Ng Fat Chuen

In 1935, Ng Fat Chuen was born in an old house in Mau Chin, Nga Tsin Wai (presently the Kai Tak Nullah on Choi Hung Road).  He is in the 25th generation of the Ng clan and is the descendant of Ng Hon Ko Tso from the 19th generation.  This old house in Mau Chin was considered part of Nga Tsin Wai Village, which was only a fish pond away.  The fish pond was jointly owned by the Ngs, the Chans and the Lees.   When the pond dried up at the end of the year, the villagers would catch the fish inside and divide among themselves.  The old house was a country-style house made of bricks.  It comprised a kitchen, a pig house, and an altar, etc.  There were brick houses, mud houses and stone houses within Nga Tsin Wai, some of which were several hundred years old.  Ng Hon Ko Tso built around 10 of those houses.  All villagers were descendants of Ng Hon Ko Tso except for two households.  The branch of Ng Hon Ko Tso is divided into three descent lines.  The first line was exterminated during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in WWII.  The second line is further divided into two streams: one settled on Lamma Island and the other was Ng Fat Chuen’s family.  The third line was most populous, and it proliferated into more than 10 families.  Ng Hong Ko Tso owned a piece of farmland in Tai Hom Village.  However, by Ng Fat Chuen’s generation, all of Ng Hon Ko Tso’s properties in Mau Chin had already been divided and shared among clan members.

Ng Fat Chuen’s father made a living as a farmer and married Ms Lam from Po Kong Village.  They had two sons (Fat Chuen and his younger brother) together.  His father never had a formal school education, so it was difficult for him to get a job outside of his village.  This left him no choice but to farm in the countryside.  Before WWII, a lot of young people from Nga Tsin Wai worked as sailors.  After the war, police officer became the common occupation.  At first, Ng Fat Chuen’s family grew vegetables and raised pigs.  When he was four, the family moved to Po Kong Village to join his mother’s family because they needed more living space.  The family stayed inside a pig house provided by Ng Fat Chuen grandfather and helped the Lam clan farm their land in Wong Tai Sin. 

Before WWII, the Ngs from Nga Tsin Wai and the Lams from Po Kong were the biggest landowners in East Kowloon.  A lot of migrant farmers rented the farmland that these two clans owned.  Land was abundant in those days, so the farmers could build houses and villages freely.  It was after 1949 that the government began to take over private land by requisition.  Ng Fat Chuen’s father vacated the house in Mau Chin and moved to Po Kong Village to live with his wife’s family.   Soon after that, Ng Fat Chuen’s brother was born.   To improve their living quality, the family again moved to Tai Hom Village.  He father started to run a bean sprout factory on Ng Hon Ko Tso’s farmland (presently Lung Cheung Road, opposite to Hollywood Plaza) with two hired staff.  Clean water was instrumental to growing bean sprouts.  Tai Hom Village had fresh and clean “lung shui” (spring water from underground) which made it a very suitable place for growing bean sprouts.  When Ng Fat Chuen was a small child, the “lung shui” was within easy reach.  However, it was all gone after Lung Cheung Road and the MTR station were built.  Producing bean sprouts involved procedures such as buying beans, soaking beans in water, and irrigation.  Ng Fat Chuen thought his father was very competent.  The bean sprout factory was made up of two houses in the size of 600 to 700 square feet.  The sprouted beans would be transported to and sold in the market on Sa Po Road, Kowloon City.
 

Ng Fat Chuen’s family opened a bean sprout factory at Nga Yiu Tau Village (presently the hangar in Tai Hom Village).  Over a year later, the Japanese military planned to build Lung Cheung Road, forcing the Ng family to relocate.   When Ng Fat Chuen’s aunt heard the news, she informed the Ng family that there was a well with fine-quality water at Tung Tau Gate.   The family thus moved into the aunt’s home over there and continued to grow bean sprouts.   Tung Tau Gate was close to the market in Kowloon City and this made it convenient for Ng’s parents to sell bean sprouts during the day.   Not far from the gate was Tung Tau Village, which was made up of many surnames.  A stone road connected Tung Tau Village and Hok Lo Village.  During the Japanese occupation, the area around South Wall Road, Lung Kong Road and Sa Po Road experienced a shortage of food.  A lot of residents there starved to death on the streets and there was a heap of corpses piled up at the foot of the city wall.  Even though some of the people might be still breathing, they were considered dead already.   The Kowloon Walled City had few residents at that time, so part of it was used as a cemetery.  People dug holes in the ground and buried the corpses inside.  Ng Fat Chuen and his younger brother had seen a lot of dead bodies at the city gate.  Six months after the family moved to Tung Tau Gate, the Japanese began to build the Kai Tak Nullah and took away some of the stones from the city wall as building materials.  The family once again relocated to Model Village in Kowloon Tong.

To give way for the expansion of the Kai Tak Airport, the Japanese demolished many villages nearby including Mau Chin in Nga Tsin Wai.  Affected villagers were resettled in newly built duplex houses in Model Village in Kowloon Tong (i.e. the lot between Broadcast Drive and LaSalle Road today).  Villagers were also given farmlands where they could grow crops.  Ng Fat Chuen’s family grew sweet potatoes, aubergines and peppers on their farm land at Ap Chai Lake.   At the same time, they got their supply of fertilizer from the pigs they raised.  Sweet potato seedlings and some of the fertilizer were provided by the Japanese administration.

Ng Fat Chuen was glad that farmers were not poorly treated.  They could be self-reliant and enjoyed a more sufficient food supply than people in the urban area.  The Japanese set up an outpost at Maryknoll Secondary School.  When Ng’s mother passed by, she had to surrender grain to the soldiers who stationed there.  Six months after moving into Model Village, Ng’s father answered to a recruitment call and headed south to work as a mason, helping the Japanese build the airport. However, he never came back and lost contact with the family since.  Ng’s mother had to take care of the two sons herself.  The younger son, born in 1939, was only three years old then.  Ng Fat Chuen lived next to his aunt.  Feeling that Ng’s mother could not keep the family up, the aunt sent Ng’s younger brother to Longgang, Shenzhen, and put him in the care of relatives there.   Soon, he lost contact with his younger brother.   In 1968, Ng Fat Chuen and his mother travelled to Longgang to look for him.  Since Ng’s mother knew the Hakka dialect, she had no problem communicating with the local villagers and was taken to the village where she was finally reunited with her younger son.  Ng Fat Chuen recalled the harsh life during the Japanese occupation with a sigh, saying that he did not come by the life he enjoyed today easily.

There were more than 100 single-storey village houses in Model Village in Kowloon Ton, built in pairs as duplexes.  The residents, including Ng Fat Chuen’s relatives and uncle, came from Nga Tsin Wai, Po Kong, Shek Kwu Lung and Kak Hang Village. The Lams and the Ngs lived inside the village.  The Lams lived inside a row of houses behind Ap Chai Lake.  Ng Fat Chuen and his family lived at No.6 Model Village - a house built with hollow brick and furnished with a kitchen but without a living room.  Two rooms - one for Ng’s parents and the other for Ng and his young brother - were created by erecting a wooden partition in the house.  The Japanese appointed Ng Wai Chi, former headman of Nga Tsin Wai, to be the headman of Model Village.  They aimed at strengthening their governance over the villagers through Ng Wai Chi’s networks.  His son had helped British troops evacuate, and he was executed after being captured by the Japanese.

Model Village was opposite to a Japanese barrack (the present Kowloon East Barracks of the People’s Liberation Army).  The Japanese once hired the villagers to dig trenches so that the troops could defend against enemy airplanes with rifles.  The public order in Model Village was good.  Every household was poor, so no one had to worry about robbery even if the doors were left open.  Ng Fat Chuen once stole some pepper that the Japanese troops had ordered to grow.  The farm worker complained to the troops.   The head of district office, who was patrolling on Renfrew Road on a horse, did not arrest Ng Fat Chuen; He instead slapped the farm worker on the face.  
One day, Ng and his young brother were playing with a mirror at home.  When the Japanese in the barracks saw light flashing up toward the sky, they thought it was a signal from the guerrilla fighters.  They entered the village with fire arms to investigate.  Fortunately, the aunt living next door explained everything to the Japanese and saved the brothers from trouble.  However, Ng Fat Chuen was already very much frightened.   Ng Fat Chuen’s family lived in Model Village for more than a year, and then moved to Chuk Yuen Village when the war was about to end.  His grandfather owned a large tract of farmland in Wong Tai Sin.  The grandfather and his son, who did not know about agriculture, remained on the farm after his three daughters left.  Ng Fat Chuen and his mother got his invitation to help with farm works, which they accepted.  The high hill between Junction Road and Kowloon Tsai made it inconvenient to travel between Model Village and Wong Tai Sin.  Ng and his mother therefore abandoned their house and the farm in Model Village and moved to his grandfather’s place in Chuk Yuen Village until the end of the war.

