Solid reputation:
People in the villages describe Lam Yau-tim as a good, responsible postman.
Confidence keeper:
For Yip Shing-hong mail delivery is more than a job. It is a mission to safeguard people’s trust in the postal service.
A tale of 2 postmen
July 31, 2011
Despite the generation gap, a postman about to retire and a new postman half his age joined Hongkong Post for the same reason. They both wanted a stable job in which they could serve the community.
After sorting letters for his route and placing them into his mailbag, 60-year-old postman Lam Yau-tim sets off on his daily trek come rain or shine. He delivers mail to more than 100 addresses in Yuen Long villages, carrying a bag that usually weighs about 10kg at the start.
“It’s really not that easy to deliver post in rural areas. Some places don’t even have numbers on their front doors. It’s difficult if you are not familiar with them. And you have to cycle or walk a lot. That’s why I don’t look like I’m 60!” Mr Lam said with a laugh.
He recalls even greater physical challenges in the job when he became a postman 41 years ago. “People then called us coolies,” Mr Lam said. “We used to load bags of mail into the cargo container. Loads after loads. They are heavy!”
He has earned a solid reputation on his route. People in the villages describe him as a good, responsible postman. “Mr Lam not only serves us, he is part of us!” one of them says. They even asked him to stay on when they heard he was retiring.
Despite the physical toil of the job, Mr Lam says it is rewarding. “It’s not an easy job, but I can help others and enjoy freedom when I deliver letters.”
Safeguarding trust
When he was growing up, Yip Shing-hong met kind postmen like Mr Lam that led him to take up a career as a postman himself.
Now aged 32, Mr Yip graduated from City University’s managerial statistics programme and became an accountant in a private company. A year ago, he left the office job to join Hongkong Post - not as an accountant, but a postman.
His interest in the postal service developed while he was in secondary school. “I made several foreign pen pals. Every week, I would look forward to meeting the postman because he brought me letters or presents from my pen pals.”
He now works in the air mail centre at the airport, responsible for organising the mail to be sent overseas. Unlike Mr Lam, Mr Yip does not have to heft heavy bags of mail into cargo containers. Hongkong Post’s new equipment enables him to efficiently organise the parcels and letters to get them onto different planes promptly.
Mr Yip is looking forward to getting to know more about postal services when he rotates to different departments. Sooner or later, he will get a chance to deliver mail door-to-door, a role he relishes.
He sees mail delivery as more than a job, but a mission to safeguard people’s trust in the postal service.
This is the second in a series of news.gov.hk
features about Hongkong Post, to mark its 170th anniversary this year.
