a conversation with a girl and I certainly did not imagine I would get to marry my wife someday.”
Many factories relocated to China in the mid-80s, and so had Mr To’s friends. There were fewer local job openings, which triggered him to switch to producing figures and industrial models: “People would come to me with a design graph, and I’d create a model for them to pitch the idea to their clients. It costs a few hundred thousand dollars to create a metal mould so they’d always prefer to make a model first, and only go for full-on production had the order eventually landed.” Years of experience and expertise helped him pick up his new business smoothly: “As a former metal worker, I was used to reading graphs, operating machines or producing pieces by hand. There were also metal components involved in those models and this made it even easier for me.” Now a retiree, he looks back to his transformation from being a child apprentice to becoming a technician, and eventually a metal mould master with laughter and pride: “Working was hard but I didn’t feel tiresome at all. Pain would fade, but the happy memories always linger on.” And surely, it is the blithesome nature he has carried on since the days of ‘Sai Lo Man’ that nurtured him into the person he is today.
“I took a job at the newly reclaimed area in the early 50s. I remember seeing a few large-scale metal factories, and there were always airplanes passing overhead. You’d hear a bell ring when a plane was about to land at Kai Tak Airport, and gates would be pulled down near the Wang Tau Ham exit to stop vehicles from crossing the pathway.” Mr Choi vividly describes his early work memory of Kwun Tong with pride.
Mr Choi came to Hong Kong to reunite with his brother in 1950. He spent a year at a night school before devoting himself entirely to the metal industry,
and was one of the few kaifongs who got a glimpse of the pre-industrial Kwun Tong that dated prior to the construction of Garden Estate: “I didn’t excel in my studies, so I had to pick up a skill to make a living. Some of my friends joined the textile industry but I’d rather work with machines.” It took him a few years of apprenticeship to learn and operate complicated and massive machinery, such as engine lathes, milling machines and forming press machines: “As a freshman, I was so overwhelmed at first but slowly adapted to the work environment.” He also picked up solid graph-reading skills and eventually became a technician who specialized in metal moulds: “The draftsmen would send us graphs with dimension references. The moulds were usually made with machines, sometimes we had to polish the surfaces with our bare hands.”
Once in the early days of his apprenticeship, Mr Choi accidentally fell down from a machine and fractured his arm: “I went to a bone-setter but he didn’t fix my arm properly and it has been twisted since then. Luckily it didn’t affect my work performances at all.” He reveals that workers were often exposed to danger and were unprotected by insurances during the 50s, which led to frequent and startling labour accidents: “I witnessed one of my colleagues getting his arm chopped off by a machine. It was so unsettling that it became an important lesson for me throughout my career.” He also recalls the early days when machines at the factory were rather simple and shabby: “We had to lift heavy metal pieces up to the lathe all on our own. In later years they were all done by robotic arms, it made our work so much easier.”
Few years down the road, Mr Choi gained expertise and found his foothold in the fast-changing industry. He became a mould technician at a factory around the newly reclaimed area at Kwun Tong, and specialized in producing metal moulds for torches and watchbands. He lived in Sham Shui Po then and was much troubled by his dessed oneaily commute as there were only one or two bus routes running through the area. Fortunately, he was offered free accommodation at the staff dormitory and was able to save a huge chunk of time. Compared to the dense concrete jungle it is today, Kwun Tong was fairly desolate during the time as he recalls: “Most of the area we see today were reclaimed. There were hardly any buildings, but only a few smallscale dyeing and textile factories in sight.”
Fluidity and flexibility has always been one of the biggest perks of the metal industry — it allows workers to draw inferences from their knowledge and experiences and swiftly interchange between different types of products. Mr Choi left his first workplace after almost a decade, turned to fast-growing industrial towns like Wong Tai Sin and North Point for new opportunities and gradually became acquainted with the making of moulds for toys and electronic devices. On the other hand, he moved into Wah Mei Lau of Garden Estate with his family in 1966 and reconnected with Kwun Tong, a community that was undergoing a makeover: “Transportation became much easier, but there wasn’t much traffic. It was spacious everywhere we went and the air was really clean with fewer factories around.”
Soon after Mr Choi started a whole new life in Kwun Tong, he was transferred to Chai Wan for work. Every day he walked to Kwun Tong Ferry Pier and took the ferry across the harbour, all the way to Shau Kei Wan where he could then change to a bus. Other than his daily tiring commute, he also experienced perplexities at work when the new numeric system was adopted: “I was taught the British system, but they gave me graphs made by fresh graduates from Polytechnic University that were all marked with the metric system. It took me
蔡家亮
quite some time to make calculations and interchange between systems.” A knowledge seeker himself, Mr Choi even joined free courses provided by the labour union after work and picked up advanced graph-reading skills: “I only went there to learn, not for other activities they hosted.”
In the early 80s he spent up to nine-hundred dollars — almost one-fourth of his then salary — to buy his own equipment so that he could pick up extra work, and he takes pride in the fact that they are still well-kept up till today: “This was made in Japan and it’s power-driven, it’s so meticulous that you can even measure the thickness of a piece of paper with it.” During weekends, he would bring his own tools to help out at the factory where his friend worked at, right across Garden Estate. As a freelancer, he was allowed to set his own price according to the size of the product, and it soon became more profitable than his full-time job: “Sometimes I would even skip a day or two of work when there were big orders coming up.” On the other hand, he also brought hair dryers home from the factory on a regular basis, so that his wife, who had to stay at home with three kids, could help plug in cables and earn some pocket money. Over the years, the Chois have made the best out of the fluidness of the metal industry and raised their children with great adaptability and wisdom.
The factory in Chai Wan was huge — there were easily over two thousand workers as he recalls, and it was able to offer a much superior work environment and benefits compared to the small- or medium-sized factories that he had previously served. Not only were daily lunch and tea provided, but also medical allowances and paid leaves that were rare gems to most workers during the era. Moreover, the factory actively hosted local picnics and trips for their employees to take a break from work and mingle: “Sometimes we would go for a barbecue or a swim at Sai Kung.” His wages were calculated on a daily basis, and he’d get an extra half of his daily wage if he had also taken the night shift. They also received two extra months of salaries as bonuses during New Year, these were all reasons why Mr Choi had stayed on for almost two decades.
move, so I took the long service payment and left.” Luckily with his capabilities and dedication, he was able to find another job in the electric toys field. Now a retired professional technician, countless moments of hard work still flash before his eyes as he takes a walk down memory lane. Yet he looks back to this rollercoaster ride with joy and pride: “Work was less stressful in the past, it was stable, you could always spread your wings if you were willing to try.” Mr Choi’s can-do spirit certainly paved his way to success and joy.