Kowloon City Market had always been the political centre in the area.  Villagers from Kowloon City, Lei Yue Mun, Sha Tin and Sai Kung all came to the market.  After Britain leased the New Territories, the British expelled the Qing government officials from the Kowloon Walled City.  Sun Yat-sen’s elder brother had temporarily stayed in Tung Tau Village and Ngau Chi Wan during the Xinhai Revolution.  The grave of Sun’s mother was located in Pak Fa Lam. Over 20 years before the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, Japanese expatriates were seen in Tsang Foo Villa (the present Kai Tak Garden).  During the invasion, Kowloon City Market was bombed and many civilians’ lives were lost near Shek Kwu Lung Road and Tak Ku Ling Road.  The Market was a stronghold of the guerrilla forces during Japanese occupation, and the fighters would exchange intelligence at the tea restaurant there.  To prevent the Kai Tak Airport from being sabotaged by guerrilla forces, the Japanese troops built the Kai Tak Nullah to protect military facilities in the area.

Ng Fat Chuen’s family worked on four fields in Wong Tai Sin that were not joined to one another.   The first field was at where the Lung Cheung Mall stands today, consisting of nine rows of land and 18 loads of water (Note: “Row” and “Load” are units of measurement). The second field comprised seven rows of land and 14 loads of water, located within a present-day car park and on the former site of Block 33, Lower Wong Tai Sin Estate. The third and fourth fields both consisted of four rows of land and five loads of waters , occupying the lot next to today’s Lung Cheung Road and the former shooting range.  Someone later built a hut to raise pigs on the third and fourth fields, and that reduced Ng’s family land from four to merely two pieces.  Farmland in Wong Tai Sin was of “mini size” and smaller than the ones in the New Territories.  Each row of land was 30-40 feet long and 3-4 feet wide.  There were no ditches on the field for water to run through, and the paths were also narrow.  Each row of land required one to two loads of water.  Ng’s family land grew all kinds of vegetable such as water spinach, amaranth, cabbage, bok choy, sponge cucumber, long beans, broccoli, aubergine, chilli, sweet potatoes and perennial onion, depending on the seasons.

Ng’s mother used to grow grains when she was small, but Ng Fat Chuen never saw anyone did it.  Ng thought that his mother was very competent.  Although she never went to school, she knew how to farm by her instincts and understood the principle of “awns fall at Manzhong and water fills the field at Xiazhi”. The harvest period for different kinds of vegetable varies.  The fastest was over a month or so.  The third and fourth months of the Lunar Calendar would be the season for planting water spinach, while the fifth month was suitable for cabbage.  The season for perennial onion came after Dahan.  Planting before that time would not bring harvest.   Sometimes, two crops were planted in the same field.   For example, if bok choy was growing slowly, then cabbage would be planted as well.  The field yielded two crops of cabbage per year – in March and August.   The March crop could be sold at a higher price.  During the Japanese occupation, Ng’s family grew sweet potatoes on two small fields for sale or for self-use as porridge ingredients at a time when rice was in short supply.   To grow water spinach in those days, one had to apply for a licence and pay 10 dollars a year to the government.  Black worm was a kind of bug fed on broccoli.  They could climb up to the soil’s surface and eat up a whole crop overnight.  To curb the problem, Ng’s family used American-made insecticide.  After spraying the insecticide, the soil would be out of balance.  One had to mix yellow mud and lime with the soil and expose it to the sun in order to make it suitable for growing cabbage again.  Ng’s family added fertiliser to the soil every one or two days.  Usually, the procedure was done at night with a flat-mouthed sprayer, as this could have a positive effect on the growth of the plants.

When the end of the war was near, Ng Fat Chuen and his mother moved to Chuk Yuen Village to stay at his grandfather’s house.  The house was built before the war on Centre Street, Wong Tai Sin.  Chuk Yuen Village was adjacent to Wong Tai Sin Temple, which is the area between Hsin Kuang Restaurant and the mini bus station on Shatin Pass Road.  Centre Street  was a mud road in the early years (next to the present Wong Tai Sin Plaza), and was later extended northward to reach Shatin Pass Road.  When the war ended, it was not named Centre Street  yet.  It was only given the name after 1949 during the time of Lam Fat’s tenure as headman, when refugees arrived in Hong Kong from mainland China and built house along the mud road.  In 1957, Centre Street  was merged into Shatin Pass Road. 

Chuk Yuen Village was sparsely populated before 1949, with only about 100-200 residents from the Lam, the Lee and the Ku clans.  Ng Fat Chuen and his mother farmed on the land in front of Wong Tai Sin temple, called Dai Yuen Zone.  They collected waste mud from the refuse pool at Lok Sin Tong for use as fertiliser.  The area from Wong Tai Sin Police Station to Wong Tai Sin Temple used to be an agricultural terrace.  A deep creek used to cut through today’s Lung Cheung Mall and watercress was the common crops grown there.  Next to the Police Station was a narrow mud road called Chun Yan Street that went north toward Kwun Yam Shan.  It had always been the passage that villagers on the hill took to go to Kowloon City.  Before 1957, it was all high hills before Wong Tai Sin Temple, Chuk Yuen Village, and Fung Wong Chuen.  In 1957, the government began to develop a large number of low-cost housing estates in Dai Yuen Zone, the front yard of the police station, and the firing range.  A lot of hills and creeks were removed from the landscape as a result.

Ng Fat Chuen studied for two years under a private tutor from the age of 14 in Chuk Yuen Village.  The school was located in a dilapidated mud house (one that still exists today) with only a few wooden tables.  The founder was a learned person in the village who opened a school by the suggestion of his mother.  There were 12-13 students in the whole school. With merely one teacher to impart classic Chinese works such as the Thousand-word Classic.  Students were required to worship the Confucius before they were enrolled.  When Ng’s mother learnt that the school had been opened in the village, she paid several dollars a month as tuition fee to send Ng there for education.  Two years later, Ng transferred to Lok Sin Tong Primary School, where he paid a monthly school fee of two dollars.
 

Ng Fat Chuen became a grown-up after war was over.  Young people in the country area had a lower level of education and most of them got married before the age of 20.  In comparison, young people in the city area got married later because they had to go to school.  In those years, marriage was arranged by parents.  Young men and women did not get into a romantic relationship before the wedding.  One family would pay visit to another and got the marriage arranged over a chat.  In 1950, Ng Fat Chuen and his wife took the marriage vow when they were both 15 years old.  His wife came from the Wong family in Kwun Yam Shan, Shatin, who owned fields and earned a living by growing grains and sweet potatoes.  They had a similar background as Ng’s family.  Both sides were not particular wealthy, so they got along quite well.  People in Kwun Yam Shan Village commonly married their neighbours from Mau Tat, Shap Yi Watt, and Mau Tso Ngam Village.  His wife would carry firewood and sweet potatoes to the Kowloon City Market regularly and sell them.  Ng Fat Chuen’s mother got to know her daughter-in-law when she bought firewood from her.  Her mother thought she was a seemly choice to be her son’s bride after knowing that she was skilled in farming and raising pigs.  Ng and his mother went to visit the Wong family on the hill.  The girl’s parents agreed to the marriage proposal and asked another Wong couple from Kwun Yam Shan to act as matchmakers and coordinators of the wedding. 

The wedding took place at Ng Fat Chuen’s home.  At that time, he and his mother already moved out of his grandfather’s place and had built a wooden house in Dai Yuen Zone.  Their neighbours, who newly migrated to Hong Kong, helped with cooking and preparing fine dishes such as pig skin, salted vegetables, pork and mushrooms.  Eight people sat together at each table and they were served one meal in the morning and another in the afternoon.  A typical gift from a guest was two dollars; a top gift was up to 10 dollars.  Ng’s grandfather knew a lot of Wong Tai Sin residents.  Ng Fat Chuen was also close to the neighbours.  Thus, when the community learnt about the wedding, they all came without needing to invite them.  Ng was able to take time off for study, as his wife could help with the farm works.  He went to school every morning after watering the crops.

