Lee Foo

Lee Foo only knows about his father and grandfather, but not other ancestors of the clan.  His grandfather was a hand labour who made his living by making hemp ropes for ships.  His father, Lee Kam Chuen was a mechanic who ground and assembled the boilers on steam boats (commonly known as steam vehicle).  Lee Foo began working at a dockyard at the age of 18, and subsequently joined the Fire Services Department in 1958.  He was employed as security guard in 1987 until he officially retired in 1994.

According to stories that were transmitted down generations in Nga Tsin Wai, the village was built by three indigenous families - the Chans, the Lees, and the Ngs – in the 14th century.  The village was at first named Hing Yau Yu, but changed its name to Nga Tsin Wai when a yamen was later established there.  The present Lok Sin Tong Wong Chung Ming Secondary School and Robert Black Health Centre were, respectively, a beach and the Lung Tsun Pier in the old days.  There were a police station and a post office on the side.  Five ancient canons were placed in front of the post office.  The area around the Pier was dotted with wood houses that had hipped roofs and pennant flags of the Chinese Customs.  Ships of the Customs of the Qing Government were docked along the shore.  Not was far from the Pier was Kai Tak Bund, where single-deck buses used to run.

The Lee Clan was spread across Nga Tsin Wai and Sha Po.  A Lee Clan Ancestral Hall used to exist, but was demolished before WWII.  Lee Foo’s forefathers were affluent.  Each time there was a joyful occasion in Nga Tsin Wai, Lee Yau Chuen– a rich pawn shop owner, would go to village to join the celebration.  Kowloon City Public School  (Note: Lung Tsun School) was located on the side of Kowloon City’s yamen.  The students there attained top academic results and rewarded with papers and ink stones by Lee Yau Chuen. 

Lee Yung Fat and Lee Yung Hei were two brothers that belonged to the 21st generation of the Lee Clan, same as Lee Foo’s grandfather.  In the early years, they successfully bade for the pond in Nga Tsin Wai for fish farming.  The number of the lot was 4096, and by law, they must pay 10 dollars’ tax to the government every year.  The brother managed the pond poorly and only cared about smoking opium.  At last, their land was taken back by the British government because they forgot to pay their taxes.  Lot 4096 thus became a piece of Crown land.  In the 1970s, Lee Foo negotiated with the government when he was serving as headman.  His efforts, however, were futile due to ordinance of New Kowloon.  In 1937, when the Sino-Japanese War broke out, China was too tied up to take care of Hong Kong affairs.  The British took advantage of this chance and announced on the Gazette that they should incorporate the territory north of Boundary Street (including Nga Tsin Wai) into New Kowloon.  Most people, however, did not know about the terms because the literacy rate was low and the newspapers (costing one to two cents) were beyond affordable.

The Ngs were the largest family in Nga Tsin Wai Village, and was divided into four to five branches.  Some other clansmen scattered around the New Territories and Lamma Island.  From the generation of Lee Foo’s grandfather, the number of Lee clansmen has continued to decline.  Some members of the Lee Clan also lived in Sha Kok Mei, Sai Kung.  There were inter-marriages between Nga Tsin Wai and Sha Kok Mei.  As a folk song goes: Good boys come from Hing Yau Yu, good girls come from Sha Kok Mei.  From the generation of Lee Foo’s father, the Lee Clan in Nga Tsin Wai was split into three branches, one of which had moved overseas long ago.  When Lee Foo was a child, the wealthy first branch had built houses outside Nga Tsin Wai’s walls.  That row of houses was known by the villages as “mau”. Lee Foo’s elder cousin (son of Lee’s uncle) was called Lee Yuk Tong, and he also settled outside the walls after his father made a fortune.  The houses he built were better looking than those inside the walls.  Members of the first branch later emigrated out of Hong Kong and married foreigners.  Their decedents seldom came back to Hong Kong for ancestral worship.