Settling in
While Mr Choi’s work performances were well underway, it was also the presence of a comfortable and spacious home that gave him a gentle push up the social ladder. A few years after their move, the MTR was introduced to the area and daily commute became much easier. Of all the benefits, he was most fond of the scenic view and clear air at Garden Estate: “We had a great view of the fireworks before all these industrial towers were built. Air circulation was so great that we never turned on the air-conditioner.” Apart from his busy work life, Mr Choi was also keen to serve the community. He reminisces the days when he joined the estate’s self-defence team: “We would take turns and guard the building with a wooden stick in our hands. Since not much happened at night, I ended up having some nice chats with my neighbours and enjoying the cool most of the time.” The mutual-help spirit formed an important foundation of today’s close-knit community, as well as a huge driving force behind Mr Choi’s active involvement in the mutual-aid committee throughout the past decades.
Days of hustling between full-time and freelance work came to an end when the Chai Wan factory announced its relocation to China in 1989: “They began to shift work to China bit by bit, starting from the early 80s. Some of my co-workers made an inspection in China and came back saying that the environment was so-so, with constant power outages. I didn’t want to
穿針引線
THREADS OF
OPPORTUNITY
幹針線活前必先小心引著線穿過微細的針孔。
工作者把握優勢，
在工業時代用盡各種可能性創造工作機會， 改善生活。
One has to meticulously pull the thread through a tiny hole in order to thread a needle.
Workers wriggle their way in and out of industries to create opportunities and improve their living standards.
“I wouldn’t say we had enjoyed the tough bits very much, but we were mostly contented with what we had and were happily leading an ordinary everyday life,” says Ms Yim, a natural-born optimist who always hangs a big smile on her face even when revisiting the bittersweet moments of her life.
Ms Yim and her family spent the early years living in a shabby wooden house at the squatter area in Kowloon Bay, where they were frequented by mice and insects and were constantly exposed to threats of theft and fire. Back then her husband was a construction worker who had unstable working hours and income, whereas she was actively on the lookout for job opportunities: “I took a bus to Kwun Tong, the ‘industrial heaven’ people always said you should visit if you were looking for a job, and they were right — every inch of the wall and every lamppost was cluttered with recruitment flyers.” Led by one of the ads she found a garment factory on Hoi Yuen Road, and was immediately hired for the exquisite sewing skills she had inherited from her mother: “My mum couldn't stress enough the importance of a girl being a good tailor and a cook. We couldn’t spare any money for new clothes, so we got some cheap fabric instead and my mum would show us the way to sew beautiful clothes for ourselves.” Her skills were good enough to survive, but it still took her some time to adjust to the motor sewing machines at work which was way more advanced than the one she had back at home.
She worked at a large-scale factory that specialized in manufacturing tailored trousers and twill chinos: “Literally every step involved in making a pair of pants was carried out: from choosing fabric, drawing samples, trimming, tailoring, overlocking to packaging, all executed at the same workplace.”
Ms Yim recalls taking up a spot in front of many machines, surrounded by constant chit-chats and radio broadcasts, it was unpleasantly loud. Of all the procedures, her job was to stitch the front and back pant legs together and hand them over to the waistband section. She saved a ticket for every dozen of pants she had completed to record her input and for easy calculation of her daily wage. Hammered away at her tasks all the way from 8am to 5pm, the one-hour lunch break at the middle of the day became her only window for some fresh air: “I used to head out to one of those mobile stalls along the crossroad and grab some quick bites. There was a sea of faces everywhere and everyone was in a hurry to swallow their food as quickly as they could within the lunch break.” As suffocating as her life seemed, she was still full of drive and determination: “Life was hard but I enjoyed it. I was so motivated to earn more money for my family, so I never felt defeated or discouraged by the challenges posed in front of me.”
After eight years of long waiting, Ms Yim and her family were finally granted a housing unit at Garden Estate. While being over the moon, she also stayed prudent about her then-future home: the family made several trips to the
unit at different hours of the day to make sure everything was just as expected before they eventually moved in with glee: “We were extremely thankful about finally owning a proper home. It was much more comfortable and hygienic here — at least I could spare my kids from all those heat rashes! It was also way more convenient for my husband and I to travel to work. We had saved so much commuting time.”
A few years later, she found another freelance position again through a flyer: “My kids just started kindergarten so I could no longer work full-time at a factory. I found a cottage factory down there at Ting On Street, where I could easily push a handcart over and take up some trouser pocket stitching work at home with a flexible schedule.” She bought a brand-new industrial sewing machine that cost her $1,200 and set up her home workplace with the essentials: a pair of scissors, a bradawl and a screwdriver. Every day she would send her kids to school and do some quick grocery shopping at the hawker stalls before kickstarting her tasks of the day: “I very much enjoyed, and was also quite skillful at sewing side and back pockets for tailored trousers. The factory had inserted extra accessories for the pocket and made markings for me as references, so it was rather easy for me to pick up from where they had left off.” Her work schedule was flexible, but also somehow unstable: sometimes she had work lined up for a few days in a row; sometimes only a call from her supervisor once in every few days. To secure a more stable income, Ms Yim shortly hopped on a new career path: “I worked at a toy factory and was sent to install base plates for toy cars. It was a nasty job for a newcomer — all the hissing sulphurous smell made me utterly sick and dizzy.” After two weeks of plain suffering, she decided to take a step back and stick to her original career: “I just wanted to seize every opportunity and earn some extra pocket money for my family. The days were much simpler back then — sometimes I’d buy my kids an ice-cream cone and they’d already beam with joy.”
It is always the smallest thing that causes a ripple in a life calm as water. Ms Yim still finds it hard to conceal her excitement about winning a lottery back in the days: “It was sometime in 1992 and 1993. I made a delivery to the factory with my son after a typhoon and stopped by the betting centre to get Mark Six tickets. I gave my 3-year-old son a few dices and bought three tickets with the numbers he had handpicked. We ended up winning the third prize! It was eight thousand dollars, even more than my husband’s monthly salary!” She was overjoyed and had insomnia for two nights straight before they figured out what to do with the cash price: “Each of us treated ourselves with a little gift: my son got a Pacman game console, my daughter got a doll and I bought a golden necklace that cost over a thousand dollars, and I gave that away to my daughter at her wedding.” Ms Yim still keeps her son’s game console well in the wardrobe to honour one of the most memorable occasions of their family life.
While the local garment business began to fade, Ms Yim stepped out of her comfort zone once again and took on a job at the betting centre for another decade until retirement. Over the years she has stumbled through a path rife with challenges, armed with perseverance about her belief: “Hong Kong is always a place full of opportunities for anyone who is willing to try. I believe success comes to those who hustle wisely — even a family-oriented female like myself was able to seek freelance works that fit my schedule just perfectly.” One of her proudest achievements in life is to have brought her children up with her own hands: “I was so overjoyed when my son handed me housekeeping money for the first time. This is the greatest return; I just couldn’t be prouder of it.”
As Ms Yim stands in front of the estate’s balcony and gazes upon the open view, her thoughts wander back to the sweats and tears behind every newlyconstructed building: “Grassroots like us are like sands. We might not be significant in a sense, but we give it all we have got to help build a better society. It is by the joint efforts of the grassroots that make Hong Kong a prosperous city.”