Ng Fat Chuen sustained his family through both farming and working at factories since 1950s. He had part-time jobs at Yee Sang Button Factory in Ngau Tau Kok and the Chung Wah Button Factory in Sham Shui Po.  At Yee Sang, he worked from day till night to earn a daily wage of three dollars.  After switching to Chung Wah, his earning increased.  After 1957, the Ng family went on raising pigs but gave up farming.  Still, raising pigs was not a relaxing job.  He even needed his children to help with carrying swill, cooking fodder and feeding, etc.  After factories emerged in San Po Kong, his wife and mother would take raw materials back home from the factories to make plastic flowers and cut threads as their part-time job.  The children also helped after they finished school.  Ng and his children experienced different ways of upbringing.  The children did not work on the farm since they were young, nor trade firewood and sweet potatoes.  As a result, their attachment to the country gradually weakened.  The children were engaged in studying and games while their mother took care of cooking for the whole family.  Ng Fat Chuen was busy working in order to buy rice for the family.  Kowloon City Market had many rice shops operated by Chaozhou people.  Ng Fat Chuen’s family was the frequent customer of rice shops like Nam Tai and Yee Hing Lung and always bought rice on credit.  This was a way to build mutual trust in business.  The owners of rice shops were concerned about their business, so sometimes they would even make unannounced visits to the Ng residence and look at the amount of rice in their vat.  If they found out that stock was low, they would bring rice to their house for refill.

Before 1957, Ng Fat Chuen’s family grew vegetables in Wong Tai Sin and took the produce to the vegetable market in Swill Pool (below the football field in the present Morse Park) for sale.  Piglets, chicks, swill and vegetables were available in the market.  Later, the market was moved to the area outside the gate of the Ng Clan Ancestral Hall in Nga Tsin Wai, where business was done every day before 9am.  This new establishment functioned as a vegetable market only, and no longer traded piglets and swill.  The vegetable market in Swill Pool was set up on semi-private land so the government could not drive the vendors away. The government once asked the vendors to move into another market in Yau Ma Tei in order to better regulate trade, but the request was not accepted by many.  In 1957, the government resumed the land in Wong Tai Sin for development purposes, causing part of the farmer community to move to Sha Kok Mei in Sai Kung.  Others moved to Ma Chai Hang (the present Tin Ma Court and Tsui Chuk Garden), including Ng Fat Chuen’s family. 

After the move, the Ng family ceased to grow vegetables and all they could do was to raise pigs.  When the neighbours learnt of their situation, they secretly hung some cabbage hearts on their door.  Ng Fat Chuen’s mother knew the skill of bone setting and offered free massages to farmers who had arm and leg injuries, which earned the friendship of her neighbours and helped her son find a wife.  In 1969, the government again resumed the land in Ma Chai Hang and asked the Ng family to move to a settlement in Sau Mau Ping.  Ng Fat Chuen refused to accept this arrangement because the place was quite remote.  The Squatter Control and Clearance Office was finally sent in to demolish Ng’s pig house, but Ng insisted in staying and resisted the demolition with the support of his neighbours.  The riot police was later called in, and finally both sides agreed to compromise.  Ng Fat Chuen moved into the settlement in Tsz Wan Shan instead, while the government provided his family with furniture and water pipe system in the new place, in addition to half a shop unit in Lei Cheng Uk Estate.  Ng Fat Chuen praised how liberal some of the government officials were.

In the early years, the Kowloon Walled City, Sai Tau Village and Tung Tau Village were located by the seashore.  When the British occupied the Walled City, the residents inside were driven out to Kak Hang and Kau Shat Long  (the present Fung Wong Chuen).  The Ng clan inhabited Kak Hang, but they did not belong to the same family line of the Ngs in Nga Tsin Wai.   Sai Tau Village, also known as Shing Lei Ha  (the present Kowloon City Plaza), consisted of many farms before the war that were irrigated by the water from the pit in Lai Chi Yuen (next to Hau Wong Temple).  After the war was over, Sai Tau Village was developed into a squatter area.  Lok Sin Tong was located in where Tung Tau Community Centre stands today, near a garbage pool.  The mud from the pool could be used as fertiliser.  Residents of the market were labourers and small business owners before the war.  Due to food shortage during the war, many people departed from Hong Kong and that dealt a blow to the business scene in Kowloon City.  Ng Fat Chuen’s family grew sweet potatoes and peppers in Model Village.  They had to carry the produce to Mong Kok Tsai (the Mong Kok Road Market today) to sell it there.

In the early days, Kowloon City’s villages got their supply of water from ponds, pits, springs and wells.  Model Village had a pond named Ap Chai Lake, located in the low-lying area of the present Junction Road.  Tai Hom Village also had their own pond, which collected and held rainwater (at Plaza Hollywood today) for fish farming use.  Spring water refers to water that gushes out from underground.  Tai Hom Village had a spring where Ng’s family got their water for making bean sprouts.   Pit water, on the other hand, came from areas deep within the mountains.  It was of good quality and not polluted.  One could find pit water flowing at Kwun Yam Shan and Lion Rock.  In Kowloon City, pit water could be obtained at places like Lo Fu Ngam, Wang Tau Hom, Shek Kwu Lung, behind the Wong Tai Sin Temple, Kau Shat Long, Tsz Wan Shan (i.e. north of Tsz Lok Estate and Tak Oi Secondary School).  Every village had its own well in the early times.  The well of Nga Tsin Wai was located inside the ancestral hall, and both villages and outsiders were welcome to use it.  The countryside was sparsely populated then, and villagers could use the water freely.  Shek Kwu Lung’s ancient well provided water for its villagers, while people from Nga Tsin Wai and Kak Hang Tam took underground water that flew from the mountains.  In the absence of street pipes during the early post-war period, people used water from wells and pits.

Ng Fat Chuen and his mother raised pigs when they were living in Chuk Yuen Village in order to get the fertiliser they needed for farming.   Raising pigs was a low-profit and harsh job in those years.  If the pigs unfortunately got infected with foot diseases, the farmers could lose all their investment.  Pig farming required the burning of a large amount of firewood, but the road up to Kwun Yam Shan was really long.  It was not convenient for Chuk Yuen villagers to get their firewood, so they obtained it from the four villages on Kwun Yam Shan (Note: Mau Tat, Shap Yi Watt, Kwun Yam Shan Village and Mau Tso Ngam).  Residents of the four villages would carry firewood down the hill and sell it as fuel material in Kowloon City Market, and then they would buy pork and other food items home.  Every year in August, villagers at the foot of the mountain would store up a lot of firewood and get ready to make rice cakes and other traditional Chinese New Year dishes.  The villages used to steam the rice cakes in large cauldrons on the stove, which led to a great demand for fuel.  Sometimes the firewood did not sell very well, and the villagers did not feel convenient to take the goods back home with them.  People in Chuk Yuen Villager understood that difficulty and would buy off the surplus at the normal price, storing them in their firewood rooms.  This helped both sides nurture friendship.  Ng Fat Chuen got married during his teenage at Kwun Yam Shan village, and had maintained good relations with the mountain villagers.

For villages in Kowloon City, there was a clear set of lines that divided the forest and mountain rights in areas like Lion Rock, Fung Wong Chuen and Wang Tau Hom.  The forests and mountains were considered ancestral properties passed down from the great-grandfather’s generation.  Each village was only allowed to collect firewood within their own allotted territory.  Those crossing the boundary would have their carrying poles severed and had to return home empty-handed as a punishment.  However, outsiders who had a close connection with the villages might occasionally be allowed to cross the boundary into the forest to gather resources.  Although there were no physical marks in the mountains, the villagers all knew where the boundaries lied.    After leasing the New Territories, the British charted a detailed map and rented the land out to the villagers.

Ancestral graves of Kowloon City’s villages used to scatter all around places like Wong Tai Sin, Tsz Wan Shan, Wang Tau Hom.  For examples, the Lam clan had many ancestral graves in Wong Tai Sin, mostly in today’s Wong Tai Sin Fire Station, Wong Tai Sin Temple, and Tak Oi Secondary School.  Ng Hon Ko Tso’s grave was at Wang Tau Hom.  In 1957, the government began to develop Wong Tai Sin and construct many resettlement blocks.  A lot of graves were moved from the mountains to Shatin.   There was only one grave left beside the Wong Tai Sin Temple and it belonged to the Lam clan.  Ng Hon Ko Tso’s grave was moved to the hill behind Mau Tat Village.  Ng Fat Chuen and the villagers there knew each other very well, so Ng’s ancestral grave was safe.  Arranged by headman Ng Wai Chi, the grave of the fourth branch of the Ng clan was relocated to Lek Yuen (the hill behind Regal Hotel today).  The age of the grave was marked by a tomb stone; those without a stone would be considered illicit by the District Office and must be moved to a new site established by the government.  

Ng Fat Chuen’s family was religious.  When he was a child, he saw his mother worshiping the gods by offering incense.  A spirit tablet was placed at the front door to honour the “earth god”.  On every second and sixteenth day of month, his family would practise ‘Tso Nga’ ritual and his mother would make pork soup and herbal soup.  He had participated in Festival of Lords of the Three Mountains since he was small.  The Temple of Lords of the Three Mountains used to be in the low-lying area at the seaside and was often flooded.  The ground beneath the temple was not raised until the completion of Ping Shek Estate in the 1960s.   When it was time for a festival, the adults would let Ng know.  It made Ng very happy because he could go and get himself food. 

