THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY.
MINISTERING ANGELS TO
THE POOR OF
OF HONGKONG
A
S my eyes became Rccustomed to the
Stygian gloom
made out shopea-
I
human forms which had ethereally materialised around five paire
Staff Writer Tony with a
Family
of
of
opes
Fighting off swarms flies which buzzed in 'the doorway—if a rickety bam- bou frame supporting 繡
may plece of wood could be called doorway--I
家
poked head and shoulders.
over 4 muddy threshold,
into the dark interior.
Dirty boxes and filthy. rugged clothes hanging from nails and rusty hooks stuck i11 the flimsy
roof swayed dismally under the weight of countless flies.
فراح
Inside the hat in Nam Cheong Stroot
Motta goes the round Welfare Case
An overpowering odour of mustiness and decay hung thick as the dust in the air. Venturing no further 1 listened the conversa-
of this lady. There she They are, in fact, welfare tion between # European stad, almost doubled up in a missionaries, The need for middle-aged fibre-tin-bamboo structure, the work they are doing has chattily Inquiring after the long been fett and is now The woman was sitting on wcupants' welfare as though heing realised, her boda piece of
WOM Abre it
the most natural propped up on two stones thing in the world.
Jacly and it
Chinese woman.
half heartedly feeding four boys from a single bowl of watery rice gruel.
"How
the previous year's figure) and 51,542 Interviews,
BO.
This tends to indicate that each case is accorded on an average of two visits a
this is not year, but Some cases are visited once a quarter; others are visited twice a year, and some not at all.
Worker
a fishing net for the husband when he was making a living by fishing.
This family has been register ad with Family Welfare since 1952 and has received o loun of 3320 for a fruils stall. Through the recommendation of a Came Worker the boy, suffering from TB in the bones is
monted at Selyingpun family receives food grants, mille powder, multi-purpose tood, and summer and winter clothes.
As the Case Worker demended the rickety staircase the` woman shouted "Goodbye
At 3.33 p.m. the Case Worker was climbing up a narrow stair- ence in a tensament iar. Kilung Street. Following hard on her you." heals I squeezed into one of ave cubicles which divided the room and saw....
A middle-aged woman sitting When a case is registered on her bed and talking to the
Caso Worker. with a centre, information
As she snowered questions about her hudth, the about the family is taken welfare of her family, and Ire and fled. For the first year needs, she looked at her bene each case in visited fairly actrees with a devotion akin frequently, NO that the to worship!
centro can assess the in- If you have ever harboured dividual needs and--more any doubts about the gratitude important still-is in a posi- of these simple people, rest tion to check the validity of assured that your dobuts were
family's claim.
Lach us go "behind tha sotnes"
with a Case Worker.
The squatter hut, which we visited at 3.15 In the afternoon, LAPUDES man ⚫ged 50, his wife, The Hongkong Family and four sons de cldest Welfare Society has four under 10 years of age. she is typical of centres in the Colony, two The hat is in the middle of the on each side of the barbour. Nam Cheong Street, Shumahuipo, the many workers in Hongkong Family Welfare An iden of the magnitude and is flanked un both aldes of Society who, above their of the work this institution " range of similar ding Buc dwellinga, All those rembling
Well,
are you getting on?" the lady was asking in other duties at the centre, has been doing is provided Chinese. An apathetic "tuk la" (alright) and a wave of have a quota of Interview: by the 1954 Case Work Re-le huts seem to have sprouted from the ground like 窳 row of ugly mushrooms. In violent the hand which took in the and visits to fulfil
contrast, there are some streel
port.
six-by-four interior was the Hence, the peripatectic
This lists a total number sails, displaying colourful wares woman's reply.
members of this welfare of 27,745 cases dealt with of a cheap quality, which ap- Now, you might well organisation are known, and during the year (an in pear to have staked their claim
Tvad the identity very aptly, as Case Workers. crease of about 7,000 over on the
wonder about
William Hickey
FROM
THE
WINGS
A ROYAL SCENE IN
I WATCH RURITANIA
Lisbon. when I saw the young Duke of TOU just couldn't help Kent at the side of the Duchess,
Y
enjoying the marriage of Princess Maria Pla und Prince Alexander in the seaside village of Cascais.
in
with Princess Alexandra a few
steps behind. Seeing them made
me realise that it wasn't un opera production,
Just
before
the less
BWV
13
-fluent familles.
The family wo struggling along on an income of between 1wo and three dollars dally, depending on whether the husband can get work regularly as a casund earth coolic.
His wife, in a vain effort to make ends mest, pastes paper
for bags and spends the rest, DI time looking after her children, whom
sho
| afford to send to school.
Just as the Case Worker was about to leave on her rounds 1 noticed that something Wis arniss! Was it the poof light?
Nol Three of the boys had Well, Acti was over, Now "cover" hands and feet and the
for the Besta.
unfounded!
and thank
We were off again. The next stop, the Shek Kip Mel Resetile mont Area, was reached shortly after 4 p.m. There a lão victim's mamity reported that all was well.
#
At 4.30 pm, after 100g walk along a twisting footpath in Shok Kip Mei Village, the Case Worker visited a family whose head was suffering an in- curabiù discuso end was unable to work.
It is ironical to think how simple these needs are; how The wife was dejectedly Quad- Jittle it takes to satisfy, then ing her five children, but anled and make them happy, and get - when the Care Worker appeaI- how far removed their chatices ed. The hut, an ancieng structure of attaining this happiness, were, sunk in sludge and refuse, is oc- till the advent of soetha welfare cupied by nine families. case workers.