Ms Au grew up with her brother and sister-in-law in Macau and became a selftaught tailor at a young age: “There was a sewing machine at my brother’s place and I’d play with it in my spare time. Slowly I picked up some skills and began sewing all my nephew’s clothes, including those pleated skirts which require delicate workmanship.” She moved to Hong Kong after marriage and lived a hard life squashing in a tiny sub-divided unit with her kids, husband and mother-in-law, and was overjoyed to find out that they were granted a housing unit at Garden Estate: “This place was a real home to us — it was much more comfortable, there were ample job opportunities nearby and it was also much closer to my kids’ school.” As a beneficiary of the Government Low Cost Housing Scheme, their living condition slowly improved, but they were still constantly struggling along the poverty line to make ends meet.
In the early days, Ms Au took the job as a needlewoman at her cousins' family-run fashion factory in Sham Shui Po. Every day she would pick her kids up from school at noon and take off for the 10-cent bus ride in front of Ngau Tau Kok Market. As a piece-rate worker, she was always in a haste to make sure she seized on every opportunity and earned the most out of her working hours. But apart from time constraints, she was most bewildered by the ever-changing fashion trends: “They would offer nothing more but a sample. Some designs were so complicated that I really had to scratch my head to find the solution. Nonetheless, I welcomed the challenges and slowly began to find my way. It was all about applying knowledge through experiences.” With great patience and wisdom, she gradually mastered the skill to turn trendy fabrics, such as Corduroy and Dacron, into fashionable trousers that were then marked up and sold at local fashion stores in Mongkok.
Even so, Ms Au remained humble and kept herself on her toes: “I was always aiming for greater speed and better quality. It was very important for us to keep up with the local standard — no one wish to buy a shirt with a crooked collar at a highly-priced fashion store.” She barely left her spot during work hours but only made an exception for the factory’s free supper. She often worked till midnight and dashed off for the last bus: “It was a long walk from the station back home, and during winter the chills really froze me out. Of course, there weren’t any shuttles back then — I wouldn’t spend money on it even if there was one.”
In the early 70s, Ms Au bid farewell to the family factory and kicked off her career as a home-based freelance tailor. She took advantage of her proximity to the industrial heaven and immediately found job openings at a factory near Yue Man Square. There she was responsible for sewing trimmed denim and was lucky enough to be lent a sewing machine to work from home. She still finds it impossible to forget the exhaustion she had felt shuttling back and forth between home and the factory: “I carried an empty cotton bag to pick up as much denim fabrics as I could, and carried them back when I completed the work. The fabric was so heavy and I had to drag them up and down the five flights of stairs. Luckily I was young and full of spirit — I would always go all out for work and for my family.”
Having taken a tip from her neighbours, she began on the lookout for a minivan, sent from the factory and loaded with bags of fabrics, at the estate’s steep slope from time to time: “There were often fierce competitions between neighbouring housewives — everyone would scramble for the bigger bags and the smaller size cuts. It required the eyes of an eagle to target on the good fabrics which would run out in the blink of an eye.” While picking out her best option, she also eyed the thick cotton bags that were used as containers: “I could use some of these to sew pillowcases or sports uniform for my son. I also made a school bag for him out of a small piece of cotton fabric.”
Life was uneasy, but the Au family never complained a word about the plight. Instead, Ms Au’s young son was always contented with what he had; while her daughter offered to sew doll dresses at a nearby factory to help provide for the family during summers. The entire family would work closely to complete bead weaving orders and send them back to the factory near Shui Wo Street Market, while her grey-haired mother-in-law shouldered the responsibility to take good care of her children. Sometimes she had to stay up overnight to rush through big orders, yet she never received any complaints about the repeated clattering of the machine, not even from her husband who had to wake up early for work the day after: “We were no stranger to impoverishment and we all wanted the best for this family.”
Ms Au takes a glimpse of her house, where every single setting and decoration still remind her of the rumbling times: “We set up a temporary iron bunk bed here, my kids slept on top and my mother-in-law at the bottom, the two of us shared another bed by the door.” She fondles the floor tiles as it reminded her of another moment of solidarity: “We laid out the tiles at the year of my daughter’s primary graduation. They have made it through over forty summers and winters and still remain intact.”
Over the years Ms Au not only has made use of her delicate skills to raise her family, but also applied her fashion senses and techniques to sew and mend for her children and herself. Piled up at different corners of her flat are stacks of handmade clothes that she speaks of with great pride: during the summer she’d put on an all-time trendy, flower-patterned bolero shirt that she made with Japanese fabric over thirty years ago, and when the winter chills start to hit, a hand-knitted pale-yellow sweater that she has worn for another decade comes in handy. She has always utilized every piece of leftover fabric or obsolete material and turned them into the warmest outfit with her magic hands. Just like the wool yarn on her sweater, the unique skill sets and life wisdom she has been able to refine and harvest from her long impoverishment are so close-knit, intertwined and never out-ofdate.
Now in her early 90s, Granny Cheung always makes a fine impression with her colourful jewels, nicely done hairstyle and gentle language. But little would outsiders realise, what’s hidden behind the glamourous appearance is a shero who has led a life that is hard as rock and tough as steel.
Giving it all
Granny Cheung came to Hong Kong with her son in 1973 and spent some early years living in Shau Kei Wan. She took on a job at a radio factory, but was caught in a car accident while she was rushing to her night shift: “I clocked off at 5:30pm and was in such a rush to pick up some denim embroidery work from another building nearby for extra cash to cover our rents. I crossed the road in a haste and got hit by a car.” She was taken to the hospital where several stitches were put in, but as the only breadwinner at home, she immediately resumed her duties after a few days of rest: “I was petrified, but I had no other option either. I had trouble crossing the street — my legs were shivering the whole time and I had to drag some pedestrians' shirt to make it to the other side. I was crying so much I even lost sight of my directions.”
Nevertheless, such a bitter lesson didn’t stop Granny Cheung from seizing every opportunity and making shuttles between different factories to earn extra money for her family. She turned to Kwun Tong for new opportunities after the radio factory had moved away: “Crossing the harbour to look for
jobs wasn’t an option for me in the beginning. But later I heard there were more opportunities across the sea and factories here were more generous with their wages. I realized I could still make a gain after deducting the costs of a 20cent ferry ticket and 5-cent bread so I eventually came.” She worked at a light bulb factory at Ngau Tau Kok during the day, where she was responsible for tightening the screws and tying up electric wires into a bundle. At noon, when every other worker was joyously heading out for lunch, she hustled to another factory nearby to pick up chores, and when her light bulb shift ended at 6pm, she would immediately hurry to a garment factory in the area for another round of menial tasks. Even on Sundays she followed her co-workers and took up some extra work at the light bulb factory: “My regular hourly rate at the company was $10 per hour. But for extra freelance work I could get up to $72 every day, as long as I kept on non-stop rolling and bundling all the wires till the end of my shift.” She spared no effort at multiple workplaces and worked around the clock to support her son, and fortunately her hard work was eventually recognized with a pay rise.