The festival of the gods was organised by a committee made up of a chairman, a director and committee members.  Before the festival, people drew sticks from a cup in front of the temple in order to pick the village responsible for organising.  Villages from Kowloon, Shatin and Sai Kung would come and participate.  Kowloon City was a centre of cohesion for the country folks from the villages around the area.  People got to know each other at the market.  Each town and village communicated according to the festival schedule and took part in each festival proactively, needing no invitation from the organisers.  The country folks offered money and labour in the organisation of the festival; they also cooked their own food.  The main activity of the festival was a race for the cannon that looked like a spirit tablet.  A large group of young people would vie for the cannon, risking their safety for auspicious blessings that the race brought them.  It was believed if a village was successful in getting the cannon, then peace and bliss would follow. The villagers were all so happy to be able to attend the festival that they would even go in raincoats in rainy weather. 

Before 1949, Hong Kong's population was small and there was much open area.  The number of villages celebrating the festivals was not high.  People used to have poor nutrition and shorter life span.  Popular song lyrics at that time were “Boiling pork on Saturday” and “Rainwater floods the streets, Mum goes to the streets to sell firewood”.  Ng Fat Chuen did not go to the festivals as frequently as he used to after he entered school because of scheduling issues.  He completed Primary Six in 1962, and then was referred to a job at a button factory in Ngau Tau Kok, earning a daily wage of three dollars to support his family.   In those years, it only cost 10 cents to buy three catties of bok choy, and it was difficult to provide for the family by growing vegetables alone.  Since joining the workforce, he no longer had any spare time to participate in the Festival of Lords of the Three Mountains. 

Ng Fat Chuen recalled that the traditional Chinese New Year food items in those days were rice cake, bride cake, sau fun, tea cake, sesame biscuit, and Chinese Fever Vine, etc.  The rice cakes would be sliced into long strips and be steamed for a long time, which consumed a lot of firewood.  It was something that only large families could afford to make. Ng’s grandfather was the village headmen of Po Kong, and one of leaders in 13 villages.  When Chinese New Year came, he would cook festive food using large cauldrons and stoves.  Ng Fat Chuen’s family would receive rice cake as a gift from him.  The villagers would visit friends and families from the first to the fifteenth day of the New Year, giving red packets that worth one cent each.  Ng would visit both his grandfather and the in-laws to strength the bond and cohesion among relatives.  He was familiar with the four villages of Kwun Yam Shan, thus his mother could get a load of firewood from their mountain when fuel was running out.  Without this kind of friendship, those who crossed the boundaries into the mountain had to surrender both the firewood and the carrying poles. 

Her mother used to take a boat to the area around Tai Miu (Fat Tong Mun) to gather firewood in the early years, and stayed overnight inside the temple.  For the first three days of the New Year, the villagers gambled at home and played Hakka cards and Pai Gow but not mahjong.  Some of them lost so much money that they had to sell their own children.  Women played cards in the house but seldom gambled.  The New Year worship ceremony was simple: villagers prepared three types of animal sacrifice as well as rice cakes.  They also burnt paper sycee and incense.  People in Nga Tsin Wai Village were not vegetarians, so they worshiped the gods and the heaven with fish in their houses.  It was common in the village to practise “pig rotation”, i.e. three to four households taking turns to feed the pigs and then sharing them at New Year.  Country people did not buy pork from the market.

Farmers believed that Winter Solstice is the beginning of the year, so every village household celebrated it with chicken, ducks, and pork dishes.  Ng Fat Chuen grew water onion at home, which had to bed planted after Winter Solstice.  If the seeds were planted before then, it will not be edible.  Ng Fat Chuen would go to his grandfather’s place for meals at New Year and Winter Solstice.  He said with a sigh that he spent his childhood in poverty.  The festivals were the only times when he could get better food.  At Mid-Autumn Festival, most villagers made tea cakes.  Moon cakes only gained popularity in later days.  They would wrap the cakes with paper and put every four cakes into one long container.  Certain time later, moon cakes were packed in cases instead of containers.  Ng Fat Chuen once joined a “moon cake club” and redeemed moon cakes on the other side of the harbour every year when Mid-autumn Festival was near.  The cakes were then carried back by her wife to her family on Kwun Yam Shan.  There were no dragon boat races at Tuen Ng Festival in Ng’s neighbourhood; that was an activity only found in Kowloon City.  Ng Fat Chuen once saw dragon boats near Kowloon City Pier when he was small.  

Before 1949, only around 10 indigenous families lived in Chuk Yuen, and they made a living by farming, sailing and working for the British.  Even before the war, villagers from Nga Tsin Wai and Chuk Yuen were already working for the British in the police force, the military and Public Works Department among other government departments.  Those who worked for the British dared not oppose the government to avoid losing their jobs.  Ng Fat Chuen’s grandfather Lam Fat was the chief of Chuk Yuen and Po Kong who owned a lot of land in Wong Tai Sin.  His earning came from farming and his tenants’ rent.  Lam Fat and Ng Wai Chi, headman of Nga Tsin Wai, did not work for the British, so they were not afraid to stand up against the government.  In 1957, when the government resumed land in Wong Tai Sin for re-development, Lam Fat represented the villages such as Chuk Yuen and Sha Po against the government at the risk of deportation from Hong Kong.  At last, he successfully negotiated a compensation plan with the government, which enabled the affected villages to re-build their homes in Fung Wong Chuen in exchange for the houses they had lost.

After the Communist came to power in 1949, the staff of China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) escaped to Hong Kong and some of them rented the houses that belonged to the settlers of Chuk Yuen.  Lam Fat was one of the landlords.  All of houses on Centre Street were occupied by CNAC staff.  Some other staff chose to build wood house on the low-lying area of today’s Po Kong Village Road, forming temporarily quarters known as “CNAC Village”.  In light of rapid population growth in Chuk Yuen, Lam Fat sent the government an application in 1949 to build street pipes to improve water supply.  From 1949 to 1950, immigrants from Mainland China arrived in Hong Kong continuously, and a lot of them rented rural houses.  Certain  developers seized the opportunity and planned to build brick houses on farmland for sale.  Under the village headman’s referral, construction works began.  The Ng clan in Nga Tsin Wai owned a lot of farmland outside the hangar in Tai Hom Village, where the developers built residential houses.  The developers also illegally occupied government land on the hillside to build houses.  

When the war ended, Chuk Yuen only had a tiny population.  A lot of indigenous settlers took up government jobs.  A wave of immigrants came to Chuk Yuen after 1949, some of them were rich merchants.  A lot of fabric factories began to appear in Chuk Yuen, producing “heijiaochou”.  The largest among those factories was Kwong Lung On  by a person named Tam, which carried out one-stop production of fabric from weaving to dyeing.  The dyeing procedure polluted the pit water in the area.  Kwong Lung On’s factory site was a two-storey mansion.  Tam was a wealth factory owner and managed to apply for water pipes, electricity and telephone from the government.  In the village, he was second to none in the village.  Kwong Lung On  was the only place in the village with a telephone.  The doors of the factory were guarded by big wolfdogs and no villagers were allowed to borrow their telephone.  However, the headman of Chuk Yuen, Lam Fat (Ng Fat Chuen’s grandfather) was a friend of Tam, so he was granted special permission to use the telephone.  Ng Fat Chuen and Tam’s children were classmates at a private village school, and they had built a good rapport with each other.  (Editor's note: The interviewee added that there were barber shops and small restaurants opened by Shanghaiese people all over the two sides of Centre Street in Chuk Yuen Village.  Wealthier Shanghaiese immigrants would buy houses in Chuk Yuen Village and became non-indigenous property owners.)

Lam Fat was already the headman of Chuk Yuen before the war broke out, and he had tried all he could to safeguard the villagers' interests.  The British government liked his way of doing things, so they issued him a badge after the war and named him the village headman, hoping that his personal reputation would be useful for governing the villagers.  Due to population increase after 1949, Chuk Yuen Village set up a Village Office.  Soon after, the government noticed that Lam Fat was not being cooperative and sent two Special Branch officers to keep watch of Lam.  Lam’s headman badge was also revoked and taken back.  The government organised the Kaifong Welfare Association later, in order to clamp down on the authority of the Village Office.  The deputy headman, Lai Kau, was appointed chairman.  Lai was an immigrant who worked as a “lot interpreter” at Wong Tai Sin Temple and was not rich.  The Kaifong Association was a pro-government organisation which was not effective in safeguarding villagers’ interests.  In 1957, when the government developed Wong Tai Sin and resumed land in Chuk Yuen, the Village Office joined efforts with Sojourning Planters’ Union in Hong Kong to urge for better compensation from the government for affected farmers.   At last, the indigenous settlers received a compensation of 60 cents per square foot of farmland.  The house owners rebuilt their homes on separate land, while the tenants were placed into the resettlement area in Lo Fu Ngam and were promised return to Wong Tai Sin in the future.

