Slice of life
From the South China Morning Post this week in 1963
The water shortage was so bad and stored water so precious that residents of two tenements in Western watched their homes burn rather than try to douse the flames with the water they had stored.
As a result more than 300 people - mostly from the lower income group - lost their homes and belongings when two storeys of two adjacent buildings were destroyed by the fire.
Sea water was pumped from the waterfront to the fire, but the sea water hose burst, forcing firemen to use fresh water from mains to augment the single sea water hose.
The fire broke out when water restrictions were at their height, with the colony on a once-every-four-days supply.
People were being told soapy water was good for plants and to use surplus bath water in gardens.
All such entreaties from the government were accompanied by the slogan: Water is precious.
In the courts, a Ho Man Tin woman was fined $75, or a week in jail, for wasting water.
She ignored a police officer who watched her half-fill a kerosene tin from the street water main before rinsing the tin and emptying it all out. She was arrested when she did exactly the same thing with her second tin.
And the correspondence columns were full of people complaining about non-existent water pressure, how they had missed out on their four hours of water supply and how tea brewed with a mixture of the finest leaf, chlorine, ended up tasting like a dollop of the good old family doctor's worst concoction.
The Bela Vista Hotel in Macau was drawing clientele with a simple ad it lived up to. It read: 'The ideal place to get away from it all. Breathtaking sea view, peace and quiet, courteous service and reasonable rates. Please write, cable or phone Macau 3821.'
The Hong Kong Hilton opened with a prolonged bang.
The world's longest string of firecrackers - all 298 feet (90 metres) - was set off in a sustained 45-minute roar to mark its official opening.
An elderly Buddhist monk calmly put a match to his petrol-drenched yellow robes in a main intersection of Saigon and burned to death before thousands of watching Vietnamese.
The monk, who was more than 70 years old, took his action when protesting against what he called government persecution of Buddhists.
The grisly demonstration was the latest in a wave of incidents between Buddhists and the government. The Buddhists demanded they receive guarantees of religious freedom and social justice, while the government has strongly denied discrimination against any religion.
Russia launched into space the world's first female cosmonaut - 26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova, who was busy circling the Earth in spaceship Vostok 6.
Happy crowds in Red Square cheered another Soviet 'first' while Tereshkova smiled hugely from her spacesuit in telecasts from the cosmos.
Excitement reached a pitch of intensity not known since the Soviet Union shook the world with the launching of Yuri Gagarin, the world's first space traveller.
Meanwhile, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the United States had no plans to put a woman in space.
A spokesman said American women astronauts were 'way down the road in the future'.
A magistrate issued a warrant for the arrest of film star Lin Dai after the court had not been able to get her to appear for more than 21/2 months to answer two traffic summonses.
The summonses alleged that the actress failed to inform the police within 14 days of two alleged traffic offences and who was driving her car on November 25 and December 17 the previous year.
From the classifieds: Three small plots 2,500 to 4,000 square feet, available near Yuen Long. On paved road near main road and bus stop. Suitable conversion. $2 square foot.
An ad for Teacher's offered one suggestion to help overcome water shortage problems.