{"id":6009,"date":"2014-01-06T14:50:51","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T06:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=6009"},"modified":"2021-06-18T15:03:38","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T07:03:38","slug":"letter-writers-yau-ma-tei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2014\/01\/letter-writers-yau-ma-tei\/","title":{"rendered":"The last letter-writers of Yau Ma Tei"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Scribes specializing in writing and translating documents into English soldier away in declining trade<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Reporters: Louie Cheng, Tommy Lee, Cherry Wong<\/p>\n<p>Editor: Vivian Ng<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/82080735\" height=\"281\" width=\"500\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Just a few feet away from the bustling main street in Yau Ma Tei, around 10 stall owners in Jade Market still practice a trade that stretches back to the early days of Hong Kong\u2019s British colonial history. Known as \u201cpublic secretaries\u201d or \u201cletter guys\u201d, they write letters and legal documents and fill in tax returns.<\/p>\n<p>Before the first phase of compulsory free education was introduced in 1971, many people in Hong Kong were illiterate due to wars and poverty. Letter writers performed an important role in drafting official and legal documents. As English was the only official language before 1974, letter writers had to be literate in English and many were retired civil servants, police officers, school principals or teachers.<\/p>\n<p>Between the 1950\u2019s to 1970\u2019s, many letter writers gathered around at the \u201cRed Brick House\u201d\u00a0 at Yunnan Lane, on Shanghai Street, in Yau Ma Tei. Many of their customers were lower middle class \u2013 there were construction workers, hawkers and even bar and club hostesses.<\/p>\n<p>As the district underwent development, the letter writers have relocated twice already and are due to \u00a0move again when the construction of Central Kowloon route begins in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese became an official language in 1974 and the primacy of English has waned since the handover in 1997. More than 93 per cent of the population is literate and some are even filing their taxes online. The letter writers\u2019 trade is becoming obsolete. The government stopped issuing new licences to letter writers long ago and those who are still working are few and aging. Although they insist they will carry on after their stalls are relocated, it is only a matter of time before their trade disappears altogether.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tucked away behind the busy streets of Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong&#8217;s last professional letter-writers ply a trade that has existed in Hong Kong for more than a hundred years. Their heyday was during colonial times, when many hired their English translation and writing services. The field is in decline now, but the letter writers say they&#8217;ll keep on writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,15,1791],"tags":[67,33,91],"class_list":["post-6009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hong-kong-life","category-multimedia","category-multimedia-january-2014","tag-community","tag-culture","tag-hk-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6009"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6053,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6009\/revisions\/6053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}