Hong Kong Stories - Detour to Happiness (English Version) Series 49：Hong Kong Stories - Detour to Ha

HK Stories – Detour to Happiness
Episode 1
After the Bitter Comes the Sweet Dollar

"Simple is a blessing and achieving your goals will bring you happiness. So don’t push too hard, just follow your path and happiness will naturally come to you.”

Sixty-one-year-old TSE Kwan-heung (Ann) has been suffering from emotional distress for decades and she has tried to commit suicide many times. Ann had an unpleasant childhood and she believed that her parents preferred sons to daughters. As the eldest daughter, she had to help take care of her four siblings. Longing to leave home, she got married at twenty and gave birth to a son and a daughter within two years. The young Ann admitted that “she wished that she had enjoyed being single more”, and divorced from her husband five years later. She then asked her mother and younger sister to take care of her children.

In the mean time, Ann had worked as a cashier, a “boxer” in a karaoke, and a “PR girl” in a nightclub. She remarried in 1994 but the marriage only lasted for one year.

Since Ann she was forty, her body has been suffering from many problems. On top of that, she had to take care of her elderly parents, she had a discord with her younger siblings, and she was alienated from her children. Ann had attempted suicide many times. Since the birth of her granddaughter Suet-tung, Ann took up the responsibility to take care of her granddaughter, allowing herself to experience the feeling of being a mother again. However, her emotional problems are still there and she has to take psychotropic drugs all the time.

Ann was allocated a singleton public housing unit the year before, and since then she has been living by her own. She felt lonely and often heard strange noises. Until she adopted US Dollar, a mix breed dog, and they have been inseparable ever since. How did the dog make Ann let go of her resentment and unhappiness over the years, and appreciate the feeling of happiness?

Producer: Annie YAU
Broadcast: 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, 23 May 2021
RTHK TV 31