Lee Foo belongs to the second branch of the Lees.  His grandfather Lee Kwun Fuk had three sons.  The eldest son, Lee Kam Chuen, was the father of Lee Foo and Lee Wing.  The second son married a woman named Koo.  He fathered a boy and a girl, named Lee Kwai and Lee Kan respectively.  Koo later died of pneumonia.  His uncle married another woman, Wong, from Shek O, and had two more sons, Lee Wah and Lee Lin, with her.  Just before the fall of Hong Kong in WWII, his uncle died of pneumonia.  Wong left with the two sons during Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, and was never heard again.  The two children of Koo starved to death, while Lee Foo’s own brother was taken away by his mother and was never found again.  The third son of Lee Foo’s grandfather was childless.  Though he adopted a son, Lee had lost contact with him as well.  Lee Foo was sad that most of his childhood companions had passed away.

Before the war, the Lee Clan Ancestral Hall of Nga Tsin Wai owned lands in Po Kong Village and rented them out to tenant-peasants to grow watercress.  Each year, the three branches took turn to collect the rents.  The rents, known as “Ching Sheung”, were set aside to cover tomb-sweeping and worship expenses.  Prior to the war, the ancestral grave of the Lee Clan was located at the present Lower Wong Tai Sin Estate, but it no longer exists there anymore.  The three branches gathered every year for tomb sweeping.  The children would play with firecrackers.   After deducting the worship expenses from Ching Sheung, the three branches would divide up any surplus money.  Each person would get a share.  People aged 60 or above got double; those who were above 70 years old got triple.  Families with a newly born male also got double.  The mother would accept the share of money on the baby’s behalf.  

Due to the expansion of Kai Tak Airport by the Japanese, the lands of the Lee Clan were resumed, stripping them of their real estate income.  The real estate was under the name of the clan’s founder and was co-owned by all three branches.   Sometimes money would get stolen by the managers of the ancestral fund, but clansmen usually did not break a word for the sake of familial relationship.  The three branches had not divided up the family properties, yet some were nonetheless richer than the others because people engaged in different occupations.  For example, Lee Foo’s uncle (from first branch) who worked as Taoist priest in Nga Tsin Wai, Kak Hang, and Sha Po, got a large income from red packets paid to him by his clients.  This allowed him to buy land and build houses in Nga Tsin Wai.  Lee Foo’s grandfather produced ropes for ships on a free-lance basis, and did not make as much as a priest did.

Lee Foo is a descendent of the second branch of the Lee Clan in Nga Tsin Wai.  His grandfather was a hand labour who made ropes at home for ships.  His grandfather had two wives.  Since his first wife, Ms Lam from Po Kong, could not produce an heir, he married Ms Chau from Heung Kong Wai.  Lee Foo had been to Heung Kong Wai in his childhood to visit the young brother of his step-grandmother (great uncle).  One of his great uncle’s sons (Lee Foo’s cousin once removed) worked as an architect at Taikoo Dockyard.  During the Japanese occupation period, Lee’s cousin once removed made pre-construction drawings at the Luk Hor Kau Steel Factory on Bailey Street and he referred Lee Foo to work as a trainee mechanic there.  The family of Lee Foo’s father lived in poverty.  He and his brother used to wear open-crotch trousers.  His father, Lee Kam Chuen, started working in his teens to support the family.  He made a living by repairing boilers on steam boats.  Before the war, the marine industry was prosperous and brought a lot of employment opportunities.  Lee Foo’s second and third uncles began sailing when they were in their youth.  The second uncle left home at the age of 15 or 16 to work as a waiter (known as “boy”) on foreign steam boats.  He married twice – first to Ms Koo from Sha Po, and then to Ms Wong from Shek O.

Before the war, the second branch of the Lees owned six single-storey houses on the First Lane in Nga Tsin Wai, with the lot numbers of 4060, 4061, 4062, 4043, 4044 and 4045.  The first three houses were single-side houses used as kitchen and pig houses before the war.  The land titles of the six houses were shared among Lee Kam Cheun, his two brothers and their descendants.  Lots 4043 and 4061 were passed down from the ancestors.  After the generation of Lee Foo’s father made a fortune, they also bought the houses nearby.  After Lee Foo was born, he stayed with his parents in no. 4043 – a house which had a penthouse in the back.  It was common for the villages to build a penthouse.  His second uncle lived next door at no. 4044 with family.   His uncle was infected with pneumonia and had to raise money for medical treatment by selling the house before the war.  His third uncle used to live at no. 4045, but they later moved out, leaving the house vacant. 

