Ng Siu Kuen

Ng Sui Kuen lived with his grandmother, parents, an elder sister, two younger brothers and two younger sisters. Later on, they rented one half of the attic to a family of five. Ng Sui Kuen’s family slept on bunk beds while Ng Sui Kuen lived with his grandmother at the attic. They accessed the attic by climbing a wooden staircase. In 1961, as his father had left Hong Kong for Britain, and Ng Sui Kuen and his younger brothers and sisters were still little, the living area was sufficient generally. In summer, the children either slept on canvas cots or a mat placed on the floor. There was a bathroom in the house. Two pump gas-driven kerosene stoves were placed at the corner for cooking. They were later replaced by the electric rice cooker. The family had their meals at the anteroom. The children seldom stayed in the house. They would go to the gatehouse and play after meals. In those days, the gatehouse was a piece of privately-owned mud land for which an annual government rent of one dollar was charged. In those days, one could buy several pieces of flatbread with one dollar, so the old generation was unwilling to pay it. Later on, the land was resumed by the government.

At present, the eldest branch of the Ng Clan of Nga Tsin Wai consists of 3 families. They include Ng Sui Kuen’s family, Wu Hau You’s family and Mai Tsai’s family. Of them, Ng Sui Kuen’s family was in the highest generation. The sons of Mai Tsai’s family want to be recognized as descendants of the clan. But, Ng Sui Kuen had meetings with members of the eldest branch and the village headman respectively, it was unanimously concluded that Mai Tsai’s family has no blood relationship with the Ng Clan, and is thus not eligible for inheritance of the ancestor’s assets. Ng Sui Kuen’s grandfather died young. He learnt from his grandmother, who widowed young, that his grandfather was a heavy drinker. Ng Sui Kuen’s father was a posthumous child. He had studied for 2 or 3 years in old-style private school. He joined the guerilla force during the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong. When he was a teenager, he joined the child brigade. He had been arrested and tortured. Shortly after he was married, he started working as an attendant in the quarter at the British Royal Air Force Base in Ngau Tau Kok through referral of his neighbour Mr Fan. He earned a monthly salary of more than $100. He was responsible to serve the senior military officers ahd his boss was a British major general (a foreigner). Mr. Fan’s wife’s family name was Ng and she worked at the airfield of the British Royal Air Force. Ng Sui Kuen’s mother had received no education. She worked in a cotton mill behind the village and left the children in the care of Ng Sui Kuen’s grandmother. The cotton mill was operated in a white label log cabin or squatter. It was near the site where the Chi Tak Public School now stands and was next to a large sauce manufacturer. Later on, his mother also worked at the airfield being responsible for washing and ironing clothes.

When Ng Sui Kuen was in primary 1 and primary 2, his father used to take him to the Air Force quarter on Sundays. He would play with the British militaries’ children who were of his age. They would eat sandwiches and potato chips together. When the major general was aware that his father had many children to support, he worried that he might be unable to support the family. So, he sent a referral letter to the Immigration Department and applied for approval to work in Britain on behalf of his father. The major general’s letter was effective. Shortly afterwards, his father bought an air ticket and left Hong Kong for Britain. In the checkup received after arrival at Britain, it was discovered that the lung injuries his father had sustained during the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong had not fully recovered. He was sent to the hospital where he stayed for more than 6 months. In the period of hospitalization, he earned no income. Ng Sui Kuen and his mother had to depend on the relief allowance and rice and flour handouts offered in Yau Ma Tei.

Ng Sui Kuen attended school at the age of 5 or 6. It was a leftist school operated on the rooftop of a building. One year later, he transferred to a church-operated school in Wong Tai Sin and studied for 1 to 2 years. Students received free milk powder, bread and biscuits from the school. When Chi Tak Public School was established in 1962 or 1963, Ng Sui Kuen transferred to the new school and studied primary 3. As Ng Sui Kuen was a descendant of the Ng Clan, he was exempted from the entrance examination. He quitted school and left  for Britain before completing primary 6. One of his younger brothers and one of his younger sisters also studied in Chi Tak Public School. His youngest brother studied in the Tai Shing Kindergarten, and his youngest sister studied in the Kit Ying Kindergarten. Ng Sui Kuen’s playmates all came from Nga Tsin Wai, and most of them lived in the 1st Lane. They included the younger brother of the incumbent village headman. When the construction works of the 7-storey buildings in Tung Tau Estate were underway, a pit was formed by piling at the construction site. On rainy days, it became a water pit with the depth of 4 or 5 feet - deep enough to drown a child. Ng Sui Kuen had jumped into the water pit for fun. As a child, he did not consider the mud water to be dirty.

