Actor Sam Lee
Sam Lee is a rare breed: a local actor known for his talent, not his sex-symbol looks. He first caught the public’s imagination in Fruit Chan’s “Made in Hong Kong,” for which he was named best newcomer at the 1997 Hong Kong Film Awards, and later as the brains behind the obscene lyrics of disbanded rappers LMF.
I lived in Nam Tin until I was 20, in a public estate. It was fun. It was the kind of fun that people living in private housing don't know about: kicking around in flip-flops, yelling hi to your neighbors through the windows, playing soccer with a gang of kids, catching cicadas, baking sweet potatoes. Nam Tin was near farmland back then. We dug up the potatoes, and grilled them on fires in the mountains.
I have two elder brothers and two elder sisters. The daughter of my eldest brother is two years older than me, my youngest sister is 11 years older. Four generations lived under our roof. I was the radical one.
I was good at infuriating my parents. When I finished school at age 15, I was confused about what I should be and had fights with my parents. My father would tie me to a bunk bed with an iron chain and punch me, and after being beaten I would have to bow in front of a shrine in our home all night. That’s how my parents educated me.
Now I’m showbiz I realize it's important to treasure my parents. I don’t know how to be angry with them now.
I worked for my dad in a fruit wholesale market for half a year. You could not imagine the working environment at night in Yau Ma Tei: Gangs, fights, negotiations. It was a true microcosm of lower-class Hong Kong.
I worked as an illegal electrical engineer at 15. And I worked on the demolition of the Hilton. Today, whenever I pass by the sites I once worked at I feel a burst of affection. These are places with my blood and sweat.