Village houses were of low value before the war, so it was common to see them being deserted.  During Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the Lee family pawned the lot no. 4060 for a sum of 500 dollars.  At the same time, Lee Foo’s family relocated to Model Village, Kowloon Tong.  Houses no. 4043 and 4061 were vacated, and later collapsed because the wood inside was stolen.  When the war ended, Lee’s third uncle redeemed lot no. 4060 and rebuild houses no.4043 and 4061 into two-storey buildings.  Later, the Lee family sold lot no. 4045 and rented no. 4043 out.   In the post-war period, Lee Foo lived his family at lot no. 4043.  In 1967, Lee Foo moved into the civil servants’ quarters in Ngau Chi Wan, handing the house over to his younger brother who was then going to start a family.  Lots no. 4043 and 4061 were sold in around 1986 for 600,000 dollars each.

Indigenous settlers in Nga Tsin Wai included the Ng, the Lee, and the Chan families (Sam Sing Tso).  The Ng Clan was the most populous.  The Lees were divided into two branches, with the first branch living outside the village.  The houses outside, known as 15-hang houses (one “hang” equals one Chinese foot) were larger than those inside.  They are double-chamber, hip-roofed houses without courtyard or balcony.  The area outside the village walls was referred to as “mau”.  Before the war, the Chans moved to Hang Hau.  Chan Shui Chuen’s household was the only ones left in Nga Tsin Wai.  Many residents in Hang Hau were members of the Ng family from Nga Tsin Wai, but their names were not included in the family chart of the Ng clan in Nga Tsin Wai.  Moving to Hang Hau was not any kind of organised migration.  The villages simply moved out sporadically through their neighbours’ referral, with a goal to improve their living conditions.

Uncle Shui Chuen (Chan Shui Chuen) was older than Lee Foo’s generation and knew a bit of English.  He often represented Nga Tsin Wai to talk with outside parties.  He spent the rest of his life in Nga Tsin Wai with his daughter.  Before he passed away, he got a coffin ready at home.  After his 60th birthday, Uncle Shui Chuen lived inside the village leisurely.  He liked to spend his days relaxing in his cane chair in Mau Chin.  When Lee Foo was small, he always got close to Uncle Shui Chuen to listen to old stories about Nga Tsin Wai.  The Sam Sing Tso used to live around Hau Wong Temple.  They were small in numbers, and often got “da ming fo” (“robbed”, as known before the war).  Later, they built a village in Nga Tsin Wai, fortified with blockhouses on the four corners and a drawbridge at the front gate.  To prevent the Red-turban robbers (remnants of Cheung Po Tsai’s pirate mob) from entering the village to rob, the villages took their pigs and cows back behind the village walls every evening at 6-7pm, and lifted up the drawbridge until the next morning.  During the early days, the single-side houses on the side of the village were pigs houses and cattle farms connected to each other.   The villagers grazed the pigs and cows outside the village during daytime.  Before the war, the British government once established pig farms at the single-side houses.  Built with red bricks, those houses were seven-foot tall, single-storey structures with cross-shaped windows.  After the Japanese invasion, the villagers renovated the pig farms into wooden beds and rented them out at a monthly rate of three dollars.

Before the war, there was a Lee Clan Ancestral Hall in Nga Tsin Wai under the management of Lee Foo’s uncle (elder brother of his father).  Lee Foo’s father Lee Kam Cheun worked outside the village and did not manage affairs of the Hall.  Lee Kam Cheun once won the bidding for a pond within the village, where he kept and farmed fish that he introduced from Shunde.  A lot of clansmen caught fish from the pond during the night to eat, as a result there was not much stock left when his father cleared the pond at the end of the year.  His uncles banded together to smoke opium all day, squandering much of the ancestral wealth away.  The Ancestral Hall finally met its downfall in around 1938/1939.  In those days, rich men in the village believed that they would rather have their sons to be wastrels, and encouraged their sons to take opium (“taking the big smoke”).  They also arranged “tongyangxi” (adopted pre-adolescent girls) to be the future wives of their young sons, as a measure to check their sons from wasting all the family wealth on debauched pleasures.  It was cheap to smoke opium then.  There were vendors selling opium wrapped in bamboo skin on Sha Po Road and Shek Ku Lung Road because the government approved the selling of opium in public (hence it was called “public opium”).  Lee Foo’s uncles had two beds for opium smoking.  One of them was reserved for the tenant-peasants, as a way to lure them to come and work.  Lee Foo had heard a lot of stories about opium addicts from the elders.  For example, a smoke stole his wife’s underpants when she was bathing, so that he could sell it for money and buy opium.

