How Hong Kong’s ‘Christmas triplets’ brought good fortune to their sampan-dwelling family

“Thirty-five year old Mrs Fung Kei, a mother of five children who lives on a sam­pan, had her first look at her day-old triplets yesterday and said she did not want to give them away,” reported the South China Morning Post on December 27, 1967.

Mrs Fung, whose babies were born two months premature on Christmas Day, had only learned she would be having triplets two weeks earlier. “I was very frightened when the doctor at the Jockey Club Clinic in Chaiwan told me that I was going to have three babies,” she told the Post. “There is no room on our boat for so many little ones and we have very little money […] How can I take these little ones home? But I do not want to give them away.”

When their father first saw them, he “smiled proudly but wryly and wondered how he was going to make ends meet with eight children”, according to the paper. “I’m a happy man but it means it’ll be more difficult for the family. We don’t want to give the children away so I’ll just have to earn more money somehow,” he said.

On January 6, 1968, the Post reported that the father of the three boys – named Yau-chi, Yau-moon and Yau-foon, or Wisdom, Richness and Generosity – had been offered a job by the Resettlement Department and the family had been “given a large room in the Chaiwan Resettlement Estate” on “compassionate grounds”. The 160 sq ft flat would be furnished using funds from Operation Santa Claus.

“Sampan dwellers, Mr and Mrs Fung Kwai and five of their eight children, spent their first night ashore last night in a new home in the Chaiwan Resettlement Estate,” the Post reported on February 13.

The “Christmas triplets” left hospital on February 22 and joined the rest of the family in their new home. “I am a very happy and lucky woman,” said Mrs Fung. “Everyone has been so kind to us. Our new baby boys have brought us good fortune.”