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not been living at the time in Fuk Shun's house. My informants were the man's sister and her daughter (i.e. the offending Fuk Hap's sister-in-law and niece, sister and niece also to the foki concerned). My notes continue as follows:
I said, later, wouldn't the unfairly treated one walk out? Mrs. FS and DM said No, neither he nor the others knew there was a differentiation when the money was actually given out. Now none dares speak out, but the undercurrent of dissatisfaction is very strong. Reason for not speaking out? Ones who get more fear they may get less: one who gets less fears others may also get less and blame him. Both fear being sworn out (naau, or laau, to scold, revile).
There were no other sanctions than gossip, and, of course, a refusal to continue the engagement beyond the next New Year or Dragon Boat festival.
On engagement many hired men asked for advances on their wages. Some obtained as much as two or three hundred dollars or even more in this way, and as a result received relatively little on pay days until the debt was paid off. There was no generally accepted way of doing this, arrangements for subtracting (kau: deduct) so much on each occasion being made individually by each foki with his employer. Fokis were notoriously hard up, but they tended also to be flamboyant spenders when they did have money. At Chinese New Year in particular, when, like almost all other paid workers in Hong Kong, they enjoyed double pay and several days holiday, they spent lavishly on clothes, hair styling, watches and fountain pens, girls, cinemas, theatres and gambling. Leung Shui Hei, one of Chung Fuk Her's fokis whose wages are described above came back from a spending spree in Kowloon on the eve of Chinese New Year 1953 and settled down to 3½ days' hard gambling in the course of which he lost everything he had bought and was left with the clothes he stood up in. He immediately asked for a new advance from his employer.
The same Leung Shui Hei was an interesting case in many ways. Aged about 28 in 1953 he was strong, good looking,