In his childhood, Lee Foo liked to go around different places to play, and thus he knew the area around Nga Tsin Wai well.  There used to be a lot of sauce-making factories and confectionaries around Nga Tsin Wai.  Lok Sin Tong Wong Chung Ming Secondary School is located on the former site of Tung Chun Soy Sauce Factory that produced sauces and sweets.  The lot of Tung Chun was owned by Ng San Hing, who belonged an older generation than Lee Foo’s, lived outside the village.  He was the richest man in Nga Tsin Wai and had three wives.  As owner of many land lots, Ng San Hing always cried “Money Come!” when he went out to collect the rents.  This cry became a nickname that villagers used to address him.  The site of Yiu Tung House in the present Tung Tau Estate was formerly Law Sam Kee that made Cheung So-Brand Soy Sauce, Hing Ah Preserved Fruit and Heung Man Garden were located near Shek Ku lung Village.  The former made sweets and sauces.

Lee Foo often went to play in the Walled City by himself.  He would climbed up the stairs to the gate towers on the east and west.  There were bamboo baskets filled with skulls and bones at northern gate tower, waiting to be deposited into jars.  Kowloon Walled City Public School inside the City was a famous school in Kowloon City where many people in the area took their studies.  Lee Foo’s mother was from the Ng family in Sha Po – a branch of the Ng Clan in Nga Tsin Wai.  Lee Foo would visit his grandmother in Sha Po once in a while.  Members of the Ng Clan in Nga Tsin Wai were also found in Sha Tin and Lamma Island.  Lee Foo once followed his father to visit relatives in Yung Shue Wan, Lamma Island, and in Heung Kong Wai.  Lee Foo’s step-grandmother was from the Chau family in Heung Kong Wai, and she gave birth to three boys and three girls including Lee Foo’s father.  It was said that his step-grandmother was a distant relative of Shouson Chow.  His grandmother was from the Lam Clan in Po Kong.

Nga Tsin Wai villagers called the open space in front of the village "mau".  Mau extended up to more than 10 feet away from the front village entrance.  "Mau" was a place where young children gathered to play.  There were houses, vegetable fields and rivers in front of it.  Children's entertainment before the war included Da Ken, Kick Lok, Pok Sin and Siu Yee, etc.

1) Da Ken: “Ken” is a short wood log of about four inches long with a diameter of one inch.  It is sharp on both ends.  Children dig in a small hole in the ground, and plug in the wooden “ken” which is wrapped with iron rings.  The player stands on the side with a foot-long wooden stick at hand.  Another person then pulls the iron rings and let the “ken” shoot up the air.  The player then strikes with the wooden stick.  The one who hits the farthest is the winner.

2) Kick Lok: “Kick Lok” is the rural name for a spinning top.  There are two main methods of play.  One way is to spin it with a string.  The top that stays spinning for the longest time wins.  The other way is to launch the tops against each other.  The one that drops down first would be the loser.  “Mau” was a piece of sandy ground, much cleaner than today’s street.

3.) Pok Sin:  “Pok Sin” is the Chinese opera staged on the seventh lunar month and at Mid-Autumn Festival.  The host was Master Meng She.   Meng She lived in a house in Nga Tsin Wai and stayed unmarried till the end of his life.  He always hosted celebrations and funerals for the villagers for free.  He made a living by picking seafood and vegetables.  The village children also referred to Pok Sin as Pok San Ngau Tsai (Note: transliteration only).  When it starts, a villager is claimed by the village children to be possessed and shakes with sound of the percussion.  The possessed person would not even feel the pain of having burning incense on his or her body.  The objective of Pok Sin is to drive away evil spirits.  It attracted many village children to gather around the village gate to watch.

