Lam Waikau walking through the corridor in the public housing Fu Wen House
August 15, 2006. Lam Wai-kau, 67, never forgets the day when he first knocked on the door of Hong Kong, a bustling and multicolored metropolis in many people’s eyes. The most persuasive reason he gave himself for accompanying his 10-year-old son here was that he hoped his boy could have a better future in this big city than back in his rural hometown in Guangdong.
However, what he never dreamed of was the life waiting for him behind the door. “It was like a trap, well designed. You can do nothing but step into it,” Lam says, full of frustration, staring at the newly painted wooden door of his home.
Last year, he moved to Fu Wen House, one of the public housing in Sham Shui Po District in Kowloon. “It was March 22, 2016,” he says, and it was a happy day for him, compared to the date ten years ago clearly engraved on his mind.
Lam’s then wife (now divorced) took Lam and their son to a small room in a house attic in Sham Shui Po after they arrived in Hong Kong. Then she left, taking their son and never looking back. Lam has stayed there alone for a decade until he succeeded in his application for public housing offered by the government. In that cage home less than 5 feet tall, Lam had to bend down all the time.
Hong Kong government allows Mainland residents under some situations, such as family reunions, to apply for one-way permits to come to settle in Hong Kong. Lam’s ex-wife came here earlier in 2001, because she needed to look after her father. “Soon she wanted our son to come. I hesitated but finally agreed,” he says. So he came to Hong Kong for reunion, but on the same day he was sentenced to family separation.
Lam comes from Taishan, a coastal city facing the South China Sea. He was formerly a fisherman and fish seller, and that should be the best of times in his life. “I started my day selling fishes in the bombing market. I indeed could make some money. At the end of the day, I would take the rest of fishes back home to cook for dinner. How nice!” his voice full of satisfaction as he recalls his past life.
After settling in Hong Kong, Lam started to be a cleaner, which he is still engaged in more than ten years later. “I’m old. I have no choice,” he says. He has been a cleaner in the graveyard and then was responsible for cleaning public rental housing. Every day, he is surrounded by garbage trucks in the poorly ventilated garbage chamber. He needs to catch large bags of rubbish from the refuse chute of one truck after another.
42,000 Hong Kong Dollar. That’s all of his mandatory provident fund (MPF) for almost seven years of work. He took it out when he turned 65 in 2015. He said that his son needed money for school. “If I have 9,000 one month, and he comes to me asking for 9,000, I will give him. He is my son,” he says firmly. In reality, he did not know that his wife had unilaterally divorced with him until several years ago when social workers checked his marriage certificate in helping him apply the public housing.
“But he is still my son, my only son,” he says, without hatred or complaint about his ex-wife’s leaving.
“Having a home is the first and final destination for a human being, isn’t it?” Lam has seen this public housing given by the government as his real home. Compared with the cage home in Apliu Street, he says “there is a world of difference, like between heaven and earth. At least now, when my son comes, he has somewhere to sit.”
The only hobby Mr. Lam has kept during his time in Hong Kong is lottery. He stores everything he uses to study the lottery in a red plastic box under his bed.
“Once a German journalist came to interview me when I still lived in Apliu Street. He saw my stuff about the lottery and he was immediately fascinated by it!” Lam says filled with pride. He believes that buying the lottery is not about gambling, but instead “it can teach you lots of life philosophy.”
Mr. Lam has recorded winning numbers of each lottery. He made marks on
the rightmost column if he won a prize like 5 or 10 HKD
Mr. Lam showing how he decides which lottery numbers he will buy.
He needs a magnifying glass to see the words on the paper
Talking about the future, Lam says his son is going to take the exam this year that will determine whether he would go to university. “I will definitely support him if he can make it. In this society, you’d better be well-educated. We’ve talked about this. Or you cannot find a good job just like me,” he smiles sadly, eyes fixed upon an old and faded photo of him and his son, held tightly in his hand.
