Visiting The REAL People Of Hong Kong...

Practicing Tai Chi In A Public Park – Photograph from nydailynews.com

It is a sunny and relatively warm Saturday morning for January. You would think that after spending at least two years waking up at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings, to travel all the way from South London to East, while I was working for the Barnardos Aut' & About Scheme, that I would be accustomed to being out and about at this time. But no, it's still a struggle, so I get myself out of the apartment as fast as I can and on my way to meet today's adventure. 

Agenda of the day: visiting elderly residents at their homes courtesy of the kind efforts of Janet Wai and SK Shum, who organise the Hong Kong Voluntary Group on Meetup, and the team of staff at the Wan Chai Methodist Centre for the Seniors. These visits have been successfully running since 2007 providing an invaluable and under-catered service to the 'real' residents of Hong Kong.

My team were given three elderly residents to visit, all conveniently located on Lockhart Road. First up was a very cheerful lady called Grace*. Grace is 81 years old, and originally from Shanghai in mainland China. She lives alone in her well kept small apartment on the fifth floor of a typical looking Chinese apartment block. Having moved to Hong Kong over fifty years ago, she has definitely got a lot of stories to tell. As we walked into her home she ushered us to the middle of the room where her dining table was, and offered us seats. She told us that she hardly has visitors over, so she was very excited to have us there, and as we sat down she started telling us about her life. Grace can read but cannot write. The little that she can write is self taught. She is at peace with her lack of writing skills, but expresses that she is very appreciative that at least she can read, as reading is what helps her maintain an active mind in her old age. A mother of seven children, who are all adults now, she looks well and glowingly healthy for living a life of solitude. She explains that three of her kids live abroad, and tells us a bit about their careers and families. One child lives very close to her and visits every few weeks to cook some meals for her. She says that she misses them all very much, and gets quite lonely at times without them. Although, being the strong spirited woman that she clearly is, she tells us that independence is not easy, and that you must work hard at staying alive. She sounds like a lady that is making the most of her situation. Despite suffering from complications in her glands which have a disruptive effect on her health, she tells us with real pride that she keeps a strict exercise regime, practising Tai Chi two mornings a week. She starts very early soon after dawn in the public parks around Wan Chai, using these occasions to also socialise with similar aged folk who likewise spend their mornings doing the same. She takes cold showers and doesn't use any heaters in order to save on her electricity bills, even with the cold chills of Hong Kong winters. She tells us that she is a tough old lady, and clenches her fists to show us she is not to be underestimated! I felt like I could have stayed all day sat at her kitchen table but quite rightly our team leader made the suggestion to move on considering we still had two more people to visit.

The next two residents turned out to be husband and wife, living only a short distance away from Grace. We arrived at their building and while looking for a main entrance realised with utter horror that the couple lived directly above a noisy Wan Chai red light district style bar, with early morning drunken punters already scattered around outside. Despite usually having an open mind to most things, if I'm being honest, with the scene laid out before us, I found myself feeling very concerned for this old couple's well being. The noise alone would have driven me to madness. 

We entered the building and waited for the escalator to reach ground floor. As the escalator doors opened, we were met with a provocatively dressed woman, with barely next-to-nothing on. She was clearly a prostitute and I could only assume the man with her was a likely customer. They walked past us arm in arm, both fully engaged in laughter and disappeared through the main entrance into the street. More alarm bells ring in my mind. We found the couple's home, and knocked on the iron gated door, hearing a gentleman's voice cry out in delight. He unlocked the outer gated door and welcomed us inside. He explained that his wife was not home as she is spending a month at their daughters place. She had recently undergone knee surgery and preferred to stay elsewhere for her initial recovery. We reassured him that it's ok that she's not home, and sit down together in his living room. Janet asks him to tell us a little about himself and his family, so he starts by talking about their health. Burt* is 80 years old. He suffers from arthritis, hypertension, and increased levels of uric acid, which causes him daily discomfort. His wife Kitty* is 76 years and also suffers from arthritis, hypertension, and osteoporosis. They have two sons and two daughters, all in their 30's and 40's. As Burt goes on with his story, and talks proudly of his children, who he says visits during special occasions, I can't help but wonder if the stereotypes of Asian culture and the importance of family is not as black and white as it seems. 

The old man excitedly talks to us about the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations, and how it will be an event for the whole family, children and grandchildren included, to come together and all cram into his and his wife's small apartment. We exchange curious questions about each other with the aid of Janet translating from Cantonese to English and vica versa. Burt is very interested in our backgrounds and has many questions, only stopping to disappear into another room returning with cups of water for us to drink. He arrived in Hong Kong 60 years ago from the Guangdong province of China. He is illiterate from not ever having received an education due to the raging China/Japan war in the late 1930 - 1940's, and was consequently pushed into work from a young age. When the Avian Flu epidemic broke out in Hong Kong, he was forced into retirement from his job as a food hawker (vendor) just a mere five years ago. And at the ripe old age of 75 he knew he wasn't going to find another job, nor re-start his old business. Burt has a very calming way about him, and is a real riot to talk to, quite willingly relaying stories of his childhood and adulthood in a very different Hong Kong to what he lives in now. The bar I mentioned earlier, on the ground floor of their apartment block has apparently been there for as long as he remembers, but has more recently become excessively noisy, with punters drinking there throughout all hours of the day and night. He explains how his wife and himself would love to move out as they have found it increasingly difficult to live above such a disturbing ruckus, but they don't have much choice as relocation is not an affordable option. 

Burt, like Grace, is the kind of person you could sit down with for hours and just listen to them talk about their life. I walked away from Burt & Kitty's apartment knowing that they, like Grace, have become part of the forgotten people of Hong Kong. The invisible people, that live upstairs in their vertical apartment blocks, rarely leaving to be seen. 

It was a pretty quiet walk back to the train station after all our visits were complete. I'm assuming the others were also preoccupied with their thoughts about the people we had just met, and the stories they had shared with us. It had certainly been an overwhelming day for us all, but still I could sense the collective calm between us on that walk back to the station. It had been a good day. ᐂ

* Please note that I have not used the real names of the three elderly residents, for their own privacy.