4.) Siu Yee: The seventh day of the seventh lunar month is the Qixi Festival.  Rural people usually burnt offerings on the street to honour the spirits.  Money would be cast after the burning, and children would fight to pick up the one-cent or two-cent notes on the ground.  When children asked for money from shops like Law Sam Kee, they would chant: If you burn offerings without casting money, your wife would be harassed by the spirits tonight.  Qixi Festival was a popular festival before WWII.  It was particularly important to the “Ah Ma” (maids) who stayed unmarried for their whole lives.

Lee Foo was naughty when he was little.  He would always roam around Nga Tsin Wai, stealing apple guava and hawthorn from the confectionary or picking Chinese broccoli from the vegetable farms with other children from Law Sam Kee.  They would have fried rice mixed with diced vegetable, eggs, soy sauce and pig fat.  At the “mau” outside the village, there were fields of grass and vegetables.  Villagers let the chicken move about freely, and eggs were everywhere for one’s collection.  At age six or seven, Lee Foo already knew how to clean and cook rice.  There were two woks at his home’s kitchen – one big and the other one small.  In those days, people burnt grass for fire when they were cooking.  They used pig fat to stir vegetables because there was no such thing as cooking oil.  His mother regularly cut and gathered grass on the mountains.  Before she headed out, she would cook soup in the kitchen.  One time, Lee Foo added water into the wok himself when mother was away.  His mother later laughed at him for what he did. 

Prior to the war, the villagers fetched water from a well.  A well existed in each village; it was a prerequisite for building any village settlement.  Nga Tsin Wai had a well at the former site of the Ng Clan Ancestral Hall which was open to non-clansmen.  Three stoves were placed in front of the Hall where people killed pigs and had their feast during festive occasions.  Those were the days of eating with “large cauldrons and large stoves”.  During the mid-1950s, settlement estates were built nearby and people began to take running water at the estates instead.

Before the war, kerosene lamp was the main form of illumination for villages.  Lee Foo’s second uncle bought kerosene lamp from the USA when he was working as a sailor.  Every day at 4pm, Lee Foo cleaned the lamp and got it ready for the night when he would do his homework.  During Japanese Occupation, villagers switched to the dirtier oil lamps, which gave out dark smoke when the cotton lampwick was burnt.  Since illumination was inadequate, the villagers usually had dinner at 5pm and went to bed before dark.  When Lee Foo’s mother did not have to take care of her children, she would play Hakka paper cards (Luk Wu) with other women in the village as a pastime.  Lee Foo still goes to bed and wakes up early after he got married in the 1950s.  He would get up before dawn to care for his baby.  With his wife, he would feed the child and change its diaper.  The villagers began to go to sleep later when Rediffusion’s broadcast became widespread.

The pre-war life span of countryside people were between 50 to 60 years.  A person who reached age 60 was called “sheung sho” and respected by the entire village.  The children were afraid of seeing the elders, and had to quietly step aside when seeing them coming.  When the elders told the children about their glorious past, the children must listen carefully.  Chan Shui Cheun was a big name in Nga Tsin Wai when Lee Foo was small.  Chan lived in the Second Lane, and always represented the village to talk to the government because he knew a little English.  In his late years, Chan had nothing special to do in the village.  Every day after meal time, his daughter would carry a cane chair to the entrance of the village for Chan to sit down and enjoy the cool breeze.  If Chan was in a good mood, he would tell stories to the children.  Lee Foo paid respect to the elders when he was small.  He learnt a lot of anecdotes about the past of Nga Tsin Wai from Chan.  The young Lee Foo liked to roam around and set foot all over East Kowloon.  He would enter the Walled City to play every Saturday.  The City was then a simple, quiet place.  Lee Foo often saw farmers removing grass and planting vegetables.  On the gate tower, there were bamboo baskets filled with human bones, waiting to be put into jars.  Sometimes, Lee Foo followed his father to pay visits to relatives inside the City; that was how he came to know other children of his age.

