Invisible women: how Hong Kong’s colonial criminal justice system treated female suspects
- In an excerpt from Women, Crime and the Courts: Hong Kong 1841-1941, Patricia O’Sullivan lays out the experiences of two females with the colonial courts
You only want me here for my money!” screamed Wong Po. “If I stay, you’ll just go on robbing me and gambling it all away like you have your pension.”
“You’re the thief!” retorted Kwong Cheung. “You took my watch and the jewellery.”
“Me, the thief?” Wong was incensed. “Who took that money out of my trunk? Who had the keys for it all the time? I didn’t.”
“Well, get out of here, then,” puffed Kwong, former Supreme Court messenger and owner of this comfortable home in Wan Chai. “You’re no use to me.”
“I will, I’m going to,” burbled Wong, “but I’ll have my $100 from you first, I’m not going without my money!”
This was February 1901, and two years earlier, Wong had been enjoying the high life in Macau. As the former mistress of a wealthy foreign gentleman, Wong was not worried about her future, having been handed by the man’s executor some $500 after the funeral. This was about five years’ wages for most working Chinese men at the turn of the 20th century, and far more than she might have earned on her own account.