A generation of Shau Kei Wan women lifted themselves out of production line

SHAU Kei Wan in the 1970s offered few career opportunities. As industry boomed, landfill narrowed the seafront and factories sprouted. Gone was not only the fishing village of yore, but also the resettlement estates and squatter huts built on hills prone to outbreaks of fire.

With so bleak a future, many girls in the area continued their education only to primary-school level, preferring to leave their studies and earn a living in the factories.

But there was a group who did not want to grow old on the production line. They attended evening classes so they could leave their dead-end jobs for more respectable, white-collar work. One renowned night school was Shau Kei Wan Canossian Evening School, which girls dashed to from work and where they sat through three-hour classes on an empty stomach.

A Chinese-language book published last month, Every Night At Six-Thirty - Women Workers Who Went To Evening School In The 70s (Step Forward Multimedia Company, $50), records the experience of the girls.

The spark behind the project was Choi Po-king, associate professor of Chinese University's Faculty of Education and a former instructor at Cannossian Evening School. 'After attending the funerals of two close friends - one was Canossian's administrator and the other the headmistress - I reunited with many former students whom I had not seen for 20 years and we exchanged telephone numbers,' she said.

'I told myself, the night school days are over but we mustn't forget them.' Soon afterwards, Ms Choi asked former students and teachers to write memoirs detailing their family life, night school activities and experience at the factories. They were also asked to remember life in Shau Kei Wan's fishing community.