The Case Worker renewed her It was evident that, “Hope" offer of a $1,000 down to the in the
• cooked food of theen poor, family to start walked hand in hand' with' tim" stall, but the women ebrugged
cycs
A corner of the Kilung Street tenement
Case Worker. The way the and turned it down, mying that woman trosly discussed her she was afraid that they could problems illustrated her joy in not pay backs. the thought that "someone cures whether I live or die."
With four children to look after, the youngest sudering from TB in the log bones-làn mother has taken in another child whom she tends for 50 cents a day.
The condition is hereditary
With 10 families Ulving in fivo and is known as Syndactyly cubicles and three bed spaces, (Lobster-Hand and Claw-Feet), the tainted air was soon un
[youngunt boy had six LOBS ON Vino flowed
from enormous och footi The mother was long bars in the gardens and in similarly sfflicted. the reception rooms, and if no fountains flowed with wine, Although, minki
the well, you.
there must have been Duchess does this sort of thing enough wine drunk to keep the wonderfully well. She looks fountains in Trafalgar Square It was like taking part in tremendously elegant. And she going all day. a new light opera set seems to have a certain special
grace when she is abroad. some present Ruritania where the sun always shines.
Where nobles
are all elegant and open-handed. Where peasants are happy and contented in their lot. Where there are fiestas and must have been 10 yards on vino and dancing every The girls in other day.
A 10-yard train
of
Umberto, the ex - King Italy, arrived with his daughter, the bride, who had a magni- ficent embroidered train that
The Cam worker shook her head adlar and told me that a great number of the poor suffered from, this fatalistio-attitude.
On the way back through that village 11 struck me that all the fles from Peking had migrated to Hongkong!
It was getting dark as we The girls in costume strolled The youngest child is inflicted healthily close! Ragged clothes, morged from the village with around in gay little groups. The with "Polydactyly." Italian monarchists ctume tn Although suffering from ab- diety old fruit crates and floors must calood on our shoes and tèsi with their boners and
their feet poverty and blighted by littered with dirt added to the buzz of dies still throbbing in "Vivas." The aristocracy und nature the children trollcked
squalor of the cramped quarters, our cars.... the gentry ate and drank and and were quite happy. talked and talked
It was rather strange to seo It was only then that I fully yellowed photographs of a realised what "service to others"! The family has been under wedding and other ceremonies entailed and appreciated the To complete the scene there the "eye" of Family Wallare for prominently displayed in tattered gowns.
in a calibro of were young romantic students three year now, and, apart from frame-
the humanitarian treasured legacy of philosopher - cum - psychologist They came food and clothing grants, has better the peasant from Coimbra,
which days the Oxford
struck a Case Workers who do their jobs, costumes curtsled and bowed, Portugal.
been given a loan of $30 to buy discordant note.
e unassumingly and well. The Hallan monarchista lining
I could hardly believe the the entrance shouted: "Vival scene was true as I stood Vival"
in the Square of the As- sumption and waited to go into the little white- washed church.
Lovely girls
The sun was as warm as a June day in England. It shone on the sea. It shone on the green and pink and blue houses. It brought out the colours in the flowers, It brought out the colours of the dresseя.
Everybody was doing all the things that should be done Ruritania,
jn
The little church with its orate gilt decorations was lea
10 suffocation with enough royally to fill up 20 or 30 kingdoms.
The ceremony was soon over. The bride put a ring on
her husband's finger. The bride- groom then followed suit.
I was in the meristy
they signed the register.
when
of
They seem to have a sort of privilege to attend this sort of thing. And when they want to do honour to a personality they cast their gowns
to the ground in the Walter Raleigh tradition.
The bill
1
uride I course, But they also did it for the Duchess of Kent, "Shea English. She's beautiful" they told me.
They did it for the
Tho- Their gowns aro not tattered prince was looking П Hittle for poverty's sake. When they worn. "But yes," he said to me, have a romance they tour cit "we could have dono with a bit from the bottom of the something Bigger. Whint a gown. And I should say that crush."
It made an unforgettable picture of the several score
the students by the end of of young Italian girls who
the evening were having quite Then it was out into the sun- a tearing time with the Italian had been brought over to shing
again, with Dreworks girls. line the red carpet into the crackling off and lots and lots church.
more "Vivas." But the whole
What did it all cost?
I`cati- business was never, out of con mate that the flesta miet have" trol. The stage management cost £0,000. And with the other was superb.
They were lovely girls and wearing all the they were different gain pensant costumOS of Italy-red, gold, blue, with Jace and strango head-dreSHOE Tod stockings, green stockings, white stockings. They were out of a gigantic and brilliant pro- duction of "Cavalleria Rusti- cana."
You get guarded precision
To the reception
receptions partion, hospitality end goodness-knows-what, wodding must “have_tOFL twoch £15,000 and £20,000,
the be
Well, you couldn't put on a
Statúlaka, stekt ameep, second hjund: 1310 gold- applied dial
$700.00
go
Sante: ss, above" with... 14X-
The diamotide and mink and lavish production like this di uniforms were swept off in their the sheep, as every good
cars for a little dříve through manager" "known,
the countryside to the reception
Behind the rows of police-in at Estoril and if it wasn't at n But it wow fun, 11 you didn't' their uniforma of blue with palacio, well it was at the take it too seriously, 137, you spotices white-the people stood soolo Hotel, whiche te rather tried not to think of the resi and sang songs', they waltech, botter kopt-up than? mors, world of 1985.
The big care started to awad paces can afford.
up with the diplomats and the generale in gorgeous sindforma, the princes And. peintesse
1 vel no berated to lear
the care glided through the
The old-weer countryside driving" donlotyn afood, wit Dumb wondrous. LookiZE
The boys its the village
that. 2. couldn't batsmen mag kyog, strests, wavid Chile Modér
1 %low that when I niiden to
Bagand
Sociét
in the new
Year
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