OLD Mr Chow and his wife have been selling ducks and chickens in a Mongkok street market for more than 40 years. Mr Chow arrived from China in 1949 hoping to make money and go home. But he never returned; instead he got married, had five children and settled in Hong Kong. The couple worked hard and made enough money for all five of their children to go to university. Four went to Canada and one stayed in Hong Kong. His eldest son, Ander Chow Kum-chong, gained a PhD in engineering in Canada and his younger brother, Patrick Chow Kum-shing, also studied there. Both decided to make Canada their home, until their father became ill. Then after nearly 20 years in Toronto, they returned to Hong Kong with their children to look after him. Now their story is about to be told to millions of people around the world, as the Hong Kong family chosen to appear in a special international television co-production to celebrate this year's United Nations International Year of the Family. The Hong Kong segment has been produced by RTHK's Common Sense team which joined up with nine international television companies to co-produce the 10-part documentary series, each one focusing on one family and the upheavals they face in their particular country. 'Families around the world are facing great changes and challenges. In Hong Kong, because of our political situation, a major source of concern is the trials and tribulations caused by emigration,' RTHK's deputy director of Broadcasting Chu Pui-hing said. Family will be broadcast weekly from December 19 on TVB Jade at 7pm. The first episode will feature the Chow family and show how they lived under the same roof and how the different habits and expectations of the older Chows, their educated sons and Canadian-born grandchildren became sources of conflict. The camera crew started filming the Chow family in January this year. The crew went to their home during Chinese New Year; to Canada in March to follow the eldest son's return to Hong Kong; and joined the family's three-day visit to China in April. Filming finished in May. The eldest son narrates the events. The younger son Patrick returned first in 1993; his older brother Ander during filming for the documentary. Initially when Patrick came back, he stayed in his father's flat, an old residential building in Mongkok with no elevators. Conflicts arose between the Westernised son and the father, who felt his role as the patriarch in the family was being challenged. 'When the son said, 'Listen to me, Pa,' he meant give me a chance to speak to you,' RTHK producer Joanna Leung Wai-yee said. 'But the father didn't understand and misinterpreted it as meaning a father has to listen to his son, when he felt he should be respected by his son. 'There was also conflict between the first and the third generations when the grandfather wanted to watch the programme Bao the Judge and his grandchildren to watch the cartoon series Ranma 1/2,' she said. Other family stories in the series come from Australia, Poland, New Zealand, Brazil, Russia, Japan, Korea, Canada and India. The episode from Poland deals with a mining family in Silesia, the most polluted city in Poland. Mining has been a way of life for generations in Silesia and during communist days, miners had many privileges. But change in many forms has now hit the region, and the Mzryk family faces disintegration and cultural disruption for the first time. The Brazilian episode features the Miranda family, migrants from the poverty-stricken northeast of the country who are now living in the shanty settlements of Sao Paulo and fighting for better conditions in their community.
