Hung Gu

Hung Gu’s ancestral home is Xingning, Guangdong where her grandparents lived. Her father worked in Xiangshan before coming to Hong Kong. Her mother’s native place was Longgang (or Henggang). After her parents got married in Hong Kong, they rented a house in Sha Po Village. Her father died after the Second World War, that is, 40 years ago (Editor’s note: as at 2012). Her mother also died 30 years ago. Hung Gu returned to her native place during the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong. As she always got sick shortly after the Second World War, her father wrote a letter from Hong Kong to their native place asking their native relative who used to live in Hong Kong to bring Hung Gu back to Hong Kong . Fortunately some well-acquainted natives decided to return from their village back to Hong Kong, Hung Gu joined them in the move. Since then she lived in Nga Tsin Wai, a place where she had not left for more than 60 years. Her mother reunited with them after the change of ruling regime in China. Her younger brother had also returned to the native place during the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong. As he made good grades at school, their great grandfather loved him very much and supported his studies. Later on, he returned to the native place to help the great grandfather in his business and had never returned to Hong Kong since then.

In her family, boys enjoyed more favour than girls. As Hung Gu had never got any education, she had no work to do after she returned to Hong Kong after the War. All she could do was to take care of his elder brother’s daughter. Sometimes, she took care of someone else’s children and earned 5 cents a day. Later on, she had worked in the factories in To Kwa Wan, such as firecracker, battery or flashlight factories. Hung Gu had worked in the Kai It Battery Factory Limited and the Sung’s Electroplating Factory. In the Sung’s, she earned a daily wage of 5 to 6 cents. When his elder brother set up his own weaving mill, she worked for him. In those days, textile industry was prosperous in Hong Kong, but it began to decline when the Thai and Japanese machines were used by weaving mills around the world. Hung Gu had also worked in the Wah Sun Weaving Mill near Blacksmith Street. The proprietor Li Chai Ping was a native of Xingning. The mill was moved to the 2nd floor of Kai Tak Factory Building later and closed down 10 years after because the proprietor could not find anyone to take over his business. After that, Hung Gu worked in different factories including ironware and glove factories. When she was nearly 60, she could not find a job when there were influxes of mainland immigrants. She had no alternative but retired.

At 8 am on the day when the Japanese army invaded Hong Kong, Hung Gu and her younger brother were cleaning the house, and her elder brother was brushing his teeth. All of a sudden, Hung Gu saw something resembling an eagle in the sky. She went into the house and told his elder brother what she saw. Shortly afterwards, a bomb landed and hit a vegetable farm near Blacksmith Street. The man who was irrigating the vegetables was killed. His body was not found, only leaving behind his jade ring in the field and the jade fragments were blown far away. The second bomb landed on a British barrack. On hearing the alarm, Hung Gu and her family fled to different directions. They ran to remote places such as the deep pits in Ngau Tau Kok and Lo Fu Ngam. They returned home after the threat was over.

Life was hard during the period of Japanese Occupation. Hung Gu collected tree bark and tree leaves and ate with salt. Her mother kept 6 pigs in Sha Po Village. She hid her pigsty from the Japanese by constructing a canopy above it. Because of food shortage, her father took the family to their native place. Unfortunately, as their native place suffered from drought, they returned to Hong Kong as soon as peace was restored. Hung Gu did not go to school. She stayed at home and took care of her elder brother’s daughter. Her elder brother worked in a small weaving mill in Nga Tsin Wai. In those days, many male residents of Nga Tsin Wai earned their living as a sailor. Each sea journey lasted from several months to several years. Others would work overseas. Most of the women stayed at home where they grew vegetables or reared pigs. Some of them cultivated land to grow crops in the fields far away from the village. All residents in Nga Tsin Wai had their own pigsties. Pigs were sold on four occasions in a year: before Chinese New Year, Tuen Ng Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and Winter Solstice, the occasions when the pig farmers earned good profits. The villagers fed their pigs with duckweeds, sweet potato shoots or unwanted vegetables.