The most prevalent health problems in the countryside were skin disease and malnutrition.  The villages did not care about hygiene.  The children often wiped their buttocks with leaves after they pooped, and did not even know that they had gotten infected by bacteria by doing so.  There were collapsed houses in Nga Tsin Wai, and many children simply picked up pieces of tile to wipe their buttocks.  Prior to the war, villagers who felt sick would mainly go to see the Chinese doctors at Lok Sin Tong on Blacksmith Street and receive free Chinese medical consultation.  The cost of medicine, however, had to be paid out of pocket.  People with severe illnesses would be sent to Kowloon Hospital or Kwong Wah Hospital.   Some stores in Nga Tsin Wai sold lemon tea cakes, which the villagers could cook and drink as medicine.  Those cakes were similar to Kam Wo Herbal Tea in nature.  Western doctors charged a high price before the war, and most villagers could not afford to see them.  The consultation fee was more than ten cents, thus Lee Foo had never seen a western doctor when he was small.  During the 1930s, it was already common for villagers to get vaccinated against smallpox.  All children must get a vaccine from the clinic on Argyle Street after birth.  Each vaccine cost three cents.  Birth certificate would be not issued unless the child had documental proof of vaccination.

Tea restaurants in pre-war Kowloon City were Lingnan Tea Restaurant, United Tea Restaurant, Brothers Restaurant  and Meng Heung Restaurant.  A “restaurant” was of a high tier than “tea restaurant”.  Lingnan and United were located on Sha Po, whereas Brothers and Meng Heung were on Prince Edward Road and Pak Tai Street respectively.  In the tea restaurants, guests were served at tables that had two levels.  The lower level of the table carried crispy dough twist and chess cakes   Lee Foo’s family was well-off when he was six to seven years old.  On Saturdays, he would go to have tea with his father.  To win the favour of Lee’s father, some people volunteered to let the young Lee Foo ride on their shoulders.  The main dim sum at the tea restaurants included barbequed pork buns, ribs, stick rice rolls and stick rice with chicken.  In winter, they served salted Chinese sausage rolls and Thunder Chisel (i.e. fat meat wrapped in pig liver skin, which oozes out oil when bitten).  Pre-war tea restaurants did not serve much beef, because cows were used to plough the fields.

Roads completed in pre-war Kowloon City were Nga Tsin Wai Road, Shek Ku Lung Road, Hau Wong Road, Ta Kwu Leng Road, Po Kong Road and Blacksmith Street.  Carpenter Road, Grampian Road and Junction Road were built consecutively only after the war.  There were farm houses and gardens on Carpenter Road before the war, and they were six to seven feet below the level of the present road.

Kowloon Tsai Park was formerly known as “signal hill”, as the weather signals were hoisted there in times of typhoon.  The pre-war Kowloon City Market had few types of goods available.  The shops mainly sold groceries, western suits, Baijiu, paper models, stationeries, piglets and vegetable seedlings.  Pork and beef sellers on Kowloon Street  were from Baoan, while most of the merchants selling suits were Hakka people.  Kowloon City only had two to three tailor shops.  Lo On Yick on Prince Edward Road were an agent for the soft drinks by On Lok Yuen. 

The most famous shops in Nga Tsin Wai Road were Chan Kang Woon Department Store and Kui Cheong Department Store.  The former one was founded by John Chan Cho-chak.  There were also a lot of grocery stores nearby, such as Tung Cheong, Kwong Cheong and Chau For Kee.  Richer rural residents bought houses in their original villages most of the time.  The labourers and migrant merchants in the market did not tend to buy houses in Kowloon City.  The majority of those who made a fortune would buy houses back in their hometowns.

The old Blacksmith Street was located in front of the gate of Lok Sin Tong Wong Chung Ming Secondary School, with four blacksmith shops and two piglet shops.  The earlier venue of Lok Sin Tong was on a lot on Blacksmith Street donated by Ng Shui Kei  – a villager from Nga Tsin Wai.  The Ng Clan owned a lot of vegetable fields on Blacksmith Street.  Before the war, it was easy for rural people to rent land.  The government sent “Red-headed Lascars” (nickname for Indian Sikhs) to plot out the lots, which villagers then developed into vegetable fields and pay land taxes accordingly.  There were many vegetable farms on the hillside in Ma Chai Hang and Wang Tau Hom.

