“Hello! Excuse me. Please book a doctor for me! Please book for me! Not ready? OK OK OK! Not yet.”
(Minutes later…)
“Is it the time?”
“Three minutes to go.”
“OK. Can’t make a reservation if it’s not the time yet.”
“Does it have to be two o’clock that you can make a phone call to them?”
“Sometimes you can’t get through when it was two. You want to call. I also want to call. When the line is busy, I would not be able to see a doctor.”
Every Wednesday at 2 p.m. sharp, Fok Meisung, 65, makes a phone call with her antique Nokia to book a doctor. She is afraid of missing the opportunity to see this free doctor who can give her weekly medicine for relieving her persistent backache.
Her backache has prevented her from doing heavy work for the past two to three years. Even standing or sitting for too long makes her feel uncomfortable. Ms. Fok has been called “the first cleaning lady” for her excellent work in a book published by Hong Kong’s Society for Community Organizations (SoCO), a non-government organization that helps disadvantaged groups, depicting the daily life of the working elderly in Hong Kong.
According to the book, she was very satisfied with the street cleaning job and always talked about it: “I learned so much in street cleaning work - vacuuming, waxing - office building or shopping mall, I can do them all.”
Indeed, she did a very good job in her 60’s. Her boss even appointed her as the person in charge of Sham Shui Po, an economically disadvantaged district in northwestern Kowloon.
“You need to push a trolley of rubbish as a street cleaner,” says Fok. “Lots of rubbish. Push. Push. And then the waist is not well anymore.”
She looks at her phone again. “Is it now the time?”
“Still one more minute to go. Maybe you should call to see if she picks it up.” I told her.
Squinting, Ms Fok pressed the numbers saying them out loud.
“Please book the doctor, Miss!” she spoke as soon as someone answered.
The free clinic is clearly very popular and in great demand.
“I called at two and I was the seventh one,” says Ms Fok. ”I don’t how it works!”
However many times she complains, she would never give up this chance. A SoCO social worker, Mr Ng Wai-tung, introduced this free clinic for her, which eases her economic pressure. Every week she makes a reservation on phone and goes to the clinic next day. The doctor gives her enough pain medicine for six days, but the ache has now become a pain that cannot be eradicated. When she feels the pain while walking, she just bows down to minimize it.
Ms Fok washed dishes in a restaurant for the first two years in Hong Kong. When she turned 65, she officially retired from her cleaning job, which she held for 14 years. Now she spends most of her spare time on her children and grand children, picking the children after school for instance. In her spare time, she walks the streets collecting cardboard for recycling, which is not in sufficient amount for all the elderly who do this to raise extra money, but just walking around provides a way of exercising.
She sometimes finds cardboard from nearby stores or from a grandson’s school. Otherwise, she can’t even make an income of 10-20 Hong Kong dollars a day.
“The situation is better,” says Ms Fok. ”there’s ‘Fruit Money’.”
‘Fruit money’ is a government subsidy for the elderly, which offers about 2000 HKD a month for people over 65. Some people say such a little amount offers little economic support for the elderly and can only buy some fruit. Making fun of this, they called it fruit money.
But this money is still helpful for Ms Fok as she says, “You don’t need to work to get this money.” However, the backache make the effort vanish.
She has to afford the Chinese medicine that the doctor suggests her to take care of herself. “The medicine for one time cost several hundreds,” says Ms Fok. “The medicine nowadays is quite expensive. Very expensive medicine.”
When asked if her son would cover her medicine cost if she is short of money, she says, ”How much money can my son have? The kids need a lot of money to go to school.”
Ms Fok understands the economic situation for her family -- three sons, three daughters in law and five grandchildren. She lives in public housing in Sham Shui Po where her children see her sometimes. But they won’t come visit together because her house is too small to hold all the family members.
“My daughter in law helps me to cut my hair,” Ms Fok says with a smile. She likes to help out picking up children for her children’s family. “They know I lived a hard life and care for me.”
As to her ex-husband, she had no such tenderness feelings for him. When she was young, she cared for her three kids in the countryside in Guangdong Province, Mainland China. But her husband never cared much about the family.
“19 years in Hong Kong, never had I drink a tip of tea from him!” When she was alone on the mainland caring for her children, Ms Fok also had the burden of farming and raising pigs, chickens and ducks to maintain their living. She continued to worked independently to pay her own rent and living costs after she came to Hong Kong. “I am a person of a strong will!”
“I do hope my grandchildren could have a promising future,” says Fok. “I have no other abilities than sweeping the streets to make any money. I hope my grandson can be well educated and accomplish that. He joined the class mid way through but he got an award already.”
Ms Fok touches her waist. ”A bit painful when sitting too long,” she says. She looks at the time.
“School is about to over. I have to go now.”