After the great fire in Shek Kip Mei broke out in the end of 1953, the government built the Shek Kip Mei Estate for the affected inhabitants.  Church organizations also built small houses in Tung Tau Village, Wong Tai Sin and Ho Man Tin for the victims, forming many “new villages”.  The Shek Kip Mei fire set the stage for the government’s development plan of Wong Tai Sin in 1957.   According to the provisions of the lease of the New Territories signed between the British government and the Qing government, expropriated rural land could only be used by the government for development purposes.  In 1957, the government began the first phase of the development, building Lung Cheung Road as well as the resettlement area in Wong Tai Sin.  Land from Chuk Yuen, Kak Hang, Sha Po and Ta Kwu Ling was also resumed gradually.  Chuk Yuen Village was the first place affected.  Farmland in Dai Yuen Kui and houses on Centre Street were resumed.  Centre Street itself was incorporated into Shatin Pass Road.  Farmland in Dai Yuen Kui stretched from Wong Tai Sin Police Station to Ma Chai Hang, a large portion of which was owned by the Lam and Ng clans and leased out to tenant-peasants.  There were many shops and factories on Centre Street then.  After 1949, many immigrants moved in and built houses there. 

Initially, the government did not plan to compensate for land resumption, but Chuk Yuen Village united with the nearby East Kowloon villages to form The Thirteen Villages Committee and petitioned to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs.  As a result of village headmen’s struggle, the government relented and reformed their compensation policy, allowing the indigenous inhabitants to exchange their lost land for new land in Fung Wong Chuen to reconstruct their homes. Many indigenous residents either sold their new homes, or rented them out for an income.  Requisitioned farm land was compensated by cash at 60 cents per square foot.  Non-indigenous property owners either got compensated at a few dollars per square foot or resettled in the “property owners’ block” in Wong Tai Sin, such as “Block BB” in front of Wong Tai Sin Temple (Editor’s note: Block 8, Lower Wong Tai Sin Estate).

After the great fire in Shek Kip Mei broke out in the end of 1953, the government built the Shek Kip Mei Estate for the affected inhabitants.  Church organizations also built small houses in Tung Tau Village, Wong Tai Sin and Ho Man Tin for the victims, forming many “new villages”.  The Shek Kip Mei fire set the stage for the government’s development plan of Wong Tai Sin in 1957.   According to the provisions of the lease of the New Territories signed between the British government and the Qing government, expropriated rural land could only be used by the government for development purposes.  In 1957, the government began the first phase of the development, building Lung Cheung Road as well as the resettlement area in Wong Tai Sin.  Land from Chuk Yuen, Kak Hang, Sha Po and Ta Kwu Ling was also resumed gradually.  Chuk Yuen Village was the first place affected.  Farmland in Dai Yuen Kui and houses on Centre Street were resumed.  Centre Street itself was incorporated into Shatin Pass Road.  Farmland in Dai Yuen Kui stretched from Wong Tai Sin Police Station to Ma Chai Hang, a large portion of which was owned by the Lam and Ng clans and leased out to tenant-peasants.  There were many shops and factories on Centre Street then.  After 1949, many immigrants moved in and built houses there. 

Initially, the government did not plan to compensate for land resumption, but Chuk Yuen Village united with the nearby East Kowloon villages to form The Thirteen Villages Committee and petitioned to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs.  As a result of village headmen’s struggle, the government relented and reformed their compensation policy, allowing the indigenous inhabitants to exchange their lost land for new land in Fung Wong Chuen to reconstruct their homes. Many indigenous residents either sold their new homes, or rented them out for an income.  Requisitioned farm land was compensated by cash at 60 cents per square foot.  Non-indigenous property owners either got compensated at a few dollars per square foot or resettled in the “property owners’ block” in Wong Tai Sin, such as “Block BB” in front of Wong Tai Sin Temple (Editor’s note: Block 8, Lower Wong Tai Sin Estate).
 

After the war, non-local farmers in Hong Kong set up the Sojourning Planters’ Union in Hong Kong (“Planters’ Union”) to strive for farmers’ rights.  The union became a growing patriotic society and its membership was made up of those who suffered under the oppression of landlords and warlords in Kuomingdang’s China.  After 1949, a lot of immigrants arrived in Hong Kong and settled down in East Kowloon.  Some of the richer immigrants were warlords, landlords and capitalists who favoured the Kuomingtang government and hang Kuomingtang flags at where they resided.  The villages in East Kowloon became closer to the pro-Kuomingtang group over time, thus they did not have a harmonious relationship with the Planters’ Union.  The villagers had lived in Hong Kong for generations, so they did not fully understand the situation in China and the conflict between Kuomingtang and the Communists.  (Editor's note: The interviewee added that immigrants from Huaxian, Zengcheng and Longgang came to Hong Kong after the war.  They farmed on lands owned by the Lam and the Ng clans, while renting houses of the indigenous settlers in Chuk Yuen Village.)

In 1957, the government began to resume land in Wong Tai Sin District for re-development, a move that unbalanced the interests among village headmen and the Planters’ Union.  Villages in East Kowloon formed the Thirteen Villages Committee, uniting themselves against the government.  The headmen did not have enough strength, so they aligned themselves with the Planters’ Union.  The two groups put aside their differences for the sake of common interests.  They jointly strived for reasonable compensation for their taken farm land.  Representatives of the Union entered into negotiation with the government, and they were encouraged by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs to change jobs.  Those with money would be granted shop spaces on the ground floor of the resettlement blocks, where they could do business.  Then, the government deported the secretary and chairman of the union for they were “involved in politics”.    The Union was finally dissolved in the 1960s.  The deportation order did not apply on the indigenous settlers since they actually came from Hong Kong.  In 1957, the government started to implement the demolition process in phases.  Ng Fat Chuen witnessed how the police moved in and took people’s land.  Ng had clansmen who worked in the police force, so he did not try to make things difficult for them and accepted the government’s resettlement arrangement.   

The Temple of the Lords of the Three Mountains was near the sea in the old days.  The 25th day of the second lunar month is the Festival of the Lords of the Three Mountains - a time when the 13 villages would get together and celebrate.  A feast and a performance of Chinese opera would be arranged in front of the temple.   The temple found itself located inland after the completion of the reclamation project at Kai Tak Bund.  During Japanese Occupation, the Kai Tak Nullah was constructed to provide protection for the airport, the magazine, and other military posts.  The Nullah started from Sheung Yuen Ling and Ha Yuen Ling (the present Rhthym Garden and Chi Lin Nunnery) and ran out to the sea via Nga Tsin Wai and Ta Ku Ling (the football field in Morse Park today).  Three runways in the Kai Tak Airport were built one after another.  The first one went from Sa Po Road to Robert Black Health Centre; the second from Ho Lap College to Richland Gardens  with a gate on Choi Hung Road to direct the traffic of airplanes; the third went from Prince Edward Road all the way to Lei Yue Mun.

In 1957, the government developed the Wong Tai Sin District, and resumed the land in Nga Tsin Wai, Ta Ku Ling, Kak Hang and Sha Po.  The village headmen joined together to strive for their people’s rights, and eventually the affected villagers were resettled in Fung Wong Chuen.  Fung Wong Chuen used to be a hilly area for grazing cows, before it was cleared and flattened to make way for the village.  In the 1950s, the area east of Ngau Tau Kok was not yet developed.  Kwun Tong Road was not built yet, so cars had to go through Ngau Tau Kok Road to get to Kwun Tong.  The ancient village of Ngau Tau Kok was right by the sea without a beach.  Ng Fat Chuen always wandered about when he was small, and he had tried to swim along the shore near Nga Tau Kok.  The ancient village had a pier through which the villagers shipped the stone from their quarry out to other locations.  Some of the early industrial establishments in Ngau Tau Kok included the Amoy Food and Cheoy Lee Shipyards.  In the 1950s, Ngau Tau Kook became an industrial district.  Ng Fat Chuen used to work at the factories there, earning a daily wage of 3.5 dollars.

