- 3 ·
The shop opens for 13 hours a day from 9.30 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. Mr. Fo, who is 43 years of age and married with 2 children, is earning $400 per lunar month, and gets 2 meals a day from the shop. His family live in a resettlement estate and he normally goes home to sleep after closing hours; he may, if he so wishes, sleep in the shop (as some of his younger follow fokis do), but there are no separate quarters provided. He gets 2 days off every lunar month, but he can always get permission from the owner to leave early or take time off during a working day if he has some urgent personal matter to attend to or when he is sick. At the end of the year, he receives double pay and on top of that, he gets a "New Year bonus" the amount being arbitrarily fixed by the employer and depending on the shop's profit for the past year; the bonus can be as much as one month's salary.
Mr. Fo completed Junior Middle III in a Chinese secondary school in Hong Kong, and speaks very little English.
When talking about the enactment of a Shops Act, Mr. Fo thought that the idea was good in principle, but he doubted the practicability of such a proposal. He pointed out that shorter working hours would invariably mean less business take-in for the shop, which in turn would mean less profit. The reduction in profit might force the employer to cut down the overheads, and there was always the danger of a cut in the fokis' salaries. He stressed that he had a family to feed, and that he would prefer working longer hours than finding it difficult to make ends meet. He agreed that 13 working hours was too long, but pointed out that he did not have to work continuously and that his work was by no means strenuous. He was not sure whether he would mind staying in the shop a little longer than he had to where he could gossip or play mahjong with his mates instead of going back to his crowded unit in the resettlement estate. He would, however, welcome more than 2 rest days per month, if possible, provided again there was no danger of a reduction in salary.
Mr. Fo admitted that he was not unhappy with his present employment bearing in mind that he would have little chance of getting a job in a modern type office without an adequate knowledge of English, and that in his opinion, he could not stand up to the hard work in a factory.
(2) Mr. Ki
Mr. Ki is a shop assistant in a Chinese grocery. He is 22 and unmarried. The grocery opens from 8.00 a.m. to 9.00 p.m. Mr. Ki is provided with 2 meals and sleeps in the shop at night.
He earns $280 per lunar month, but sometimes gets a little extra by working on the two rest days (Sundays) to which he is entitled in a month. He is a relative of the employer and is free to leave the shop for a short while, if necessary. He gets double pay as well as a small New Year bonus at the end of the year.
/Mr. Ki