Hung Jai (Elfrida)

I first met her walking down a narrow lane—one like Kwong Ming Gai ("Street of Light"), except that it wasn't. It was where the very old prostitutes lived out their days.

She sat on a stone step with a stick, poking the sewage as it got clogged down in the sewers running down the Walled City. She tugged my sleeve: "Poon Siu Jie, help me! Help me, I want to live in your house!"

And then crossly: "It's not fair, it's not fair! You've only got men in your house and Jesus has helped them. And I... it's not fair! I want to come and live in your house. Please take me, please take me, I'll do the ironing!"

What could I do? You can't take a practicing prostitute—even though she was nearly sixty at that time, she was still working. How could I take her into my house of twelve or so men?

Anyway, I couldn't resist. A few weeks later, I said, "All right, Hung Jai, I'll help you." We found a little apartment with a closet, which is where she was going to sleep because she was very small.

And we found three large bruises on her back. They were there because that was the payment from the brothel she worked for: for her services, one bowl of rice a day and three injections.

I've written a little bit of her story in Old Men's Dreams or the last two chapters of Chasing the Dragon. But I found out she'd grown up in Macau. Her mother had hanged herself, and her father had affairs with all different relatives. She was brought up by somebody who was a lesbian and also having affairs, so she watched everything and was confused.

Then she got engaged. And when she told her father she was engaged, he threw her out of his house because she had slept with the man. So she ended up in Hong Kong illegally—no identity—and then became both a drug addict and a prostitute for decades and decades and decades.

She described to me how two different people had died in her brothel. One was a young girl who was pregnant, who refused to service certain customers. When the brothel discovered that, they put a pipe down her throat, filled it with water, and pumped it until she died. Elfrida had to take her to the hospital. Another old woman had slipped on the floor and died, and it had never been reported.

She was afraid: "I'm going to die, and nobody will know I've ever lived."

So we prayed her off drugs. She received the power of the Holy Spirit, she prayed in tongues, and had a painless drug withdrawal. But there was a lot of pain about her whole life, so she cried a lot... until we discovered that the main way of helping her was that she would go and visit the old prostitute who was with nits in her hair, incontinent, still lying in the Walled City. She would comb her hair and sing to her, and visit old people's homes.

She said, "They're not like us, they don't worship!"

And then she got married in virgin white! That's Hung Jai's story. She walked down the aisle in Hang Hau Camp, married to another ex-addict. That's Hung Jai's story.

洪姐（Elfrida）的生命故事

我第一次遇到洪姐，是在一條狹窄的巷子裡。那裡很像「光明街」，但其實不是，那是城寨裡最年老的妓女度過餘生的殘破角落。

當時她正坐在石階上，手裡拿着一根木棍，正在清理九龍城寨渠溝裡淤塞的污水。她拉住了我的衣袖，哀求著說：「潘小姐，救救我！救救我！我想搬去你的屋仔住！」

接著她又有些賭氣地說：「這不公平，這真不公平！你的屋仔裡只收留男人，耶穌拯救了他們……這不公平！我也想去你的屋仔住。求求你帶我走吧，帶我走吧，我可以幫你們燙衣服！」

我當時該怎麼辦？ 你無法直接收留一個還在接客的妓女——儘管她那時已經快六十歲了，卻仍在從事這份工作。我怎麼能把她帶進一間住了十二個戒毒男士的屋子裡呢？

但最終，我還是無法拒絕她。幾個星期後，我對她說：「好吧，洪姐，我來幫你。」 我們為她找到了一間帶有小閣樓的小單位，因為她身材非常瘦小，那個小角落正好夠她睡覺。

我們在她背上發現了三道深深的青腫傷痕。那是她在妓寨裡幹活換來的「代價」——她每天的報酬，僅僅是一碗飯和三支毒品針劑。

我曾在《異象與異夢》（Old Men's Dreams）以及《追龍》（Chasing the Dragon）的最後兩章裡稍微提到過她的故事。後來我了解到，她在澳門長大，母親上吊自殺，父親則與各樣的親戚關係混亂。她是由一位同性戀且感情同樣混亂的親戚撫養長大的，從小目睹這一切，讓她的內心充滿了混亂與困惑。

後來她訂婚了，當她把婚訊告訴父親時，父親卻因為她曾與未婚夫同房而將她趕出家門。她只能偷渡到香港，成了沒有身份的黑戶，並在隨後的幾十年裡，沉淪於毒海與妓寨之中。

她曾向我描述過妓寨裡發生的慘劇：有兩個人死在了那裡。其中一個是懷孕的年輕女孩，因為拒絕接某些客人，妓寨的人發現後，竟把水管塞進她的喉嚨裡不停灌水，直到把她活活折磨致死。當時是洪姐親手把她的遺體送到醫院的。另一個老妓女則是在地板上滑倒摔死，事情悄無聲息地被掩蓋，從未有人上報。

洪姐內心充滿了恐懼，她說：「我就要死了，卻沒有人會知道我曾經在這世上活過。」

於是，我們一同禱告，靠著主帶領她戒毒。她經歷了聖靈的大能，開始用方言禱告，並經歷了不可思議的「無痛戒毒」。然而，她過往的人生積累了太多的痛苦與創傷，她依然經常流淚哭泣……直到我們發現，醫治她內心最好的方式，是讓她去服侍他人。

她開始回到城寨，去探望那些頭上長滿蝨子、失禁躺在床上的老妓女。洪姐為她們梳頭、唱詩歌給她們聽，還去探訪老人家。她常說：「他們和我們不一樣，他們還不認識主、不敬拜神呢！」

最後，她穿上了象徵純潔的白色婚紗！ 這就是洪姐的故事。在坑口營地，她挽著另一位經歷生命改變、成功戒毒的弟兄，步入了婚姻的殿堂。這就是洪姐蒙恩的生命見證