During Japanese Occupation, the Kai Tak Nullah was built by flattening the hills at Po Kong and Nga Tsin Wai Village.  Building materials were taken from the hills, and two tracks were also laid in the construction site for the barrows to run on.  The barrows could roll down the tracks on their own but they must be operated manually when going up.  A lot of country people joined the hard construction work in order to earn 3.6 taels of rice; many of them died because of overworking.  Before the war, the British government developed Kai Tak Bund and built Nga Tsin Wai Road along with other avenues. Carpenter Road was completed after the war, at a time when there was still just farmland on both sides.  Kowloon Main Street already disappeared before the war finished. Ng Fat Chuen only heard about it from other people when he was small.  The market was located at the site of the present Regal Hotel.  His family grew bean sprouts in Tung Tau Village and sent the produce to the market for sale.  Blacksmith Street was filled with a lot of shops that sold farming tools and metal ware to villages in Kowloon City, Sha Tin and Sai Kung. Blacksmith Street was connected to Sa Po Road.  When Ng Fat Chuen entered Lok Sin Tong Primary School in 1949, he had to walk to school every day from home via Blacksmith Street.  The government started to develop Wong Tai Sin in 1957, and Blacksmith Street was gone by the 1960s.

During Japanese Occupation, Ng Fat Chuen and his parents lived at Model Village in Kowloon Tong (the present campus of Hong Kong Baptist University).  Junction Road only reached as far as Hau Wong Temple in those years.  The site of the Hong Kong Baptist University and Hong Kong Baptist Hospital was a tall hill.  Travel was difficult when Ng Fat Chuen followed his mother to visit his grandfather in Chuk Yuen, for they must pass through the present Broadcast Drive and LaSalle Road to go from Kowloon City to Wong Tai Sin.  Ng Fat Chuen and his mother used to farm on the land before the village (the present Kowloon East Barracks of the People’s Liberation Army), using the water from Ap Chai Lake for irrigation.

Ap Chai Lake was deep and had nice fish living in it.  A lot of children went to catch fish from the lake, and drown themselves because they were trapped by the mud underwater.  A Japanese barrack was set up in front of Model Village, and the soldiers inside sang every day.  Out of defensive needs, property owners in Kowloon Tong were forced to move away.   After the war ended, Kuomingtang’s New 1st Army once stationed there and planned to take over Hong Kong.  However, they were driven away by British forces.  During Japanese Occupation, Ng Fat Chuen was once mistaken by the Japanese army as a young guerrilla fighter and almost got himself killed.  In recent years, he has plotted the old Model Village on a map as a memento and as a way to bridge the gap in the current scholarly research.
 

Ng Fat Chuen’s mother was a member of Po Kong Village.  Prior to the war, she farmed and raised pigs near Tsang Foo Villa in Dai Yuen Kui, Wong Tai Sin.  The young Ng Fat Chuen, who was under nobody’s guidance, walked about by himself every day after breakfast.  He became familiar with the landscape around Po Kong Village, so he was able to draw it on a map by memory.  People in Po Kong Village were mostly from the Lam clan.  Other members of that family lived around Chuk Yuen.  In the early days, the Lams lived in Pang Po Wai by the sea.  There was a shoal in front of the village.  One year, some pirates robbed the village during high tide, which almost wiped out the Lam clan.  The children who survived the raid went to stay with their relatives in Chuk Yuen Village.  Nga Tsin Wai also had a beach in front, but it was protected from the pirates by its blockhouses, stone bridge and surrounding ponds.  The Dai clan, who were related to the Lams, once lived in Po Kong Village and owned the Tin Hau Temple in Causeway Bay.  Lam Koon Dai’s son-in-law was named Pang, and the Pangs also moved into Po Kong.  One of the tenants of Lam Kai Shan was named Kong.  Kong became Ng Fat Chueng’s neighbour after he was assigned by the Japanese to the Model Village in Kowloon Tong, where he made a living by farming and keeping pigs.

Before the war, there was a big hill at Po Kong Village.  The site of the present Wong Tai Sin Police Station was a hill, which was reduced to the ground during Japanese Occupation.  The Lams from Po Kong Village used to grow lychee at the foot of the hill, which was why the area was called “Lychee Garden”.  Outsiders were not allowed to pick lychee in the garden, but Ng Fat Chuen could do that anytime because he is a relative of the Lams.  There was a large pond in front of Hong Sing Temple, which bustled with the villagers who gathered every year there to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival.  A popular game among the children then was called ‘Pok Sheng Ngau Chai’.  Tsang Foo Villa had a large canal nearby that came down from Wong Tai Sin.  According to Ng Fat Chuen’s uncle, Tsang Foo Villa had Japanese residents before the war.

Nga Tsin Wai had a hill behind named Kam Shan Chut.  The Japanese reduced the hill to flat land, and used the stone and soil for building San Po Kong.  Sha Po Village used to be divided into Sheung Sha Po and Ha Sha Po.  Sheung Sha Po was the present Tung Wui Estate, while Ha Sha Po became Lee Kau Yan Memorial School.  Ha Sha Po was demolished during Japanese Occupation and was transformed into a large sewage canal.  Sheung Sha Po, on the other hand, was eradicated when Block 23 of Tung Tau Estate was under construction.  The old Tung Tau Village had a mix of family names.  It was located at the present Block 22 of Tung Tau Estate.  The village houses were typical ones with roofs covered in tiles.  Tung Tau Village had narrow pavement made of stone plates.  In those days, Ng Fat Chuen’s home was in Tung Ta’s main gate (Editor’s note: the east gate of Kowloon Walled City).  The family grew bean sprouts and irrigated their plants with water from the well outside the city gate.  The ditch cover at the bus stop on Tung Tsing Road was where the well existed.  The Tung Tau Community Centre today was the venue of the early Lok Sin Tong.  Later, Lok Sin Tong moved to a new location on Nam Kok Road.

Born in Mau Chin in Nga Tsin Wai, Ng Fat Chuen moved away with his parents when he was small.  When he grew up, he was busy making a living and did not assume any position in Nga Tsin Wai Village as well as in the Ng clan’s ancestral trust.  However, he placed great emphasis on family relations and country ties; therefore he enthusiastically participated in the affairs of the village and the ancestral trust.  There was no barrier among himself, his neighbours and fellow villagers.  Every year, Ng Fat Chuen worshipped at the Ng Clan Ancestral Hall together with the clansmen on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month.  During Chung Yeung Festival, he would visit the three ancestral graves located at Sha Tin, Shap Yi Watt Village and Mau Tat Village.  When he was three years old, his father took him to watch the Jiao Festival in Nga Tsin Wai, which takes place once every 10 years.  After that, he never missed a single festival.  He also came to know the Lees and the Chans who moved away Nga Tsin Wai some time ago. 

In 1947, the Tin Hau Temple in Nga Tsin Wai was to be rebuilt.  Ng Fat Chuen and his grandfather donated money to support the project.  Every year since, Ng would make donations at the Tin Hau Festival.  He occasionally attended the meetings of the organisation committee of the Tin Hau Festival, which let him familiarise himself with villagers with other family names.  In addition, he also played a part in the Ng Clan's Association and The Thirteen Villages Committee of Kowloon.  Although he did not take up any official position in these organisations, his active participation earned him the respect and recognition of their members.

The fourth branch of the Ng clan in Nga Tsin Wai worshipped Yat Un Tso on every tenth day of every ninth month of the lunar year.  Before the war, the grave was located on Diamond Hill.  It was moved to the present Tung Tau Village Road during Japanese Occupation.  After 1957, due to the government’s development plan, it was once again relocated to the mountain behind the present Regal Hotel in Sha Tin.  The relocation was organised by To Shing Kung (Ng Wai Chi).  Sha Tin was then not yet a developed region.  The clansmen had to walk from Tsang Tai Uk to the graveyard.  Later, Ng Fat Chuen, his brother and other clansmen including Ng Hung On cleared the grass and opened a mud path, which made travel easier for their kin.   When Belair Gardens was completed in later days, the property owner requested that the grave be moved away.  The dispute was taken to court at one point.  The Ngs in Siu Lek Yuen stood up and announced publicly that Yat Un Tso was their own ancestor.  Since they were indigenous settlers of the New Territories, the graveyard was under the protection of the law.  Therefore, the grave was finally prevented from being removed. 

Yat Un Tso is divided into eights descent lines (four from the 16th generation and other four from the 19th generation).  Each of them took turn to organise the annual worship.  If one is unable to commit, then the next down the line would take over.  People used to bring two roast pigs up to the hill during worship, but now it is down to one only.  The items of sacrifice also changed greatly.  Jiujiang double-distilled liquor and other traditional dishes have been replaced by bananas and soft drinks.  The ceremony was similar to that of other branches.  Money and pork were divided and given to each person.  More than 50 years ago, each person could get a few dollars. 

