dad

Dad was born in 1930 in Guangzhou. China. His childhood was spent between Guangzhou and Macau. He moved to Hong Kong in 1949 and until 1956 lived in a room at Guangdong Road with his mother, two brothers and two sisters. The room was so small that he often slept in the balcony, a common space shared with three other families living in that apartment.

The balcony was used for hanging and drying washed laundry. When people used the balcony in the early morning for hanging the laundry, they would step over him, who would still be sleeping.

At that time, plumbing for flushing toilet was not common. Human waste was collected in a bucket in an apartment, and when the waste collector came to a street, he would yell out 'fragrance from the night!' so that those who need to empty their waste bucket would go and hand the bucket to him. My dad still remembers how annoying the sound of that yelling was. Sometimes the bucket would be full and people did not bother to empty it, leading to overflow at home. Imagine that living condition.

My grandmother was left to fend for herself and the children by my grandfather since arriving in Hong Kong. That was why the children, particularly my two uncles, were very resentful of him. Luckily for the children, my grandmother was a tough woman. Even though she had never worked a day in her life before, she managed to become a real estate broker, and made enough to keep the children fed. Of course, life was still difficult. There were times when the five kids had to share one ice lollipop.

Dad has always been a fan of martial arts. He practiced western boxing when he was young, and even won a trophy. Sometimes he could not control his fighting spirit and got into trouble. In the last year of his high school (Pui Ching College), he was expelled from the school for hitting a security guard. The incident was triggered by a visit by one of my uncles to the school dormitory that my father was staying. Apparently, there was some dispute between the guard and my uncle, and when my dad heard about it, he rushed there and slapped the guard. The guard fell to a chair, and when  he tried to stand up, my dad slapped him again.

Since my grandfather was a government prosecutor, he threatened to sue the school. As as result, the school made a special arrangement so that both parties would accept. My dad was sent to study in another school for six months, and after that, he could return to the old school to finish his study. After telling me the story, my dad added that that was the reason why he was not too mad when my younger brother was expelled from his high school in England for hitting a teacher because of his girlfriend  at that time.