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SCMP Reporter

A group of secondary students is trying to preserve Hong Kong's fading history by interviewing elderly people about their past.

'HK Stories Interview' is part of RTHK's TV programme Hong Kong Stories, which documents the city's social, cultural and economical development.

Students from four secondary schools - Ling Liang Church M.H. Lau Secondary School, PHC Wing Kwong College, Queen Elizabeth School and SKH Leung Kwai Yee Secondary School - were split into groups.

Each group interviewed several elderly people on one of a wide variety of topics, including marriage, snacks, the second world war, education, trends and reading habits.

The groups then compiled detailed reports, which have been posted on the etvonline website at http://hkstories.etvonline.tv/ for public viewing.

The research and interview experience reminded the students of the harsh living conditions  their parents and grandparents faced, and taught them about the city's history.

'We shouldn't take things for granted. We are very lucky to live in this [peaceful] era,' said Kiki Lee Ki, a Form Four student at SKH Leung Kwai Yee Secondary School.

Kiki and four classmates were inspired by the anti-Japanese sentiments in China and Hong Kong a few years ago.

They interviewed four elderly people to find out more about the lives of Hong Kong people during the second world war Japanese occupation.

Some stories that the students were told illustrated the horrors of war.

One of their interviewees told them he saw his neighbour, a hungry mother, kill and eat her daughter.

'This shows how people lose their humanity because of hunger,' said Polly Ng Yuen-lee, another group member.

This cannibalism was not that surprising at the time. As food rations dwindled, people were forced to eat leaves and even horse faeces.

'One interviewee said there were corpses everywhere, especially those of horses. Some vendors were [supposedly] selling horse meat, but the interviewee later realised that a lot of that meat was actually human flesh,' said another group member, Catherine Lee Ching-yee.

Some students worked on lighter topics, such as snacks. Many snacks used to be homemade, reflecting the fact that post-war Hong Kong was still poverty-stricken.

'I think the changes in snacks reflect the changes in a society,' said Erica Chan Yeuk-yu, a Form Six  student. The girls learned that a favourite snack back then was bread crusts dipped in sweet soup.

Other snacks that have disappeared include water cockroaches and fei kei lam, or 'flying olives'.

The fei kei lam vendors threw paper bags of preserved olives up to the flats from the street, and the customers - who didn't want to come down because there were no lifts in most buildings at that time - threw the money down from their flat.

And it is this human touch that modern snacks lack.

'The process of selling fei kei lam is very interesting. The sellers were like acrobats, and they played erhu and sang,' said Erica.

'But now society is too commercialised and mechanical.

'Elderly people miss these snacks, not because they are particularly tasty, but because of the sentiments they bring.'

Hong Kong Stories runs until January 7, 2007, on ATV Home every Sunday at 7.30pm.



Glimpses of the past