Clansmen from other descent lines such as Tak Ko , Fung Ko, Hon Ko and Sz Ko worshiped separately on the eighth day of the ninth month, paying homage to Ting Fung  (16th generation), Chun Wah  (17th generation), Shing Wah (17th generation) and Wai Wing (18th generation).  Why they set the date on the eighth day of the month is now untraceable.  What the family understood is that it has been this way since the end of the war.  Earlier on, the four graves scattered in different places.  When the government started developing East Kowloon in 1957, all the graves were moved collectively to the hill next to Sap Yi Wat Village and combined into one.  The worship that takes places on the eighth day is organised in turns by the four descent lines.  With the worship booklet at hand, the lines know how to make the right preparations.

Before 1957, the Ng Hon Ko Tso branch worshiped their ancestors twice a year on Ching Ming and Chung Yeung.  Ng Hon Ko Tso was the only branch in Nga Tsin Wai who did so.  It was the idea of Ng Fat Chuen’s mother to worship twice a year.  Ng Hon Ko Tso got an income from rents.  His mother believed that all clansmen could share in this blessing by getting a portion of the money at the worship.  She hoped that Ng Hon Ko Tso could exist forever, as it helps maintain the friendship and amity among family branches.  Ng Hong Ko Tso’s grave was located in Mau Tat Village on Kwun Yam Shan.  Ng and his mother knew the country people in the mountains well, so they were willing to offer a favourable piece for buyingfirewood and bamboo broom from them. By doing so, the country people did not need to worry about carrying unsold goods back to Kowloon Peak.  Ng Fat Chuen thought it would be difficult to go up hill for worship had there not been such friendship.  Ng Hon Ko Tso was a private ancestor so the way his descendants differed from that of Ng Shing Tat Tso.  The branch kept a roster listing the rules of worship and the age of each clansman.  Each family in the branch took turns to organise the worship.  If a certain family was unwilling to organise, they would have to ask the next in the duty line until they found someone to take over.  The organisers were responsible for buying sacrifice items such as three animals, squid, peanuts, guangsu cakes and fruits.

Ng Fat Chuen set the worship date on the first Sunday of the ninth lunar month to accommodate the schedules of those who need to go to work or school.  In the past there was only a few people used to attend the worship.  The attendees had to walk uphill, but now they would assemble at Fung Wong Cheun (the present Wong Tai Sin Fire Station) where they would be taken uphill by specially arranged vehicles.  If they could not find the assembly point, they would get help from Ng Fat Chuen.  Nowadays, the clansmen assemble at Nga Tsin Wai and go uphill on coaches.  The worshippers have always been able to get a share of money, from 100 dollars per person in the old days to 10 dollars per person today.  In the 1980s, the interest rate for the family deposit could be up to six to seven per cent.  The two branches (Editor’s note: Kan Yam and Leung Yam) would each contribute an addition 200 dollars to the ancestral trust.  Except those who were of old age, other clansmen must go uphill and worship before getting their shares of money.  Money was distributed first to the senior members in family.  Senior members who did not go up to the hill could appoint a representative to get the money for them.  If there was no representative, the money would not be given. 

In the old days, women who went up to worship on the hill would not get any money or food at all.  Nowadays, money would be given to everyone present, even Filipino maids, scholars and photographers.  The generations since Ng Hon Ko Tso worshiped on their own schedules and there was no consistent date.  Ng Fat Chuen worshipped the direct grandfathers of Leung Yam (20th generation) and his father (24th generation) whose graves were also on Kwun Yam Shan.  All of their remains were put inside a group of jars with their names inscribed on steles.  Money would be not given out for worshipping the generations of ancestors after Leung Yam, so it is difficult to get clansmen to come and pay respect at their graves.  Ng Fat Chuen believed that giving out money was just a kind of symbolism. The point is to let the family members know about their ancestors.

Before the war, Ng Fat Chuen would follow his father to worship his ancestors.  The founding father of the Ng clan, Shing Tat, was buried at a place behind Yin Hing Street in San Po Kong today.  Two graves were linked together in the graveyard.  The graves were on flat land in front of a knoll, chosen for Feng Shui purpose.  Not far from the graveyard was Kak Hang Village.  Two open grounds, where people dried their grains, lied in front of the graves and faced toward the shore of Lei Yue Mun.  On the ninth day of the ninth month each year, the Ng clan would go and worship Ng Shing Tat Tso.  A elder nicknamed “Moustache Man” would host the ceremony and the branches would worship in order: Kwong Un, Tong Un, Tai Un and Yat Un / (the fourth branches of the Ng clan in Nga Tsin Wai).  The host would call out people’s names and asked them to offer their incense at the graves. 

The village population was small before the war, thus no more than 20 people attended the worship.  The male members of the family could get a share of money and pork.  Ng Fat Chuen pre-war share was one cent.  The pork was not distributed directly; rather, the clansmen would redeem their share at a roast meat shop with their vouchers.   The age of each clansman was already on record before worship took place. Those who were 60 years or older were known as  “Shan Shou”.  Those who were exactly 60 years old were known as “Dan Shou”.  Finally, those who were 70y years old were known as “Sheung Shou”.  The “Shan Shou” could get a bonus on top of their normal share of money.  Women were not permitted to worship on the grave in the old days.  Their job was to carry things for the men and must stay outside of the graveyard.   The clansmen used to take seniority seriously, and the “moustached” elders were very dictatorial.  They drank Jiujiang double-distilled liquor during worship, and often beat people up when they got drunk.  If a younger person called them names like “damned old men”, they got slapped on the face by the elders immediately.

Ng Fat Chuen’s father disappeared during Japanese Occupation.  From the end of the war until the time before entering school, Ng always sat idly at Nga Tsin Wai.  He knew Tso Hing‘s family well because their families made bean sprouts together before the war.  Ng Fat Chuen was short and cute, so he gained the favour of the old uncles and aunts at the gatehouse.  They would inform him when it was time to worship on the hill.  Due to the expansion of the airport by the Japanese, Shing Tat’s graveyard was resumed.  When peace was restored, the clansmen went to the ancestral hall to worship instead.  In those years, part of the ancestral hall’s land was leased to a school.   The rent received was either used to cover worship expense or split among the family.  In 1962, when the new ancestral hall was completed, the tradition of dividing money got cancelled.  There was a piece of empty land in front of the ancestral hall, which they leased out to two vendors and used the rents to cover worship expenses on Chung Yeung at the ancestral hall.  Ten years ago, the fund of Shing Tat Tso ran out, and Yat Un Tso helped pay for their worship expenses.  The custom of worship has changed considerably today.  Soft drinks replaced peanuts and guangsu cake as sacrifice items.  Besides, clansmen who have other religious faith would not offer incense.

In 1957, the government resumed Ng Hon Ko Tso’s farmland.  Some brothers in the clan opined that they should divide the compensation money.  This was opposed by Ng Fat Chuen and his mother.  Her mother thought it was not right to divide the family’s money.  She was bullied by some clansmen because she was a widow, so she asked Ng Song Fat, Ng Woon Yin, Ng Tso Hing, Ng Yeung Kin and other clansmen to help prevent the money from being divided.  After that, those helping men also became trust managers, making the number of manager increase from two to five.   Ng Fat Chuen thought his mother was able to take command not because she had an imposing character, but because she got her authority by family tradition from being a representative of a branch. If the money was split at that time, it would be hard to keep the 24 households united.

Ng Fat Chuen did not see the number of managers as an important matter.  According to family tradition, there should be only two mangers from the branch of Ng Hon Ko Tso, but he did not object to the increase in manager positions because it was better to have more help.  He tried his best to unite the 24 households, although the process was not free of difficulty.  He must be patient when dealing with certain family members.  Ng Yat Un (11th generation) and Ng Wai Wing (18th generation) were the direct ancestors of Ng Hon Ko Tso.  There was a trust under each of their names, but Ng Fat Chuen played no part in them. Un Yuen’s trust had eight main managers, and Ng Fat Chuen was once nominated to be one of them to represent the entire Ng Hon Ko Tso branch.  Yet, he suggested Ng Siu Hung  to take that post because Ng Siu Hung was younger, had more free time, and lived in Nga Tsin Wai.  Therefore, Ng Siu Hung had the time and energy to participate in clan affairs.  Ng Siu Hung was the vice headman of Nga Tsin Wai as well as the general manger of the Yat Un Tso trust, acting on behalf on fourth branch of the Ng clan in the business and affairs of Ng Shing Tat Tso.

