In the previous article, I shared how pressured I felt when facing the environment and lessons at school, but there were also times when I felt happy with various types of entertainment during holidays, after exam periods, and of course, during the long school break during class promotion. One of the things I enjoyed the most was playing soccer with neighbors at the soccer field in front of the house.

Frequently Playing with 2 Best Friends Who Lived in the Same Building

My mother had a close friend who lived in the same building. At that time, we lived on the 3rd floor and my mother’s friend lived on the 4th floor. My mother’s friend was a Thai national who was also married to a Hong Kong man. The activity they did most often was Yam Cha. This mother from Thailand had 2 sons; the first child was 1 year older than me and the second child was 1 year younger than me, so we became very close friends.

If there wasn’t a lot of homework or exams, usually my mother would allow me to go down to the soccer field in front of the house to play soccer or badminton together with my friends for about 1–2 hours. Usually, if they went down to the field, they would shout my name, and if my mother gave permission, I would go down to play with them.

The soccer field we visited most often on On Hing Street, Yuen Long.

Our Top Favorite Toys Were Styrofoam Toy Airplanes and Small Firecracker Pistols

During my childhood, small firecracker pistols were not yet banned by the Hong Kong government, so I asked my mother to buy one and played together with my friends from the same building. Besides that, what we bought most often were toy airplanes made of styrofoam because it was the most favorite toy in Hong Kong at that time at a quite cheap price. However, sometimes because we were mischievous, we often flew those toy airplanes out of the house window and then they would disappear.

Toy airplanes made of styrofoam were very popular in the 1970s–1980s.

Firecracker pistols that have been banned in Hong Kong today.

This grocery store on Kau Yuk Road is one of the places where I frequently bought styrofoam toy airplanes and firecracker pistols.

Becoming a Target of Yuen Long Gangsters Several Times

During the 1970s–1980s, several areas in the New Territories, especially the Tuen Mun area, had the most gangsters at that time. Yuen Long was also one of the areas where there were many gangster groups that at that time frequently targeted school children to join them. Several times we were called over by a group of gangsters, and usually we would immediately run away and hide in a grocery store located precisely beneath our house, which was respected by the gangster groups there. When I revisited the Yuen Long area recently, the owner of that shop was still around, and the shop and the goods he sells did not differ much from when I was a child.

The grocery store where we often bought drinks was also a place of refuge from the Yuen Long gangsters.