XN000022-1976-12-05 — Page 9

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These commercial projects will totally transform Shek Kip Mei

Housing Estate.

The old Mark I blocks are not giving in without a fight.

Though built hurriedly, they were built solidly too and their skeletons

of concrete are laced with sinews of steel bars and veins of steel rods

which withstand blow after blow of the hi-ball until the concrete shreds

away and the steel framework surrenders reluctantly and sags like

lattice-work on the dusty rubble.

Section by section, the hi-ball shears away the six-storey

blocks, and rooms where families grew up and children reached adulthood

are suddenly exposed for the first time to the glare of the sun, tattered

joss signs still pasted over doorways and small fung shui mirrors still

nailed on walls.

What stories these walls could tell if they could speak

Of families rising above such humble living conditions to gain

fortune in commerce through hard work; of children who learnt their first

lessons in the rooftop schools above their blocks and learnt those lessons

well enough to now occupy good jobs in the Government, leading commercial

houses or big factories; of other children who migrated to the United

States, Canada, Britain or Europe and conséquent prosperity, steeled in

their determination to succeed by the experience of growing up in a

resettlement estate; of marriages and births, festivals and anniversaries,

joy and sadness.

life

The families these blocks housed all strived for a better

and now these old blocks are going so that other families can

enjoy a better life in the new Shek Kip Mei Estate.

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