Blessed with luck, Granny Cheung was offered a full-time position with a $60 daily wage at the garment factory, where she was assigned to help deliver orders and learn to operate the overlock and die-cutting machines. Even so, she kept her night shift at another factory: “It was certainly the toughest times. I was responsible for small duties such as taking out the trash, dishwashing, floor cleaning and toilet washing. I would also pick up used paperboards and plastic bags and trade them for money — I could get few tens of dollars from there which was even exceeded my salary.” As an illiterate, she never drowns herself in self-pity but worked extra hard instead to earn her reputation and others’ respect. She even sacrificed lunch hours and
brought along her 12-year-old son to pick up chores at a handbag factory, where they were in charge of cooking and toilet cleaning. The two were so diligent that the supervisor ended up offering them free lunch and a helping hand: “He was so nice to us. He even got my son to help out with plugging in buttons at the factory and arranged for his own son to come hang out with mine. My son really excelled at his tasks and I was finally able to focus on my work.”
With hard work, intelligence and perseverance, Granny Cheung gradually moved her way up her at work. She was recognized by her boss and was promoted to the management level at the garment factory: “There were a total of 12 factories in Kwun Tong: some were on Wai Yip Street, some on Hung To Road, and some on Hau Ming Street. I had to deliver materials to every one of them and check every piece of goods they had produced to make sure everything was up to standard.” Besides the amount of dedication she put in, her delicate sewing skills was also what pushed her to success: “One of my tasks was to stitch shoulder pads onto big coats. It wasn’t easy at first, but I made use of my skills and slowly improved over time.” She became the trustworthy face of the company, which led to extra freelance opportunities: “My boss offered $100 for my help to overlook the construction works at his new house in Kowloon Tong. I happily accepted the request and helped take out some trash, clean the floors and the windows.”
Following the overseas relocation of the garment factory, Granny Cheung switched to Kadar Toy Factory in Kowloon Bay: “I did a bit of everything — I brushed the dolls’ hair and inserted batteries to make them move. I helped out a bit with the sewing part as well.” It was her first-ever experience working at a large-scale factory and she finally became a beneficiary of company welfares: “We got free meals at the factory. They also arranged shuttles to pick us up from home for work. Every morning at 6am I’d wait in front of the bus stop at Shau Kei Wan for the shuttle to arrive. I could go straight to Kowloon Bay without the fear of being late.” Besides, she also received allowances and gift packages on a monthly basis. Even though she still took up extra freelance work during lunch, she was already sincerely grateful for her company’s heartwarming gestures which greatly eased the burden off her shoulders.
Her service at the toy factory came to an end slightly over a decade later when relocation was on the table. She drifted to a smaller-scale garment factory in San Po Kong that specialized in manufacturing Japanese-style overcoats. Her major task was to help with quality inspection and some sewing work. Granny Cheung enjoyed a stable salary and working schedule at her new workplace, but still managed to squeeze in time for some extra handiwork. Among all of the bittersweet memories, she named the company trip one of the biggest highlights of her career: “Our boss made a lot of profits back then and treated us with a free trip to Thailand. It was my first overseas trip ever, it was so memorable and we had so much fun together.” Eventually, she also had a hard time bidding farewell to her colleagues and employer: “My boss didn’t want me to leave because I had taken such good care of all the menial tasks. He even cried and kept my salary, hoping I would change my mind.”
A new chapter in Granny Cheung’s life unfolded as she welcomed her first granddaughter and moved into Garden Estate with his son’s family in the late 80s. Once a breadwinner who was always on the go to work and provide for the family, she then became preoccupied with her new life as a grandma: “I had to send my granddaughter to school, pick her up for lunch, bring her to tutorials and interest classes. I shuttled back and forth, up and down the slope six times a day — it was almost as hard as those times at work.” She no longer got up before dawn for an early shift, but to fix her grandkid’s breakfast and her hair. She lives her life to the fullest as a retiree, feeling gratified with the achievements of her son, and certainly proud of her beloved granddaughter: “She is such a good kid. She had good results at school, and even got picked at a television casting!”
Now that her granddaughter is all grown up and busy starting her own family, she finally welcomes the biggest break in her life as she deserves: “Drawing has become my biggest hobby after retirement. I draw whatever I come up with, simply with tools I’ve got at home. My work was even praised and displayed at the elderly centre!” Looking back to Granny Cheung’s rollercoaster ride and the fields she has tapped her feet in, from farming and embroidering back in Mainland, to taking up all sorts of factory works in Hong Kong, she has always beaten her own path and carved out a niche herself; with burning enthusiasm and fortitude, she has again and again proved her abilities: “People said it would be difficult for illiterates to look for jobs, but that was never my case. I am always willing to go the extra mile to create my own opportunities and possibilities.” With her unique encounters and experiences, she has proven to the world that it’s not by the amount of knowledge you possess, but by the amount of effort you give in that brings you up to the sky’s limit.
「扣」是織布機上的重要機件，
織布時每條絲線都要從筘齒間穿過，
緊密湊合。
工作者運用工業時代的彈性，
無縫配合家庭所需，
取得平衡。
Workers draw on the flexibility of industrial work to seamlessly cater to the needs of their family. BEND LIKE REED
While weaving, every yarn has to run through the reed of the loom to form a close-knit fabric.
姜生、姜太
Mr and Mrs Keung
入住年份：1978
行業：巴士、毛衫廠（姜生），餐具、排髮（姜太）
Year of move-in: 1978
Industry: Bus and Clothing (Mr Keung), Cutlery and Wig (Mrs Keung)
“This wedding photo of us is one of our oldest treasures. It was taken in 1962 — we made our wedding reception at London Tea Restaurant back then,” says Mr and Mrs Keung, a loving couple who tied the knot nearly six decades ago and have since walked through every up and down in life hand-in-hand.
Mr Keung recalls the tough and early days of their marriage with a sigh: “We used to live in the ‘chicken squatter’ around Tsui Ping Road with our three children and my mother. There weren’t even doors in front of the shared bathrooms so we always had to guard around when one of us was using it — the level of impoverishment that we faced was really beyond words.” Mrs Keung used to run a grocery store in the village, but the business went under and it prompted to her to look for new opportunities in the vast-changing industrial sector. She was recommended by Mr Keung’s brother to work at Chuang’s Cutlery and was sent to the packaging department, where she was responsible for placing different stainless-steel cutleries into a pack. She failed to win her family’s approval at first, but ultimately strived to prove her ability and worth: “They all thought I could not have lasted more than a week, but I ended up working there for a few years!”