Hung Gu recalled that the ditch surrounding Nga Tsin Wai was clean running with water from the nearby hills. As people kept fishes in the ditch, it was also known as the fish pond. On one occasion, she went to the ditch with friends for fun. As the ditch bottom was covered with mud, one of the girls tripped and fell into the water when picking duckweeds in the water. The water was so deep that she was drowned. Her playmates on the shore shouted for help. Fortunately, a man who could swim jumped into the ditch and saved her. Hung Gu and her playmates used to play the game of wedding. They carved the duckweeds into the shape of a roasted piglet (the real roasted piglet was usually prepared for sacrificial offering) with a knife and dyed it red with incense sticks. They also made the bridal veil with worn clothes. When things were ready, they played the game of wedding. In the game, the bride and bridegroom knelt and bowed to the god of heaven and earth, as well as the ancestors. Later, when the Japanese soldiers entered the village, they discovered that the fish pond water was murky and asked for the reasons. They held a meeting with the grandfather of Ng Siu Kei (Editor’s Note: Ng Yun Chor) and suggested to discharge the fish pond water into the sea. The Japanese hired the villagers to dig the big gully (now known as Kai Tak Nullah) and remunerated the villagers with the rice held in the worship cups. When the gully was completed, the Japanese filled the land outside the village and built a small airport of Kai Tak. They also filled the ditch with soil.

Hung Gu enjoyed listening to stories told by the senior villagers when she was a child so that she could learn the history of Nga Tsin Wai. The great grandmother of Ng Chin Hung liked mahjong games, but the villagers did not like having games with her because she was harsh and played slowly. To listen to the stories, Hung Gu played the games with her. From the senior villagers in Sha Po Village, she heard the stories about Emperor Bing of Song Dynasty. According to what she heard, the emperor had passed through Nga Tsin Wai in his journey and Sung Wong Toi was built in commemoration of his visit. Originally, Sung Wong Toi was a large piece of round greyish black boulder which the villagers dubbed the ‘Ding Dong Boulder’. The boulder was so named because the boulder would make a nice, tender ‘dong’ sound when knocked by a long bamboo stick. Not everyone who knocked the boulder would make that sound, but Hung Gu could do it. Later on, the the Japanese shattered the Ding Dong Boulder with a bomb. One of the fragments was kept – it is the boulder now erected in the Sung Wong Toi Park.

Sha Po Village occupied a large piece of land. For easy identification, it was divided into the Upper Sha Po and Lower Sha Po. Hung Gu lived in the Lower Sha Po, a village dwelled with families of different surnames. Some of them were indigenous residents of Nga Tsin Wai. They moved to Sha Po because Nga Tsin Wai was not large enough to accommodate them. There were more than 30 clustered houses in Lower Sha Po (3 houses as a cluster). Hung Gu and her family lived in the first house of one of these clusters. Another one was occupied by a family named Lee. The village houses in Sha Po were quadrangles, the layout included bedrooms, living rooms, courtyard and gatehouse. They were larger than the houses in Nga Tsin Wai. As their shape looked like the bamboo tube, they were dubbed as ‘bamboo tube house’. The living room had a high ceiling, and the cockloft was large enough to accommodate 2 to 3 beds. Hung Gu and her brothers slept in the cockloft and their parents had the bedroom. The courtyard was the place for cooking or bathing, the big stove for cooking pig forage was also placed in the courtyard. The gatehouse was a roofless house with a small door. Hung Gu’s family kept 6 pigs on one side of the gatehouse, and the other side was used for storage.

As there was no water well in the Lower Sha Po, the residents had to walk to the Upper Sha Po with a large wooden bucket to fetch water from the well in Ng Chi Lang’s  home. But, Hung Gu had fetched water from the well in the Ng’s Clan Ancestral Hall. Hung Gu’s father prepared the claypot puddings at home and sold them on South Wall Road and Tak Ku Ling Road. (Hung Gu said her father was issued the no. 1 licence before the War, but it was lost after the arrival of the Japanese). In the Chinese New Year, he would prepare New Year’s cakes and sold them in the typhoon shelter and Yung Shue Tau in Yau Ma Tei. Although business was good, his father liked gambling and lost all the money earned in the games.