There were many fruit shops on Nam Pin Street in Nga Tsin Wai. The children of the shop owners were his childhood friends. Because his family was too poor to afford the fruits, Ng Sui Kuen would collect rotten apples from the ground and cut them up with a knife borrowed from a fruit shop. In those days, there was a field behind the village. Ng Sui Kuen liked going to Tsz Wan Shan and Chuk Yuen (the current Chuk Yuen Estate in Wong Tai Sin) to catch jumping spiders. At the time, there were many fish ponds and vegetable farms in Chuk Yuen, while the Wong Tai Sin Temple was only a small shrine. When the Sheng Chang Fu Circus performed at the site of the current Lower Wong Tai Sin Estate, Ng Sui Kuen and other children would sneak into the tent for a free show.
There was a firing range of the British force in Lo Fu Ngam. The children used to go there to collect bullet shells. The foreigners would give them chocolate and cheese which were part of their military supplies. On the opposite side of Nga Tsin Wai was the British military airfield. When the plane took off, they would sound the gongs and the drivers on the road would give way. An air show was staged once every year at the airfield mainly in the summer. The I-shaped Vampire jet fighters took off in a row and performed aerobatics. Each show lasted for several hours from day to night. The loud noise from the take-off announced the start of the show, the villagers would tell each other: ‘The show has begun!’ Ng Sui Kuen would climb up the balcony of a friend’s home on the 1st Lane to appreciate the show or watch it from the rooftop of the Village Office. It posed no danger to him because he was as agile as a hare. Other villagers would watch the show at the porch of their own houses or on the stone benches at the gatehouse. Later on, the airfield was moved to Shek Kong to make way for the development of San Po Kong.

 Ng Sui Kuen’s father moved to Britain alone in 1961. When he first arrived, he stayed at his cousin brother’s home in Liverpool and worked in a fish & chips bar. One year later, he moved to Newcastle and was employed as a waiter in the chop suey restaurant operated by a Chinese and then transferred to the Kam Tin Restaurant. When his father returned to Hong Kong for the first time in 1966, he also arranged Ng Sui Kuen to move to Britain. Ng Sui Kuen arrived at Britain on 29 May 1967. Thanks for his clan brother Ng Siu Kin who worked in the airport, Ng Sui Kuen was offered a piece of cake on the airplane. It was because before the takeoff, Ng Siu Kin told an air hostess that Ng Sui Kuen was his younger brother and asked her to take good care of him. Ng Sui Kuen appreciated very much his kindness and still keeps it in mind now.

In Britain, he lived with his father in Newcastle. They shared the bed in the restaurant dormitory. Three months later, his father asked a foreign lady, who was his former colleague, to take care of him. The lady lived with his younger brother in a large house. Both of them were single and adored children. They only charged Ng Sui Kuen’s father £1.5 for the rent - a really low price. The lady bought Ng Sui Kuen daily necessities and clothes. She also arranged him to attend a primary school for Year 6. Because Ng Sui Kuen was not good at studies, and taking into consideration of his family’s financial conditions, he quitted school at 16 and started working. He worked as the pantry helper in the Kam Tin Restaurant and was naturalized as a British citizen the second year after he arrived at Britain. In those days, applying for an identity card was easy. One year later, he transferred to another restaurant and worked as a waiter. He worked there until 1971 when he quitted the job and returned to Hong Kong. By then, he was a skilled worker and had no difficulties in finding a job.

Ng Sui Kuen’s first return to Hong Kong took place by sheer chance – a friend gave him an air ticket of a Hong Kong-bound flight in the last minute and it just so happened that his mother came to Britain with his younger brothers and sisters for family reunion one week before that. In 1971, he stayed in Hong Kong for 6 months with all play and no work. His eldest aunt worried that he might be led astray and asked him to live in her home in Tsim Sha Tsui. Ng Sui Kuen’s mother was a Sha Po native. Ng Sui Kuen’s grandparents died early; his mother was the youngest of the family’s 4 children. His eldest aunt was quite rich. Her husband was a sailor and owned a property in Tsim Sha Tsui. Ng Sui Kuen had never been to Sha Po with his mother but he had visited his grandmother’s relatives in Tai Wai and Kak Tin with his mother.