A few years down the road she was informed by a kaifong about an open recruitment made by a wig factory on Tsun Yip Street, and eventually set foot in the industry with her sisters-in-law: “We were fresh to the industry and were sent to a master who’d teach us what to do. We had to take about a week’s training before we knitted our very first wig. We could hardly keep up and make any money at first, but it got better as we had grown familiar with the skills it required.” She recalls that the factory was large in scale, and in it were clean and air-conditioned work areas, such as the single and double-needle wig sewing departments where sewing machines were lined up closely against one another. She was sent for double-needle wig sewing where wages were calculated as per basket of wigs, and while all the others were working around the clock, she placed her family over money-making: “I only went to work when my husband was also at work, and I’d immediately go home once his was off from work. That’s why I was always the first to show up at the factory but never the most high-earning person.” The factory gradually lost its competitive edge and switched to producing anti-theft bells, but still failed to withstand the struggle and had to close down in later years. Mrs Keung and her out-of-job co-workers went for an interview at an electronics factory but never got a call-back: “Wig-making was such a highearning industry, so I knew they would not hire us. They were afraid that we would leave and return to our old industry once it thrived again.”
On the other hand, Mr Keung was working as a bus driver at the Kowloon Motor Bus Company. He was in charge of the 11B route which travelled back and forth between the ‘chicken squatter’ and the Kowloon City Ferry Pier. As young and robust as he was, he still had a hard time driving the cumbersome vehicles: “Everything was manual. You had to turn the heavy steering wheels all on your own. I had mouths to feed and a family to raise so I could only swallow the pain and give it all.” In 1978 he learnt from the papers that there were standby housing quotas available from Garden Estate and immediately applied with a letter his colleagues had helped compose. His application was approved and they were finally able to climb up the social ladder with a much-improved living environment. However, Mr Keung still struggled to pay for the $178 monthly rent with his thousand-dollar salary at the time. He later switched to driving route 13A that passed by Garden Estate every day at noon, and his children would take turns to bring him lunch at the bus stop in order to save costs. Looking back at his days as a driver, his feelings are once again stirred up by the changes of the community he has witnessed along the ride: “The Lotus Towers weren’t even built when I first started driving, and there I was again, driving 13A all through the times of its reconstruction.”
In the industrial heydays, factories often had huge demands for manpower and the idea of outsourcing gradually came into play. Mr Keung and his friends leapt at the opportunity and started their own business — they hired a minivan to transport jumpers from textile factories to different housing estates across town, and to housewives who could easily trim the threads at home. Mrs Keung reminisces: “There used to be a lot of housewives who were great with needles but were stuck at home with their kids. They would jump on every chance to earn a few extra dollars for their family. My husband was driving everywhere, for example to housing estates in Ho Man Tin, Sau Mau Ping and there’d always be housewives eagerly waiting at the carpark, ready to take up some freelance work.” Mr Keung, who did most of the work on his own, still clearly remembers the weight of a bag of jumpers against his shoulders: “This and bus driving were the two most arduous times of my life.” He left the field after a decade as the industry was slowly taking a downfall, got hired as a company driver at Kowloon Bay and finally caught a break from his busy life: “There honestly weren’t much work for me and life was pretty laid back at the time. They even provided lunch for me at the company.” Having rattled along the road for years with sweat and tears, Mr Keung treasured his job and served the company earnestly for over twenty years, and eventually welcomed his retirement in the early 2010s. 取長補短
Mrs Keung found her true calling in the breadmaking industry after rounds of job searches across different fields. She had worked at three different bakeries in Kowloon over the years, and had always developed close bonding with her employers. Family was the only reason why Mrs Keung had joined the labour force, and also why she exited almost half a lifetime later: “My son asked for my help to take care of my grandson, so I decided to retire.” Together the couple has wriggled their way in and out of different industries and gone all out to raise their family, and that’s something Mr Keung is eternally gracefully for: “I am very thankful to my mother, who had taken such good care of my kids. I could also have never achieved this much without my wife’s support — she has done a perfect job managing between family and work.” And again, his words from deep down has melt Mrs Keung with smiles.
Now living a slow-paced life as a retired couple, the Keungs are still showered with each other’s love and respect. Speaking of diets, Mr Keung immediately reveals his love for tea and dim sum: “I never really enjoy Western food or snacks, even as a kid. I’m rather traditional — food served at the tea restaurant has always been my favourite.” Now in his 80s, he still vividly remembers every tea restaurant in Yue Man Square that have now all been taken down. Unlike her husband, Mrs Keung is a true snacker and has always shared love for quick bites: “I like eating ice-cream and drinking pop sodas. Sometimes I get caught by my husband when I smuggle in snacks, and he would nag at me for a while.” In spite of their almost opposite personalities, likes and dislikes, the couple has agreed to differ and managed to respect each other, which is perhaps also the perfect explanation of their seamless and heavenly teamwork across work and family over the years.
“I’ve never taken any full-time jobs throughout my career because I dedicated most of my time to my family,” recalls Ms Yeung, a true exemplar of many childbearing female during the industrial era. In the early years she lived in Quarry Bay with her husband and her five children, and was always on the lookout for public housing allotments. After several failed attempts, they were eventually allocated to Garden Estate: “We even took a ferry to come over and did a little inspection beforehand. We decided to move in because this place was delightfully appointed, play area was superb and my husband was able to find a job at a nearby tea restaurant.”
She began hunting for job opportunities around the Estate once they’d settled in. A family-oriented housewife herself, Ms Yeung knew by heart that she was only targeting part-time jobs that could fit right into her packed schedule: “Some of my kids were still young back then, so taking good care of them was always my utmost priority. I was looking for freelance jobs that could help me earn a few extra dollars and provide for the family.” Through recommendations made by her neighbours, she eventually secured a spot at a stationery factory nearby and became a working mom like many others at the time: “There were three shifts available at the factory. Some female workers would pick up morning shifts, while some preferred to work at midnight, all depending on their family schedule.” Luckily, it was the full-on flexibility of the local industrial system that allowed factory ladies to strike a balance between work and family.
Ms Yeung worked from 1-5pm every day for a $19 hourly wage, and a lot of thoughts were thrown in behind the seemingly simple schedule. After sending her kids to school and slurping up her lunch, she would immediately leave home for work. It would take her a quick walk through the tunnel and across a few blocks to arrive at the greatly scaled stationery factory, where workers were neatly divided into different sub-departments: “There were many lines of workers inside the factory and several of us would sit closely against one another on each line. It was all about cost-effectiveness.” She was responsible for fastening screws around the corners of stationery boxes, which would then be used for containing books. After four hours of engrossed work, Ms Yeung would hurry to the market at Ngau Tau Kok and pick up groceries so that she could serve dinner for her family right on time.
Over the years, although she was able to harvest greatly from the flexible work culture, she has unfortunately also crossed shoulders with all sorts of company welfare: “There was never really any welfare for me — which was expectable for a four-hour part-time job.” She switched to a medical equipment company a little further from home a few years later, when her children were more capable of self-care. However, she was eventually laid off when the industrial recession hit: “They relocated the business to the Mainland and some full-time coworkers were sent there to help with the set-up, and we freelance workers were of course no longer part of the game.” Now a retired housewife, Ms Yeung looks back to her dynamic career with one simple conclusion: “Taking good care of my family is always on the top of my work list.”
