【SHARED】Mr Chan | The Warmth behind a Mask: A Day in the Life of a Night-shift Postman
Mr Chan is a postman who has been serving Hong Kong for the past 20 years. Amidst the coronavirus outbreak, he volunteered to work extra night shifts.
Over the days after the Chinese New Year, I have encountered people who were overjoyed to receive the masks I delivered to their doorsteps. They were brimming with joy and anticipation–some even shed tears. Every gratitude and smile I received motivates me more. Whenever I recall these warm memories amidst public health crises that are so impactful to my 20 years of experience as a postman, I can’t help but be moved to tears.
Powerlessness
Due to the local mask shortage in Hong Kong, most HongKongers turned to overseas ordering masks from a variety of websites. This together with the temporary suspension of postal service, the post office was overwhelmed with a huge amount of masks delivered from overseas. Hong Kong Postal Service resumed its service on 30 January. At the time, the distribution of labour was a big problem because of the huge amount of masks awaiting delivery. In order to deliver them all as soon as possible, we were asked to work extra shifts and began night-time deliveries. I was one of those volunteers. I became a night-time postman because I wanted to deliver all the masks to the public. It is the responsibility of Hong Kong postmen to do their job well, and be in solidarity with all HongKongers.
Touched
I still remember the day when I was about to leave after the recipients signed off their masks. They called out to me, opened their package, and handed me the masks. They told me, “we already have enough on hand. You all are in greater need of masks as you are working day and night, interacting with all kinds of people. Please accept these masks as our gratitude for your hard work.” This long-lost Hong Kong spirit of solidarity and care moved me to tears.
Work
All night-shifts are on a voluntary basis. To my knowledge, each post office sent around 8 to 12 postmen so there are about 150 postmen working night shifts including myself. For the extra shifts, we get paid between HK$100-200 per hour depending on our contracts and time of service. I regularly work six days a week, a total of 48 hours. On top of that, I work 3.5 hours more each day because of the extra shifts, making it a total of 69 hours. The workload and working hours have gone up significantly since the coronavirus outbreak. Yet more importantly, there are more than 300 shipping containers at the airport storage facility that have not been processed. I think we should anticipate such workloads to continue for the foreseeable future.
Weariness
I’d be lying if I say this is not tiring. Not only can I not work from home the way other civil servants do, I even have to work extra hours every single night.
The current situation is similar to SARS from 17 years ago–as public servants, we must remain steadfast in our respective positions. If my working overtime can help more citizens get the masks they need, I will bend over backwards to make that happen. Regardless of how tiring that may be, I think it is worth it.
Reflection
Right now, I think there are many people–like me–who are quietly supporting the general public behind the scene. As long as we all resist the pandemic in solidarity, I believe that Hong Kong can soon welcome its victory.
We are in this together. Let’s win this fight, shall we?
Support our Journalism with a Contribution
Many people might not know this, but despite our large team of contributors, which we are immensely grateful for, We Are HKers is still a small bootstrapped group that runs on no outside funding and loans. Everything you see today is built on the backs of warriors who have sacrificed opportunities, time, meals and sleep to help give HKers all over the world a voice and keep our culture alive.
However, we still face many trials in the running of our platform, from finding the necessary equipment for our video interviews, to subscribing to the necessary tools to facilitate our remote work process of our global team, to trying not to get fired from our main jobs as we run this project secretly in the background, and to keeping our platform running and storing our files securely.
We hope you consider making a contribution, so we can continue to provide you with moving stories of HKers all over the world and keep our heritage and culture alive. Even a £1 contribution goes a long way. Thank you for everyone’s support. We love you all and can’t appreciate you guys enough.
**Please note that your support of We Are HKers Ltd. does NOT constitute a charitable donation. We really appreciate your support in independent journalism. If you have any questions about contributing to We Are HKers, please contact us here.
- February 2022
- December 2021
- August 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
Original article: 專訪夜更郵差 晚上加班送口罩 市民接口罩感動落淚
(This story is supported by Citizen News, and modified to a first-person narrative.)