The 102-year-old had a grand, traditional marriage ceremony in a Chungshan village in Guangdong province. She was carried to her husband's village, next to her's, in a decorated sedan chair. Musicians led the procession and children ran alongside announcing the arrival of the bride. 'It was a great occasion with guests from both villages. I was 26 and my husband was 22. I was very shy and afraid to even look at him,' she recalls. Her eyes are bright as she remembers her great day. However, the happy memory of the marriage ceremony itself would prove to be the only consolation in a long and difficult marriage. Her husband died about five years ago on the mainland. They separated more than 20 years before his death. Two of their four children are still alive, but she has disowned her surviving son 'because he does not love his mother and father. He loves his country. The rascal ran away to join Mao Zedong after he finished his schooling here in Hong Kong and I haven't seen him since. I know he is still alive because he came to Hong Kong last year and visited his sister. He left a message suggesting I should go to Zhuhai and visit him. Imagine that.' Her second son died when she had an accident and miscarried just days before he was due, and her youngest, a daughter, died in a rat attack at their home in Lan Kwai Fong. She can't remember exactly when the deaths occurred, but she knows the baby girl was just seven days old at the time. Ms Yeung does not blame her father for arranging her marriage which turned out to be loveless, but speaks wistfully of a rich man in Taiwan who owned three shops and pestered her father constantly for permission to marry her. She had travelled to Taiwan when she was 19 to help her older brother set up a shoe shop. The man who wanted to marry her had shops in the same street, including a rice shop. But her family decided that allowing her to marry in Taiwan would mean they would lose her forever. So the marriage to the 'no good, lay-about gambler great-grandson of a rich man' in the next village was arranged and she went home for the ceremony. They came to Hong Kong after the birth of her first daughter, some time before 1930. Her older sister was already here and offered them a home with her. The other three children were born in Hong Kong. Her husband worked in a hotel in Central and she worked as a $3-a-month amah while her mother-in-law looked after the children. She never knew how much her husband earned, because he gambled it all away. She remembers how he regularly lost even his double pay before Lunar New Year. She bought the children new clothes and shoes with her tiny savings, but there was nothing left for New Year goodies. Turning to happier memories, Ms Yeung says she had three years of schooling in China, 'but we were not interested and as soon as the teacher's back was turned we started playing. I did manage to learn to write characters with a brush and can still read a few simple characters, but I can't write any more.' Before being accepted by an old aged home run by the Chinese Rhenish Church 22 years ago, she lived all her life in Hong Kong in Wing Wah Lane, opposite Lan Kwai Fong. She was transferred to the Kwai Shing East Care and Attention Home also run by the Chinese Rhenish Church four years ago. 'People are always asking me what I eat to have lived so long. The secret to longevity is exercise. All my life, I've started the day at six in the morning with vigorous exercises. There is no health without exercise. That's what people should do if they want to live a long life. 'I am now 103, not 102. I was born in 1901 and had my last birthday in October. By Chinese reckoning, I turned 103 the day after my birthday. So don't listen to them. I know how old I am, and I am 103.' Her daughter lives in Aberdeen and she looks forward to regular visits from her, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren for yum cha. Ms Yeung walks very quickly, leaning lightly on a stick. 'I don't need this thing, but I use it just to please the people in charge of this home,' she says. 'I enjoy life here. I sing at all our gatherings and sign up for every outing. Life is good and I still have a good appetite.' Then almost as an afterthought she says: 'Is the Morning Post only 100 years old? That means I am older than a Hong Kong institution.' Behind The News returns tomorrow.