Days and months flash by as quickly as a weaver 's shuttle. Workers walk down the memory lane and revisit the bittersweet moments w h en hard labour, family life and entertainment were closely intertwined.
Ms Hung got married in Mainland in the early days, but only came to Hong Kong to settle down and reunite with her husband in 1972. Together with their three daughters, the couple spent some years living in the Kowloon Walled City. By that time her husband was having a prospective career as a technician at Nam Hong Weaving Factory on Wai Yip Street, and so she followed his footsteps to become a member of the textile industry: “Coming freshly from Mainland, I didn’t have any practical skills in my pocket. It happened that my husband’s factory was looking for workers to rotate the shuttles, so I willingly volunteered.” Nam Hong specialized in manufacturing denim, whereby ten, twenty workers were divided according to various procedures into departments like weaving and fabric patching. It still strikes her today to mention the environment that cotton mills were infamous for: “There are looms and machines vigorously running at different corners of the factory. Water was sprinkled all the time to maintain moisture in the air — to prevent the weft from breaking, and heavy dust was floating in the air all the time. It was so humid, hot and dirty.” Her job was repetitive, yet challenging somehow: “I had to look after more than ten looms at a time and be really speedy to rotate the shuttles because once you had fallen behind, your coworkers would run out of weft to weave.” As a freshman in the industry, she constantly felt the weight of great responsibilities against her shoulders. Nevertheless, she was always keen to take on and surmount the challenges ahead of her: “I used to farm back in Mainland. I had to toss myself into the mud and it was equally hot and dirty. I was used to toilsome work.” With her husband and colleagues’ kind assistance, she began to master the gist of her duties and was promoted as a weaver sometime after.
Ms Hung was blessed to be granted with a housing unit at Garden Estate in the early 80s, after writing several letters in an attempt for public housing: “We were given a few options, but we ultimately favoured this place over the others — mostly because it was so close to work and so we could save a lot of travelling time and expenses.” During the first few years after moving in, as a mother of a new born, Ms Hung was forced to take time off work and became a full-time housewife. It was not until her youngest son started school at the kindergarten near Pak Ling Lau that she was able to devote herself to work again. She and her husband took different shifts at the weaving factory so that one of them was always able to take care of their kids: “At first I took the night shift that lasted from 11pm to 7am. Once I clocked off work, I had to rush home and bring my kids to school, then do grocery shopping and cook their meals. I could only catch a break at 3pm, when my husband had returned from his shift, and I’d sleep all the way till 9pm and get up for my
night shift again.” She was so eager to provide for the family that she even took up an extra morning shift a few times, when there were big orders on the way. Her upside-down lifestyle was only drawn to a close when a rule was set to ban female workers from taking night shifts. Life was back on track, but it still took her some time to adjust to the new normal: “I had a hard time falling asleep at night because I was so used to the night shift schedule.” Later, she was once again promoted to become a technician: “Most of the time I was busy walking around and checking every loom that I was responsible for. I had to immediately re-join the warps as soon as they had broken off, and sometimes un-do and redo the wrecked fabric.” Looking back, Ms Hung’s pathway to success had been full of thistles and thorns but she never ever once uttered a word of complaint: “We did what we have to do for our family. It was just common at our times.”
Old practices and procedures at the factories were often too complicated, even for those who had been through every part of them to annotate in just a word or two. Luckily there were photo buffs like Ms Hung’s husband, who kept a close record of the tits and bits of the factory routines. Tucked within piles of photo albums were hundreds of black-and-white portraits, all carefully categorized and captioned to explain the activity or procedure in the frame. Ms Hung holds the encyclopedialike photo albums in hand dearly like a treasure and explains the process of shuttle rotating, which she was in charge of in the early days of her work: “The shuttles look like a boat with two pointy ends. There’s a picking stick in it and you have to pull it out and refill it whenever it is out of weft.” Flipping through the albums with a grin as she recalls countless golden moments at work and off work: “My husband hanged out with his co-workers a lot. They would visit tea restaurants for dim sums and take a small local trip together.”
Other than routines at work, Ms Hung’s husband also captured all the fun at the labour union — carnivals, talent shows, boat rides, local trips… every face that was caught by the lens was beaming with joy, almost as if the tough times at work had all been washed away with laughter. They were actively involved in the union: “Our union rented a large community space, where we would hang out, play sports or just mingle, especially during big festivals such as National Day or Labour Day.” All these resources and facilities provided by the union, as well as the mutual-help spirit between its members became important backbones for workers who didn’t get to enjoy much welfare and holidays in the old times, and it was also no exception for the couple. However, as they had become extremely tied up with work and family in the later stages of their lives, they could only slowly fade out from the glamourous parties and reminisce the good old times through probing into memories and precious photographs.
“Kwun Tong used to bustle with factories and teeming crowd everywhere. This was the place where many textile factories set up their base.” Ms Hung has worked and lived in the area for decades and has always witnessed Kwun Tong being a sleepless town: “It was fairly safe for me to go around even after midnight — a lot of eateries were still in business and crowds of people would be walking around like it was day time. I also walked home with my co-workers after my shift.” Despite the fact that there were ample similar job opportunities in the area, Ms Hung and her husband had always stayed loyal to the same factory for years: “Wages were more-or-less universal among different workplaces. We didn’t want to leave because we had developed a bonding with the place.” They eventually bid farewell to their beloved comrades after the factory had announced its plan to relocate to China. Through the ages, it was the yarns and needles that pulled Ms Hung closer to Kwun Tong and interweaved her with the most bittersweet days of her life.
Started off as an ornament apprentice at the age of 15, Mr Yip determined to switch to the textile business after several years of hard struggle and began working at Nanyang Cotton Mill Limited — one of the most comprehensive and large-scale textile factories at the time through recommendations made by his friend. He explains the daily operation of his workplace: “It was actually a spinning-cum-weaving mill. The spinning department was on the top floor, us weavers on the second. All the weaved fabric would be sent to the morning shift workers on the ground floor, who would then inspect and mend them.”
The factory was known for its extensive structure and facilities, but what Mr Yip finds most unforgettable was the abominable environment: “It was boiling and also extremely humid, since mist was sprinkled out from air-cons all the time to prevent the yarns from breaking.” It certainly took the newcomer some time to get used to the sweat and the whole-new experience: “I worked closely with a master who taught me all the basics, such as tying knots and inserting weft yarns to the loom. Then he put me in-charge of one loom, and up to four afterwards, when I felt more confident and familiar with the 歲月如梭 葉偉添
process. Three months later I became an official worker and that’s when I started overseeing over ten machines at a time.” A lot of attention span was required at work as the smallest error could already put a halt to the entire operation progress: “The shuttle carries the thread of the weft yarn back and forth, and passes between the yarn threads of the warp in order to weave. I had to re-join the yarn once it broke off and turn on the loom again.” He recalls that imported looms from England, Belgium, Sweden and Japan were used in different situations, mostly depending on the thickness of the material. During his work he had not only dealt with fashionable fabric such as Dacron and Denim, but also shrouds that were greatly demanded during the Vietnam War: “Such heavy pounding noise was made when we were weaving because of its high density. We tried pouring water onto it and the droplets just swiftly slipped away. Eventually we learnt what they were for.” He was later promoted as a journeyman, whose main task was to help the master with dismantling the loom and replacing broken components that were within. Sometimes he also assisted in removing the weft whenever an error was spotted.
