The Thai chicken farmer teaching Hong Kong’s domestic helpers to train and fight brings Boxing Day tournament to Wan Chai
- Muay Thai Station in Wan Chai has opened up its gym to domestic helpers for the past six months with great success
- A handful of students will test their skills and fitness in a one-day amateur tournament on Boxing Day
Every Sunday for the past six months Wedy Yueng has opened up his gym to Hong Kong’s domestic helpers, giving them a chance to train, socialise and shrug off the stresses that have kept many away from their families for more than two years.
Come Boxing Day, his new pupils will have the opportunity to test their skills in a one-day amateur tournament that is part festive, part fitness, but mostly about fun and offering much-needed community support to Filipino, Indonesian and Nepalese workers.
Sunday’s event will feature around 20 fights, ranging from boxing to Muay Thai to kick-boxing. Amateur rules will apply, meaning most of the fights will be free of knee and elbow strikes. There’s no strict weight classes and participants will be matched up based on skills and experience.
“It’s mostly about having fun,” Yeung, director of Muay Thai Station in Wan Chai, said. “We used to close the gym on Sundays and it was a bit of a waste. Since we opened up it’s really taken off, people come in the morning to train and then spend the day here cooking and hanging out. It’s been quite amazing.”
The man behind the initiative is beloved trainer Sutaep Sathong, affectionately known around the gym as Thep. Like many of the domestic workers he now teaches, Thep has been unable to return to his home in Surin, Thailand, for almost three years.
The money Thep makes from teaching and personal training goes back to his family, and the upkeep of a chicken farm he started while locked down in Hong Kong.
“When we first started doing this we had only about two or three Filipino students, they had one day off and the gym was closed on Sunday so it was really difficult for them to train,” he said.