In 1957, the government resumed Ng Hon Ko Tso’s farmland in Tai Hom Village.  After receiving compensation, the clansmen bought a flat in San Po Kong and decided to lease it.  Later on, Ng Song Fat and his kin sold the flat because they failed to receive the rent and the flat itself was also deteriorating.  In 1967, it was sold for 180,000 dollars.  The money was deposited into the bank when interest rate was considerably high in those years.  Ng Hon Ko Tso was never a registered society.  Until recently, when Sai Kung District Office officially recognised the Ng clan’s family chart, Ng Hon Ko Tso became an ancestral trust.  Since Ng Hon Ko Tso did not have an identification document, the trust’s account was set up under the name of the trust managers.  To take the bank deposit out, one must have two to three managers’ signatures.  Earlier managers included Ng Tso Hing, Ng Woon Yin and Ng Song Fat. 

Ng Fat Chuen was busy making a living when he was younger, so he was only involved in transporting sacrifice items to the place of worship as a driver.  When he got older, he was invited to serve as a trust manager but his position was not an officially registered one.  Ng Song Fat supervised Ng Hon Ko Tso’s finances and he would report the amount expenses to the clansmen during worship time.  Ng Fat Chuen began to take over the financial affairs since 1988.  In the beginning, he wrote his balance report on carbon papers and distributed them to the 24 households in the branch.  Later, he distributed photocopies instead.  He hoped each household could get to know the account clearly and reminded them to keep the report in a safe place.  After auto-pay was set up, he no longer deals with the transfer of money by his own hands.  This enhanced the trust’s financial transparency.  The managers of Ng Hon Ko Tso did not hold regular meetings.  They only met when something happens and needs attention, such as the rebuilding project of the ancestral grave in 2010 by the four managers. They raised fund from 24 households to complete the project. 

Ng Hon Ko Tso owned a piece of farmland in Tai Hom Village.  Before the war, Ng Ying Pui (Ng Fat Chuen’s father) and Ng Tso Hing  ran two bean sprout factories there.  They did not need to pay any rent because it was family land.  The bean sprout factories were set up inside two metal houses that stood next to each other, with a total area of 1000 square feet.  There was pure spring water suitable for sprouting beans.  Each kilogram of seedlings could weigh nine kilogrammes after sprouting.  The bean sprouts needed to be watered every four hours, and Ng’s father hired two helpers to do this task.  Part of the farmland was leased out to farmers from Huaxian.  The rents would be allocated to cover the clansmen’s worship expenses.  The tenants were a couple with several children, who grew water spinach and Chinese spinach.  After the end of the war, the clansmen went to the District Office to re-register the title of the land, but Ng’s father were already gone missing and Ng’s himself was under 21 years old (the legal age for registration).  In that case, no male decedent of Leung Yam branch met the age requirement.  The government asked Ng’s mother to represent the Leung Yam branch.  Other men in the clan also persuaded her, saying, “Pui’s woman!  You have to do this!”  Hence she agreed to be a manager for Ng Hon Ko Tso and became one of the title holders.

After the war, Ng Fat Chuen’s father bean sprout factory was taken over by its staff.  His mother received 10-20 dollars of rent from them each year.  She also convinced Ng Tso Hing to lease out his own bean sprout factory, and used the rents to cover worship expenses in spring and autumn.  Ng Tso Hing lent his bean sprout factory to a friend of his from the Kowloon City Market.  His friend then sublet the factory to other operators.  This gave rise to four to five bean sprout factories which became a landmark in the area.  Ng Fat Chuen was in his teenage and was studying at Lok Sin Tong Primary School, but he also was entitled to a share of the rents.  In 1957, the government resumed the farmland at a price of less than a dollar per square foot.   The clansmen of Ng Hon Ko Tso ended up receiving tens of thousands of dollars.  Ng Fat Chuen thought that the British were worse than the Japanese because they allowed no room for bargain and did whatever they wished.  After receiving compensation, the clansmen bought a flat in San Po Kong and later sold it out in 1967.

Ng Hon Ko Tso had descendants in Tai Peng Village, Lamma Island.  Driven by the traditional believe of recognising oneself with the ancestors, they maintain contact with their relatives in Nga Tsin Wai through attending Jiao Festival and going to worship.  Prior to the war, when the Jiao Festival took place in Nga Tsin Wai, the relatives from Lamma Island would ship firewood to the village on a boat.  This no longer happened after the war.  Ng Fat Chuen had known his relatives on Lamma Island since he was small.  From 1949 to 1951, he studied in Lok Sin Tong Primary School.  As a child, he was naughty and fearless, and would go swimming at Lamma during summer vacation.  He would take a ferry from Aberdeen at first, and late he began to go there by tugboat from salted fish market at Ko Shing Street, Sai Wan.  He would spend one night on Lamma Island at Ng Shui Gun or Ng Yau Hei’s house.  Yau Hei welcomed Ng Fat Chuen warmly and did not mind that he was poor.   He would take Ng Fat Chuen to swim at Yung Shue Wan or take a boat out and catch fish for him from the sea.  The tie between the two families lasts until today.  Ng Fat Chuen himself attended the wedding banquet of Yau Hei’s daughter.  Tai Peng Village was a village with a mix of different families.  A person from the Ng family served the headman.  Most clansmen on Lamma Island were sailors, such Yau Tak, Yung Fu and Yau Fat.  As owners of boats and houses, they were considered quite well-to-do within the clan. 

Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng clan was divided into four branches.  The fourth branch can be traced back to Yat Un Tso (the 11th generation).  Ng Hon Ko Tso (the 19th generation) was a descent line of that branch (known as third of the fourth branch).  Ng Hon Ko Tso’s grave was located behind Mau Tat Village on Kwun Yam Shan.  Nowadays, the descendants would go worship on the first Sunday of every ninth month of the Lunar Year.  Ng Hon Ko Tso is divided three lines, which were the descendants of Chiu Yam, Leung Yam and Kan Yam, with a total of 24 families as of today.  Chiu Yam had no more direct decedents.  On the family chart, his line was only recorded up to the 20th generation.  Before the war, the only decedent was named “Bak Bei Fat”, who was in the 24th generation and would go to worship the family grave every year.  However, he starved to death during Japanese Occupation, so it is now impossible to trace back the names of his forefathers.  Bak Bei Fat and Ng’s father were in the same generation, and both of their families lived next to each other before the war in Mau Chin.  One day, someone stole a pig from Ng Fat Chuen’s home.  The thief understood the habits of pigs, so they covered the pig’s mouth with lime.  When Ng’s father was chasing after the thief, Bak Bei Fat asked him what happened.  By the time his father answered, the thief already fled without a trace.   Ng and his father believed that Bak Bei Fat was the thief’s accomplice.  As a result, a deep “vendetta” between the two families began.

Ng Fat Chuen (25th generation) is a descendent of Leung Yam.  His direct ancestors’ graves were on Kwun Yam Shan.  His father disappeared years ago in Nantou and the body could not be found, so Ng made an ash jar for him and laid a spirit tablet on top.   Ng Fat Chuen never met his grandfather himself; he only knew from her mother that the older generation of his family grew vegetables and raised pigs in Mau Chin.  Ng’s younger brother was taken to Longgang and placed in the care of local farmers during Japanese Occupation.  He settled in Cheung Chau after returning to Hong Kong.  Leung Yam had another line of decedents in Tai Peng Village, Lamma Island.  The earliest family member to go there was from the 22nd generation, and he was called a  “Yau Pang Tsai” (i.e. when a widow remarried, the son from her previous marriage would be called “Yau Pang Tsai” by her new husband’s family).  His mother remarried into Tai Peng Village and brought him along, but still she brought him back Nga Tsin Wai so that her son could recognise his own ancestors and maintain his identity as a clan member.  The Jiao Festival took place in Nga Tsin Wai once every 10 years.   During the festival, people used to cook in the ancestral hall.  Clan members from Lamma Island would bring firewood to the village on a boat, making contribution to the festival as a token of respect for their ancestors.  Today, there are only three households left in the Lamma Island branch, two of which have moved into the city.  The Lamma Island branch worship their ancestors every year, but they seldom get involved in clan affairs and did not serve as managers since it is not convenient for them to travel about.

Ng Hon Ko Tso used to own properties in Tai Hom Village, although they were all resumed by the government after the war.    The clan bought a flat with the compensation money, which was sold later by a certain brother from the Kan Yam branch in order to cover worship expenses.  During worship, the clan carried 30 pounds of roasted pork up to the hill and divided it all in front of the ancestral graves.  Each family would be given a share of pork.  In recent years, the clansmen go to the roast meat shop instead of the hills to get their share.  Worshipping the ancestors enhanced unity among the 24 households of the descent line.  The money of Ng Hon Ko Tso is now kept by four managers.  Ng Fat Chuen is one of them, representing Leung Yam family.  The money is deposited into the bank and all transactions were settled by auto-pay.  The managers do not deal with the transfer of money.  So far, Ng Fat Chuen has managed the money for 24 years.  Each year, he makes photocopies of the accounts and distributed them to the 24 households.