The Jiao Festival in the League of Nine of pre-war Nga Tsin Wai lasted for several days and nights.  Villagers would submit their registrations and donations upon the posting of a notice in the League of Nine.  League of Nine referred to the nine villages led by Nga Tsin Wai Villages, including Sha Po, Yuen Ling, Kak Hang, Shek Ku Lung and Ta Kwu Leng.  The villages would parade the statue of Tin Hau around the villages for several days in a row.  The route of the parade was roughly: Nga Tsin Wai — Po Kong — Kak Hang– Shek Ku Lung — Yuen Leng — Po Kong — Kak Heng — Ta Kwu Leng — Nga Tsin Wai — Sha Po.  The parade team was formed of Nga Tsin Wai’s villagers.  Elders who were over 60 years old could have the privilege of sitting on sedan chairs.  Taoist priests walked among the parade to performance Taoist rituals.   Some curious young boys and girls would join the team for fun.  Due to the conservative culture before WWII, women who passed by other houses too often would be ridiculed and denounced as “bitches”.  Therefore girls who were above 16 years old normally did not participate in the parade.  When the parade team arrived at a village, the elders of that village would arrange a reception at the village entrance, serving sugar cane, bread, large Chinese white sugar cakes, fried dumplings, soft drinks, lemonade, etc.  The children walking in the parade enjoyed the food and were in high spirit.  They would play a game called “Biting the cane’s core” The venue was illuminated by large gas lights.  The children would enjoy themselves thoroughly before leaving at around 11pm to midnight.

The early Jiao Festival was grand.  The organizers would spend a lot of money to recruit puppeteers from Mainland China to perform.  The villagers wore clean clothes during the festival.  They paid their sincere salutes to the gods, and ate only vegetables for three days and nights.  The vegetarian feast was cooked by women in the village.  On the actual day of the Festival, guests would come to visit Nga Tsin Wai.  The organisers would hire specialists to cook vegetarian meal for them.   Women were responsible for cooking and washing dishes during the festival.  The villagers happily divided the labour among themselves.  Three women would be enter the temple and bring out the Tin Hau statue for the parade.   All of them must have a husband and children.  Before the war, every village used to put up a shrine at the village entrance (Pak Gong Shrine).  Since a lot of villagers were fishermen, most villagers in Kowloon City worshipped Tin Hau.  Both Nga Tsin Wai and Po Kong had their own Tin Hau Temple.  The Lords of the Three Mountains Temple in Ngau Chi Wan is a major temple in the region and has a long history.  Villagers from neighbouring villages would worship at Nga Tsin Wai’s Tin Hau Temple.  The temple was prosperous with a lot of believers’ sacrifices.   Nga Tsin Wai villagers’ rarely went to other villages’ temples to worship.

Traditional festivals in Nga Tsin Wai Village included Lunar New Year, Tin Hau Festival, Ching Ming Festival, Tuen Ng Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, and Chung Yeung Festival.

1.) When Lunar New Year approached, the wealthy families prepared a sumptuous portion of festive food, such as rice crackers, rice cakes and fried dumplings.  Fried dumplings and rice cake were cooked on different pans.  Traditional rice cakes are six inches thick and 18 inches long, and are steamed over a fire burnt out of pine wood.  The fried dumplings were mainly used for worship rituals.  On New Year’s Eve, villagers showered with grapefruit leaves and put on new clothes and shoes.  Just before New Year Day, people performed the custom of “Siu Nin Gan” (to play firecracker on the eve of New Year).  Nga Tsin Wai villagers would burn firecrackers at their doors till the fifteenth day of the New Year.  This custom was maintained until the 1960s.  There was a “Ding Dong Stone” inside the Walled City.  Before the war, villagers used to climb up onto the stone with a bamboo ladder and burnt firecrackers up there.  The wrapping of the firecrackers on the ground was up to 1 foot thick.  Kwong Man Lung on Pau Chung Street, To Kwa Wan, was the most famous firecracker shop.  Before the war, a lot of marine people would go and pay homage at the Hau Wong Temple, which received even more sacrifices and incense than Wong Tai Sin Temple in those days.