At the time, their ancestor house in Nga Tsin Wai had been leased out. Ng Sui Kuen was living on the rent. The house was leased to a clan brother by the surname of Ng. He rented the whole house for several hundred dollars a month, and the rent was collected on their behalf by an uncle who had been adopted by the 4th branch. In the 1980s, his mother was convinced by Ng Sui Kuen’s elder aunt and sold the ancestor house to her for $80,000 so as to free herself from the troubles of rent collection and maintenance. The Ng family, who was in Britain, knew nothing about the acquisition which was taking place in Nga Tsin Wai at the time. When Ng Sui Kuen’s father knew subsequently that the Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited acquired the houses in Nga Tsin Wai with a price as high as $870,000, he could do nothing about it.

After Ng Sui Kuen returned to Britain in 1971, he found a job as manager in a Chinese restaurant in Newcastle. In 1972, he moved to Grangemouth of Scotland for career development through the referral of his brother-in-law. He opened his first chop suey takeaway shop in Edinburg in 1974 and his first restaurant in Livingstone in 1980. These were followed by the opening of a number of restaurants and takeaway shops in several cities in Scotland. In 1985, he travelled to Paris and learned cooking. He also learned Sichuan and Yangzhou cuisines. In 1999, Ng Sui Kuen gradually withdrew from the food business, but he would help in the restaurants opened by his friends during weekends to pass the time of day. All members of Ng Sui Kuen’s family engage in the food business and live in Scotland. All his siblings run their own business mainly in Edinburg and the surrounding regions. They will meet twice or thrice every year.

Ng Sui Kuen’s father used to return to Hong Kong more frequently – once every 2 or 3 years. (Editor’s note: Ng Sui Kuen supplemented that his father’s last visit was 2000, and he died in 2004.) His mother does not return to Hong Kong in recent years because she has difficulties in adapting to the hot weather. Ng Sui Kuen had only returned to Hong Kong with his father once because they had difficulties in arranging the same time for travel. Besides, Ng Sui Kuen was not interested in returning to Hong Kong at the time. His childhood friends were all busy with their own work and life. They could hardly make time to keep him company when he returned. He did not come to Hong Kong after returning to Britain in 1971.

It was not until after his divorce in 1991 that he returned to Hong Kong every year. In the beginning, he returned twice a year, but only once a year in recent years. The main purpose of his return is to visit his daughter, who has returned to Hong Kong for work. His son works in Scotland where he is married. Ng Sui Kuen usually returns in October because the weather is cool in autumn. Besides, the Chung Yeung Festival falls in October, he can worship his ancestors at the ancestral hall. When he returns to Hong Kong, he would meet clan brothers such as Ng Siu Kei. They would travel to the Mainland for entertainment as a way to ease pressure. Having left Hong Kong for a long time, Ng Sui Kuen misses his hometown a bit. To him, Nga Tsin Wai is a place with a history of 600 years, and it is a place where he was born and brought up, as well as a place where he had much happy childhood memories. What he misses most are the brotherhood and the marble games they played when they were children. He agrees with the Nga Tsin Wai reconstruction plan because the Tin Hau Temple and the village houses will be reserved to remind him of his memories.
 

When Ng Sui Kuen returned to the village in 2001, Ng Kau the village headman asked him to be the manager of the eldest branch for the purpose of discussing the acquisition issue. It was because Wu Guo Qiang the former manager was unwilling to stay in the post for reason of traffic inconvenience for he settled in Guangzhou and it was inconvenient for him to come to Hong Kong for the meetings. Ng Sui Kuen promised to take over the job because he thought someone must be the representative. Besides, he was the most senior member of the eldest branch and knew most clearly the affairs of Nga Tsin Wai, if he did not do it, things would be left unattended.

In the past, Ng Sui Kuen had never seen Wu Guo Qiang because they lived far apart. He only knew from his father that they were members of the eldest branch. After Ng Sui Kuen promised to be appointed, he was taken by Ng Kau and Ng Hung On to Guangzhou where he met Wu Guo Qiang and his brothers. They had total trust in Ng Sui Kuen. At present, the families of Ng Sui Kuen and Wu Guo Qiang are the only remaining households of the eldest branch. Ng Sui Kuen would meet with them from time to time and report the latest news of the village and the meetings. He doesn’t feel any burden being the manager and it is not a hard work for him.  However, he has to devote efforts and money - he has to raise funds to deal with the great grandfather’s affairs. In recent years, he returns to Hong Kong once a year and stays about one month for each visit. He would notify his clan brothers before leaving Britain so they can arrange a meeting. Ng Siu Kei is the person he mainly contacts. Ng Siu Kei may telephone him at Britain and ask him to vote on issues related to the ancestral trust. Sometimes, Ng Sui Kuen will call him for a chat. Through more frequent interactions, they have become well-acquainted.