毒者自白
一個兼職露宿者
“99% doyau”:
Confessions of a part-time homeless
Rachel Chak & Gabriele de Seta, 18–08–2015, Interview Story
「我在香港坐牢坐了足足十六年，賣毒品、打刧、爆竊、傷人什麼也做過了。」阿海說。在深水埗其中一個最多露宿者聚集的地方－南昌街天穚下的露宿者群中，阿海親切的和我打了個招呼。他穿著格子長袖恤衫，穿至微黃的藍色牛仔褲，忙著找乾淨的椅子給我們坐下，也感嘆没有飲料招呼我們，親切近人。對著我這個陌生人，他豪不介意娓娓道來了他來港經歷和際遇。
越南生活
阿海一家六口在越南比較貧窮的地方生活，自小已在「有一餐没一餐」的情況下生存。約四歲時爸爸便因為要養活他們而挺而走險，到住在大船上的有錢人家那兒打刧，最後因被警察遞捕而被槍斃。而阿海的媽媽一個人便要背起整頭家，到魚市場擺賣魚檔打工。他的大哥也因為生活環境困難，在阿海9歲那年便過身了。海媽媽因為不希望自己的兒女再在越南因環境生活困苦而去世，所以四出打探關於偷渡到香港的安排。海媽媽四出打探下，終於找到願意到香港的船家，而每一個偷渡來港的人也要給船家一兩黃金作為報酬。
大魚經歷
1986年，當年他11歲，他和姊姊、姊夫和姪子一同上了一艘很少的魚船上，阿海形容船倉擠迫極了，他還記清楚得擠小小的船倉擠了大約22個人。漁船來港途中遇上了兩次最接近死亡的經歷：第一次是海上巡邏隊伍發現了他們的漁船非法入境，要求他們停下來但船家不予理會。因為當時那搜海上巡邏船隻有專用來處理反抗偷渡船隻的大炮裝備，於是便發放了數枚大炮，其中兩枚更落於附近，阿海以為自己必死無疑，怎料竟然看著那搜海上巡邏船隻離自己越來越遠，最後終於逃出生天。
在海上行駛數天後又遇到暴風雨，大浪不停的捲起船隻，船中的22人跌跌盪盪，阿海與家人認定這次一定沒救了，於是將一家四人的手用繩子綁在一起，希望若就算其中一人掉下大海，也可以一同掉下，一同死去。當大浪將船隻捲入海中時，他們更見到有大魚在船隻旁邊掠過，就這樣看著大魚、聲著哭叫聲、跌跌盪盪下自己竟然進入了夢鄉，醒來的時候自己已經到了中國北海，幾經轉折又到了香港。
香港褔利
因為當時不同的傳染病侍虐，船家害怕有傳染病的散播，當時社會上很多人說越南玫瑰（淋病的一種）是會經行船期間傳播的，於是下令他們要把身上正穿著的衣服燒毀，因為只是帶了一套衣服，燒了自己的衣服後便只有另一套衣服可以穿著，每天也沒有衫褲替換。到了香港後幸好得到聯合國的救助，每日也有罐頭及餅乾等食物派發，政府也有提供類似中轉屋的居住地方幫助他們。在不同慈善機構及香港政府的協助下，他最終也可以住到一些獨立的住所。雖然厠所也是共用的，但其實環境對阿海來說也算不錯。直至九七香港回歸中國，那些難民營也被迫關掉，唯有周圍的漂迫流離，最後搬到深水埗這些臨時搭建的地方露宿。「其實我是可以申請公屋的，因為我很快已經拿到了香港身份證，但我沒有多大的動力申請，因為我不停的⋯⋯ 入冊⋯⋯」他帶些羞愧的說。他補足自己曾經賣毒品、打刧、爆竊和傷人，直至現在也是毒品使用者。阿海又補充說娶了一個香港的老婆，因為她有公屋，所以他也可以搬進了去。
不屬於什麼地方
他摸著頭子的說： 「我曾經想過回家鄉，但回到去，家鄉又不同了，那裏的地價又越來越貴，自己的親人又走掉，返回去又不知幹什麼！在這裏，可以呆過去，但又不是自己的地方，我不想再去想！」 他現在雖然有屋住了，但常常也會回來天穚下坐坐，又回去公共厠所洗澡。「這裡的同鄉和我很多東西傾，我和他們很熟稔，但我現在不是坐在他們的地盤，這個地方是我大哥的，我要幫他看舖，因為他只相信我，他是這裏的人！」不感意外的是，他們會將這個地方看成是一間舖，我猜這是因為他們是在售買東西吧。
後記
在整個訪問之中，有不同的露宿者都會走到他的「檔口」拿東西，我親眼的看到他們拿了一包包放在袋中的藥物走去。我問他在這裏有大約多少人是毒品使用者，他說九成九是道友吧。及後又和我分享了一些「道友」吸食毒品的方法。
“I have been in jail in Hong Kong for around 16 years already. I’ve done drug selling, robbery, burglary, fighting, all of it”, Ah Hoi says. Under the Tung Chau Street flyover in Sham Shui Po there is a large concentration of homeless people, and Ah Hoi comes out of one of their shacks to greet us politely. He is wearing a short-sleeve shirt with a chequered pattern, and his blue jeans have a yellowish hue of dirt. Ah Hoi is very welcoming, arranges two chairs for us to seat, excuses himself for not having drinks to offer us, and he doesn’t mind sharing his story.
