Telephone

Peter Wu & Others

9 May 2013

Peter Wu: I was reading an article about the demise of the public telephone booths in Kiwiland, caused without a shadow of doubt by the ubiquitous ownership of mobile phones. It is reported that about one third of the population has a smart phone and 60% plus of those aged between 18 and 50 have a mobile phone of some sort. With such a high connectivity, why would you need to make a phone call from a public telephone booth?

This brings back my personal memories of telephone during my childhood and teenager years.

I can’t recall exactly when my family was first connected to a land-line telephone. It could well be in the early 60s.

It took the family quite a while to decide to apply for one as relations, who already had the telephone, complained that they could not book us in advance of their calling around, during the Chinese New Year ‘拜年’.

So it was a two years’ wait before we had a knock on the door from the HKTC (HK Telephone Company) to advise us that we had been allocated a telephone.

Wow, the news was like winning a mini Lotto jackpot as we had heard stories of people paying bribes to leap-frog the long wait-list.

Then it was possibly another week or so before the phone was actually installed. Here comes the interesting part. The phone was installed alright but it wasn’t connected. We kept picking up the receiver, turning the dial in the hope that somebody would answer at the other end. As it turned out, it was the typical trick by the phone installer to milk a ‘lai-see’ from us. My dad knew this too well. He track the installer down and gave him a lai-see. 

Because phone connection was long, drawn out and difficult, people resorted to asking to use the telephone from the shops to make the quick phone call.

To curry favour and to offer a convenience, many shops and cafes simply had an extra one installed, for free access and use. Tell you what, the hygiene in the mouth pieces of those phones left a lot to be desired. In other words, they stink like shit. The phone company had to employ a small army of staff to install fragrances inside the month piece and to sanitise them with DDT, concentrated sulfuric acid and the occasional flame-throwers. No bull.

You may wonder why it was so difficult to get connected to a telephone in those days? I have no idea. However, there was a shortage of almost anything. No enough public buses, no enough schools, no enough hospitals and beds, no enough housing, not enough of consumer goods, everything. Plus I think there was a degree of complacency of public utilities companies who wanted to hold on to their monopoly position and played hard-to-get.

Had they known better, what would have happened to their bottom-line?

These days, an over-abundance of phones and providers is the new norm. There are so many of them and offerings that I get totally confused. I want to turn the clock back to the old days to make people realize and appreciate what it was like not having a mobile phone, and how simple life was without the intrusion of being texted by every frigging Tom Dick and Harry all the bloody time .

How times have changed and how this world has gone a full circle.

PS There were lots of ways for people to make some ‘extra money’ in those days. Phone connection was just one. I can tell you a million and one stories of how people make ‘tea money’ But that’s another story.

Bob Choi: Your account of having to pay "tea money" to get the phone connected is absolutely true. It happened to us as well...those good ole days! You have whetted our appetite. Please tell us more!

You should start writing a collection of short stories and put them into a book: "Once upon a Time in Hong Kong"!

I have decided to e-publish my novella "Lamma Island". It should come out within a month.