Hung Gu said some houses in Nga Tsin Wai were the protection houses which had doors and windows opened at locations different from what the ordinary houses were, but most villagers were not aware of it. In the past, Nga Tsin Wai was surrounded by a ditch and on the opposite side of the ditch was Mau Chin. In those days, there were no roads and vehicles in the area. In the morning, hawkers came to sell things in Mau Chin: women sold vegetables with a large Wolan (which means a container made of bamboo strips), and men mainly sold fishes such as golden threadfin breams and hair-tails. In those days, there were many vegetable farms in San Po Kong, and Nga Tsin Wai was surrounded by hills. They were later removed for building the Kai Tak Amusement Park. In those days, the villagers faced difficulties in getting drinking water. There was a well in Sha Po Village and it was in the ground in front of Ng Chi Lang’s home. It supplied water for the villagers in Upper and Lower Sha Po Village. It was a large foreground built with a 3-storey house surrounded by rocks. On the Mid-Autumn Festival each year, Pok Sheng Ngau Chai (Spirit Possession) was performed there. At the time, Ng Sai Ming was the leader of the children and they always played on the foreground. Because there was no well in Nga Tsin Wai, the villagers had to fetch water from the well in the Ng’s Clan Ancestral Hall.

In the pre-war days, a straight stream (a stream running from south to north) ran through the market in Kai Ming House of Kai Tak Estate. (Kai Tak Estate was completed in 1960 and demolished in 1993. The site is now occupied by the Kai Tak Garden on Choi Hung Road.) There were vegetable farms on both sides of the stream. The stream had existed before Hung Gu was born and the villagers fetched water from it. In the morning, they would wash their laundries there. The stream water ran from the hills nearby and ran into a waterfall at the firing range under the British Army (nowadays the location of Morse Park). The water from one of its tributaries went into the straight stream. Not many people knew about the waterfall. She discovered it on one occasion when she went picking bullet shells in the firing range with 5 or 6 girls. In those days, children had not much entertainment. Hung Gu used to go to the firing range with friends. When the British soldiers removed the red flag after the firing drills, they would swarm in and collect the copper bullet shells on the ground. They would bring them to the hardware shops on Nga Tsin Long Road in exchange for maltose which they enjoyed it as a sandwich with two saltines. In those days, it was a quality enjoyment to them.

Hung Gu loved to learn of the history of Nga Tsin Wai. She emphasized that the village had a history of 600 years, with tiles from the Ming Dynasty, and the orthodox thirteen rows, stopping stones, door beam and protection houses. Two stopping stones were placed under the roof of each house. They were there to convey the message of ‘no entry’ to anyone who approached the house. It marked the dividing line between the house area and non-house area, and the house owner could not extend his property beyond the line. The thirteen rows referred to the houses with 13 rows of tiles on the roof. In the past, most houses in Nga Tsin Wai were built of stones. The house which Hung Gu lived was built with double-layered stones, which meant the walls had two layers of stones. Besides, each house had a stone door beam for support of the main door. (i.e., the stone placed under the door.) The door beam of Tin Hau Temple was exquisite and refined in design.

The villagers used to place a stone slab in front of their houses. Hung Gu used to take a nap on it after work. Unlike what it is today, Nga Tsin Wai was clean in those days. Her elder brother had lived in a protection house. Behind the house was a ditch 2 meters deep. A thick wall of closely laid stones was built facing the ditch to prevent water from seeping into the houses. Hung Gu believed that the pyramidal roof of houses in Nga Tsin Wai was a concept imported from Egypt. She came to know about this one year at the Village Office from when the villagers told of the history of the village to the outsiders who came to visit the Jiao Festival – she was downstairs when the interview was underway. She was keen to learn of the history of the village. One night in the early post-war period when she was outside her home door with her young niece on her back, she noticed an iron bar resembling a chimney. She found it interesting and intended to tell his elder brother about it. But, the chimney-like object disappeared the next morning. It was not until later that she knew it was the cannon for fighting the pirates in the past."