His salary at the textile factory was so-so, but the benefits were the real treats: “Free accommodation near Yue Man Square was also included in the package. I was single back then so a spot at the men’s dormitory was just the perfect offer. Breakfast was included, usually congee served with salted beans. We had to pay for lunch and dinner tickets though — they punched a hole on your ticket every time you had had a meal.” Other than free meals, there were also shuttles that brought workers from their dormitories to work.
Morning, afternoon and evening shifts were available at the factory, while Mr Yip took the overnight shift simply for more fun: “The shift lasted between 11pm to 7am — it was most popular among the young men, since it’d save us more time during the day to play Mahjong.” Sometimes they got drowsy during the night and would sneak off for a nap: “We were mostly playful, and sometimes mischievous. Our supervisors knew we were slacking off but we simply couldn’t care less — it was such a lark!” The playful group also actively organised local trips to Lion Rock, or hired a minivan to Pak Fa Lam for barbecue. In later years he followed his co-workers’ footsteps and joined the Freedom Labour Union, and was exposed to all sort of entertainment and activities with just a $2 member fee: “They used to host a Christmas party every year at the former Yue Man Square. Forty or so workers would show up, they would put on some music and just dance till dawn.”
Days at the factory were mostly pleasant and carefree, but also mingled with occasional dreads and fears, and the 1967 riot was certainly one of those days. Mr Yip remembers that the factory brought in extra shuttles to make sure all workers returned to the dormitories safe and sound, but sometimes they’d still sneak out for some fun. He recalls that there were sometimes improvised explosive bombs — what they referred to as ‘homemade pineapples’ around the area, but Kwun Tong remained rather peaceful throughout the chaotic days. Once he was unfortunately caught in tear gases: “We were hanging out and playing some Mahjong near Wang Tau Ham when the radio broadcasted about a riot happening just footsteps away from us. We immediately started rushing back to the dorm, but tear gases were already flying all over the place and we caught some on the bus ride back near San Po Kong.”
Mr Yip immediately turns bashful mentioning his wife whom he met at the factory: “I knew her back in the days when we were both working at Nanyang. She was a weaver and I happened to be the journeyman of her row. But nothing really happened between us until we met again at Tai Tung Textiles on Shing Yip Street. She worked the morning shift and I was on the overnight shift, so I’d bump into her when I clocked off. It was probably fate that brought us together.”
After marriage they began actively searching for a comfortable shelter, and immediately made an application for a unit at Garden Estate once they had heard about the vacancies. Compared to the rooftop house they had lived in Ngau Tau Kok, their new flat was much more hygienic, affordable and liveable. They also developed tight bonding with their neighbours, which prompted him to join the mutual-aid committee to devote himself to the community: “I helped out a lot on New Year decorations. I’d place some peach blossoms and hang flags at the lobby. Some kaifongs and I also carved a wood board sign and hanged it out at the rooftop.” On the other hand, he became the only breadwinner as his wife had taken a step back from work to look after their three children: “My work at the textile factory was tough and I realized I couldn't make ends meet. So I became a bus driver at the Kowloon Motor Bus Company. My wages made much more sense, and there were also more benefits and welfares.” He would head for the bus depot across home at 3:30 every morning, and start backing buses one after one to make way for the morning shift to drive off: “They were all jam-packed like puzzle pieces and it wasn’t easy to reverse buses that were 30 feet long at all.” He wasn’t a fixed route driver during the day, but instead a ‘freeman’ who’d get randomly assigned to different bus routes based on the schedule of the day: “I had long working hours. I would make 3 rounds in the morning, and sometimes I’d go home for a quick nap If
I had happened to take up a route that passed by my home, such as route 101. I’d head out again at 3pm and make another round, clock off at 6pm and head back home to spend some time with my kids.”
Mr Yip, once a hedonistic young man who’d trade sleep for entertainment, has gradually turned his life around for his loved ones. He took shifts round the clock for over three decades to raise his children and is today occupied with family happiness: as his grandson happens to return home from school, he offers him a big bear hug and there’s a smile dancing on his lips that never seems to fade away.
“We used to be peasants back in the Mainland forty years ago when there wasn’t even a factory in sight. I had a sewing machine at home and sometimes got requests to mend clothes for my neighbours, that’s how I made some extra money to provide for my family,” says Ms Leung, who grew up in Guangdong and was toughened up by the hardship she had faced throughout childhood. While her husband came to Hong Kong to search for job opportunities after marriage, she remained in her hometown and only came to reunite with him in the 80s. The couple lived in a residential building in Mongkok and she joined her husband to work at a shoe-making factory that was located along the Kwun Tong nullah: “Shoe-making was a profitable industry and he saw lots of potential in this field, so he recommended me there for the position. Back then I had equipped myself with a lot of skills on sewing, but it still took me some time to adapt to the texture of shoe skins, which are a lot chunkier than clothing materials.”
“There were a number of large-scale shoe-making factories in Kwun Tong back then — you would never be out of options as long as you were eager to work and learn,” Ms Leung recalls. The couple was lucky enough to be allocated with an apartment at Garden Estate after several years of work at Kwun Tong: “It was so much more convenient than before. We could easily head out to work by foot and it took us just a blink of time to walk through the tunnel downstairs, along the nullah and all the way to the factory.” Ending their shifts at 6pm, the couple would then pick up some groceries before they headed home to prepare dinner and called it a day.
The factory specialized in manufacturing women’s leather shoes for export, mostly high heels between one to four inches tall. Over a hundred workers were divided into three different assembly lines — edge folding, leather stitching and sole sewing: “My husband was a sole sewer, while I got assigned to the leather stitching department. Everything was extremely systematic: all the leather had to be precisely trimmed before they were sent to the edge folding department. After folding, my co-workers and I would piece different leather segments into one and send it over to my husband’s department, where it would be wrapped around a wooden shoe mould and nailed to the sole and the heel.”
Shoe-making was considered a relatively well-paid industry at the time, and as a piece-rate worker herself, Ms Leung was most fond of the classic clean cut, round head design, an easy-to-handle model that allowed her to maximize her gain within limited working hours. However, the superiority and pride of the shoe-making industry also extended beyond the work environment: “There was this unwritten law running through our industry: we’d head out to tea restaurants for lunch every day, simply because we wanted to differ ourselves from textile workers who’d always bring their own lunchboxes to save money.”