Life in Vietnam
Ah Hoi’s family included six people, and had a tough life somewhere in Vietnam — “one day you have food, the other you don’t”, he explains. When he was four years old, his father decided he had to spare his family a life of poverty and uncertainty, and went to rob a large boat owned by wealthy people, but he was caught by the police and died. Ah Hoi’s mother had to make a living for the entire family by working in a fish market, and when his nine year old brother died because of the hardships, she decided that they had to try to leave again. While searching for a way to reach Hong Kong, she found a boat willing to sail them there in exchange for a piece of gold.
The big fish experience
It’s 1986, Ah Hoi is eleven years old and sits in a tiny and crowded boat with his sister, her husband and son, and other twenty people. They face death twice: the first time is when a Vietnamese sea patrol intercepts their boat leaving national waters and asks them to turn back; the boat captain doesn’t answer them and keeps going, and the patrol opens fire. Ah Hoi smells gun powder around him and thinks he’s going to die, but fortunately the boat manages to distance the Vietnamese patrol and continue its journey. The second time they face death is when they run into a large storm: the waves sweep all over the boat, the twenty people inside it roll all over the place, and everybody in Ah Hoi’s family thinks they are not going to make it, so they tie their hands together so that they could die together if they were swept out of the boat. The waves have almost entirely flooded the boat, and Ah Hoi can see a big fish swimming around them: everybody is crying and rolling around, and he falls asleep. He wakes up in Beihai, Guanxi province, China.
The Hong Kong welfare
The pilot of the next boat they embark on tells them that they have to strip off their clothes and burn them to avoid the spread of “Vietnam Rose” (gonorrhea). Fortunately Ah Hoi brought other clothes with him, and when he finally gets to Hong Kong the United Nations is there to help refugees with daily rations of canned food, and the government assigns them interim housing: he has space for himself and the toilets are public, he likes the environment. Unfortunately, he has to leave the interim housing after the 1997 Hong Kong handover, and he ends up moving under the Tung Chau Street flyover as a homeless. “Actually I could have applied to public housing, I already had got my Hong Kong ID at the time, but I didn’t have much motivation to apply, because… because I keep… getting in jail and…” Ah Hoi is quite embarrassed, and leaves the sentence hanging in mid-air. He sold drugs, he committed robberies, he hurt people, and is still a drug addict, even though he now has a local wife and lives in a public housing estate nearby.
Not belonging anywhere
As he reflects on is condition, Ah Hoi seems quite annoyed by something, and he keeps touching his head while thinking about it: “I once tried to go back to Vietnam, but I found it to be completely different, the land is expensive there now, and all my family members are gone away or dead, I don’t really know what I could do there. If I stay in Hong Kong, I can hang around like this, but it’s not where I belong… I don’t want to think about this anymore.” Even though he lives in the public housing, Ah Hoi comes back to the shacks under the Tung Chau Street flyover and even takes showers in the public toilet here. “Here I have some Vietnamese compatriots to talk to about a lot of things, I am familiar with them. Here where we are sitting now is not their territory though, this is the place of my dailo (brother in crime), I need to look after his ‘shop’ here, because he only trusts me, and he belongs to here”. I am not really surprised to hear that Ah Hoi calls this improvised shack a “shop”, it’s easy to guess that they are selling something inside it.
Conclusions
Throughout our lengthy conversation with Ah Hoi, a lot of people have been circling around us, asking questions and calling out at each other, getting in the “shop” and coming out of it with various things in their hands — mobile phones, food, a bag of pills, and other objects. I ask Ah Hoi about drug users in the area, and he replies that 99% of the people here are doyau, literally ‘friends of the way’, drug users. He used to inject heroin himself, he says, but now he prefers to smoke it mixed with tobacco.
