Hong Kong’s security guards don’t look anything like what the job’s name suggests.
It’s not difficult to find a security guard around. As long as there’s a living mansion with a theft-proof door, usually there’s a man in his fifties or sixties, sometimes seventies, sitting or standing at the receiving desk. There he is, the security guard.
No cast-iron constitution, no communication wireless on the belt, sometimes not even an alert mind. Sometimes they greet with you if they feel you look familiar or friendly. Sometimes they chat with some acquaintances who stop by. Most of the rest of the time, they read newspapers, listen to radio programs or just sit and look at the streets or whatever appears in their sight.
They sit by the entrance and see people coming in and out. They step up patrols one or two times a day. Instead of being called ‘security guards’, the title of ‘door watchers’ might suit them better.
Door watcher may be the best choice for the elderly if they want to get employed again as a way for spending the extra leisure time.
“My house is much bigger than these ones,” says Mok Pik-Chi, 65, a security guard at Wai Yuen Mansion in Sai Ying Pun.
Mr Mok retired from the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 2012. After graduating from high school, he was hired by the bank to check whether their customers are eligible to obtain credits.
Mr Mok Pik Chi works as a security guard after he retired from a bank
Hong Kong doesn’t have fixed requirements for the age of retiring, which means different occupations have different retirement ages. For example, airline attendants usually retire at the age from 45 to 55, government officials retire at 55, staffs from other public-owned organizations and private-owned enterprises retire at 60. Thus, many elderly seek another career after their contract finishes with a former employer.
Mr Mok says he didn’t think about other jobs except the current one. Security guards all work similarly, not very hard but longer hours. Compared to other jobs, he felt this was not a bad choice. However, what matters to him actually is working itself. “Having some work to do is better than you stay at home,” says Mok. “No others.”
Mr Mok has a 10-year-old daughter who would come to his working place after school by herself. His wife, 44, has a part-time job at a local supermarket.
Mok has an aunt who doesn't have much money. She lives in a public house in Tseung Kwan O.
Although “fruit money” from the government can be available when you reach 65, for Mr Mok, he is too wealthy to get that money. But anyone over 70 will have that money with no other conditions. "My situation is no bad," he says.
Many elderly at the grass-roots level go back to work for economic reasons while other wealthier ones look for a more meaningful life, according to a report published by Hong Kong Ideas Centre, a non-profit organization provides recommendations conductive to the city’s economic and social well being, in May 2014. Many interviewees thought that security guards are ideal jobs for the elderly.
They categorized the elderly from 55-74 as “the young elderly”, a generation born in the baby boom after war, had a relatively high education, worked hard in various occupations and created the golden era when Hong Kong’s economics started to be prosperous.