By the early 90s, many local factories had either mechanized their work or shifted their production line to China. Like many others, Ms Leung was laid off from her old job and eventually found a position at another shoe factory on Kwun Tong Road that was merely a few minutes’ walk from home. She withdrew herself from the production line and became a backoffice worker who was responsible for managing inventory and orders: “Every order was sent to China for production, and the ready-made products back to us for shipments. We also had to keep a close count of the materials being used and re-supply the production line whenever needed.” Switching from piece-rate to time-rate, Ms Leung had learnt to take things as they came: “I earned less, but my work pace also became less frenetic. It was all about perspective and adaptation.”
Having devoted almost her entire work life to the shoe-making industry, she witnessed the revolution in local footwear, while also sewed hundreds and thousands of trendy shoes that she however had no eye for: “There used to be free samples that my boss would give out at the display room, but I never took any of them. I don’t really follow the trends.” The only souvenir she ever brought home with was a second-hand sewing machine that she had purchased at a cheap price from her old workplace: “They had to let go of all equipment when they moved to China, so I bought one from them. It came with a wheel paddle that I am more familiar with using than the regular model.” Known for her prudence and frugality, Ms Leung still sews regularly to save costs: “I sew all my husband’s and my own clothes. My friends are aware of that, and occasionally those who work at factories would send me a big chunk of fabrics whenever there are leftovers.” Now a retired shoe-maker, she is still keen to help mend or sew her friends and neighbours’ clothes: “I take it as a hobby. It gives me pleasure and I have so much fun out of it.”
Fujian-born Jojo Ng moved to Hong Kong in 1981 and spent some years huddling in a sub-divided unit with her pair of children, husband and his family in Wanchai. She jumped on the opportunity upon receiving an identification paper and began searching for job vacancies in Kwun Tong, where she had known by hearsay to be an industrial paradise, and was glued to a flyer posted by a sleeping bag factory that specified a $80 daily wage to solicit potential workers. A skilled tailor herself, Jojo was immediately hired after a trial sew, and had since then devoted herself to Tung Shing Sleeping Bag Company on Lai Yip Street for almost two decades of time.
Hurdles to surmount
Jojo’s factory specialized in producing cotton sleeping bags that were exported to the U.S. and Canada. Twenty workers were put in charge of four main procedures along the production line, namely fabric-trimming, cottonstuffing, overlocking and zips-stitching. Like many other newcomers, Jojo was overwhelmed by all the new experiences in the beginning, but as she gradually eased into her job, she survived her probation with the help of her supervisor and was eventually dispatched to the zip department: “It was never an easy piece of cake. Those sleeping bags were heavy and bulky, and it required a lot of lifting and wobbling while we were stitching the zips. We also had to put on masks all the time because of the dusty environment created by our movements.” Nevertheless, it was the language barrier that was giving her a real headache: “I was the only Fujianese there and everyone else was speaking fluent Cantonese. I couldn’t comprehend a word at first.” Delicate as she might seem, Jojo was no quitter. With hard work and perseverance, she quickly slogged through all the physical and cultural challenges — she picked up Cantonese in a flash, became acquainted with her colleagues and got promoted to become
a piece-rate worker: “They put six sleeping bags into a bundle, and with each bundle came a ticket. I used to stack up my tickets, hand them to the accounting department at the end of the day and collect my salary every two weeks. That’s how the system worked.”
Jojo’s life took a twist at the end of the 80s — her family was allocated a public housing unit and of all the options given, the charmingly landscaped and greatly located Garden Estate was her ultimate pick: “This place was so much better than our old flat: at least my kids had a playground, and we also saved a lot of commuting time.” Soon after moving in, she began to form a unique and packed schedule that catered both her work and her family perfectly — she’d wake up early and prepare meals for her kids before she kicked off a day of work at the factory on Lai Yip Street. During lunch she’d rush back home and send her daughter to school right across the estate, and would dash for groceries after work, pick her daughter up from school and finally begin to prepare dinner meals for her family. Sometimes she’d make
extra shifts at the factory when big orders were due, but family always came first: “I never took any freelance work home and I always devoted all my free time to my family. It wasn’t easy at all to strike a balance between work and family, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I hadn’t moved to Kwun Tong.”
With her can-do spirit and earnest attitude, Jojo was rewarded with another promotion on the eighth year — she was put in charge of manufacturing sleeping bag samples whenever her boss came up with new designs: “These samples would be sent to our potential buyers, and the interested ones would return with bulk orders.” The promotion brought along more responsibilities, Jojo often had to experiment with new models of design and carry out tasks all by herself. Fortunately, she received generous help from her supervisors and colleagues, and was also well spoken of by her boss, who would give her an extra red pocket during Chinese New Year as Jojo recalls with pride. Besides, her boss was also kind enough to reward the colleagues with company retreats during the summer: “He would pay for plane tickets and all our expenses, so every few years there was this golden opportunity to bring along our family, take a break from all the heavy duties and bond with my co-workers and their families, even my boss’s.” Together they have travelled to places like Thailand, the Philippines and Japan, which all became incredibly fond memories that Jojo still treasures as of today.
In the mid-90s, industrial developments began to wither, while Jojo’s factory also downscaled and constantly shifted their business model to stay afloat: “By 1997, many of my co-workers were laid off and I became the only remaining employee in Hong Kong. We were no longer manufacturing sleeping bag samples, but down jackets and snowshoes.” In addition to sample-making procedures, Jojo was also responsible for inspecting readymade products sent from Mainland, as well as stitching on the “Made in Hong Kong” badges before they were exported to the U.S. or Canada. The entire production line was eventually shifted to China after a few years’ time, and Jojo was given no choice but to bid farewell to the workplace where she had spent nearly two decades servicing: “I stayed in touch with my supervisor. Sometimes I’d still go and help out, sometimes I’d borrow their sewing machine for my own crafts.” Through references made by her ex-colleague, she started a whole new career at a cha-chaan-teng, where she had served another decade before making her final retirement. Once an immigrant who struggled to weave her way into the whole new world, Jojo is now well-rooted and constantly thankful for the fruitful experiences she has gained along the journey: “I am never really an adventurer. I feel very lucky to have met amazing colleagues and found excellent workplaces that made me stay on for decades.”
The Kwun Tong Methodist Social Service (KTMSS) was established in 1966 as a communitybased, non-profit social service organization. In view of the rapid development of Kwun Tong District and the strong demand for social services, The Methodist Church agreed to raise and donate HKD300,000 to the Hong Kong Housing Society for the construction of the Garde Estate. In return, the church was granted the ground floor of Pak Ling Lau to provide social welfare services and host religious activities. KTMSS provides diversified social services in the district, beneficiaries include children and young people in poverty, low-income families, single-parent families, singleton, long-term unemployed seniors, etc. The services include: children and youth services, family and school services, rehabilitation services, working poor services, elderly services and community services, etc.
iDiscover is about the spirit of place. We work with locals who show us their favourite places and tell us their stories. We put them in a handy map and savvy app to create honest and authentic walking routes in Asia’s most captivating neighbourhoods.
項目統籌、編輯：張喻斯 • 訪問：張喻斯、顏灝堯
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