Fung Lai-wong, scaffolder.
Age: 40.
Career path: I was born and educated in Hong Kong. After I finished secondary school I followed in my dad's footsteps and became a scaffolder. I never really thought of doing anything else because from 14 I had to help my dad out. He always needed help and there aren't so many people willing to do this job because of the danger of falling, and because some people can't take working at heights. Nowadays young guys can take the scaffolding down, but there aren't many who have learned the art of building it. My dad never taught me that much about scaffolding, but over the years I have become an expert through experience. I think I'm better at this trade now than my dad was. Today the risk is more attractive because scaffolding workers get paid $1,000 a day, plus meals and transport.
Years ago wages were much lower. My dad and I opened our own company, Kin On Scaffolding, in 1980 and we had eight employees; now we have around 50. My dad retired a few years ago so I run the business now. I am married with three children.
Fung's Day: I get up at 6.30 am and go for yum cha in Mongkok, where I live. At 8 am I meet my workers in the neighbourhood and give them their tasks for the day, then send them to various building sites depending on what projects we have on. The work we get ranges from big, $10 million operations to $150,000 jobs. I will then go to a site where the job requires more supervision than others, and check on the workers and the scaffolding. At 11.30 am I have a two-hour lunch break, then I return to work and perhaps go back to the site, or a different one. I also meet clients during the day. I have a short tea-break at 3.30 pm, then work until around 4.30 pm. If we have a pressing deadline on one of our sites I will go and work myself, perhaps until late at night. It takes about two days to build one floor of scaffolding, and we use bamboo because it's much cheaper aluminium, and knotting is quicker than using screws.
It is also lighter to carry and work with. The company is doing quite well because a lot of our deals were made last year when the economy was still good. But I'm not worried about next year because the building trade seems to be quite prosperous.
Ambition: Make $10 million and retire.