2) Tin Hau Festival: Before the war, a lot of fishing families lived along the coast of Kowloon City.  They generally believed in Hau Wong and Tin Hau.  Nga Tsin Wai villagers used to hold feasts in the village and cooked with large pans and stove together in celebration of Tin Hau Festival.  As a custom, names of money donors and the amounts of donation would be read out loud during the feast.  Nowadays, the feast is held at a restaurant.  It is even more joyous and clamorous than before, with singing and dancing performances.

3) Ching Ming Festival and Chung Yeung Festival: Nga Tsin Wai villagers would go tomb sweeping during Ching Ming and Chung Yeung.  The Ngs and the Lees worshipped their respective ancestral fathers.   According to customs, the different families would engage in private worship, i.e. worship of ancestors in their own branches on Ching Ming, and then do a common worship, i.e. worship of their common ancestors on Chung Yeung.   The ancestral graves of the Ng and the Lee Clans were located in Sha Tin Tau and Pak Ma Shan (on the far end of Lion Rock).  It was a common practice for the families to bring sacrifice items and utensils with them.  They cleared the grass and fetched water from the hill. Then they slaughtered and cook animals on the spot. This was known as “eating on the hill”.  Worship expenses were covered by Ching Sheung, i.e. the rents earned from the clan’s land or real estates.

4) Tuen Ng Festival: Each household would celebrate by making “zong”(rice dumpling).  Lee Foo’s father used to bring him to row on a dragon boat and swim at Wang Tau Hom (known us ‘‘Da Pa Shan’’ after WWII).

5) Mid-Autumn Festival: Festival food items included moon cakes, persimmon, taro and peanuts.  Moon cakes, which were made of fillings like beans paste and five different kinds of nuts, used to be packaged in cylinders.  Nga Tsin Wai had a house for public use and it was called “Chung Koon”.  It was where people put a lot of specially-made paper lantern  (called “long long” by the children).  Drinks were also placed in front of the gate of the ChuiLok Club for the villagers’ consumption when they gathered to celebrate the festivals. 

Whenever there was a celebration or funeral at Nga Tsin Wai Village, all the villagers would work together to help.  Rich people commonly invited the whole village to a banquet on occasions like wedding or at the first month after birth of a child, and gave everyone red packets in gratitude.  Every village in Kowloon City had a qilin dance team.  Rural children generally learnt the qilin dance, which they performed on celebratory occasions.  When Lee Foo was a child, he wore cheongsam on his cousin’s wedding and kicked the door of the bride’s sedan chair, after which he received a red packet from the bride. 

During the wedding, the bride needed to crawl under the bridegroom’s hip and got knocked on the head by the bridegroom.  In the early days, people still observed the customs of holding an umbrella over the bride’s head and casting rice on the ground.  When Lee Foo got married in 1955, several dozens of tables were set up under scaffoldings at the village gate and actors were hired to perform Chinese opera plays like Baxianheshou.  When a funeral was held, all the female villagers would make hemp clothes while the males carry the casket to the mountain for burial.  On hot days, the coffin would be left uncovered and would be buried after a day.  The graveyard at the back of Nga Tsin Wai was called Bak Shek Hom.

Lee Foo’s father had the nickname “Ngau Wong Cheun” and was well esteemed in Nga Tsin Wai.  He was working in the management of an American firm and even introduced a lot of his neighbours and people from nearby villages into the company.  Qilin dance was a popular way of celebration in Nga Tsin Wai, but sometimes certain Chan Tau (informal name for troublemakers) from Po Kong would show up and stir up troubles.  When the parade was passing through Nga Tsin Wai during the festivals, some Chan Tau from Po Kong deliberately picked a fight. Lee Foo thought there were black sheep in every flock, for even Nga Tsin Wai had some opium-smoking Chan Tau.  However, the villagers respected Lee Foo’s father so they dared not start a trouble with him.

Life was hard for the villagers during Japanese Occupation.  Everyone tried all sorts of ways to make a living. Several Nga Tsin Wai villagers were recruited by the Japanese Army and sent to Hainan Island as labours.  Some of them never came back.  Some other villagers returned to Mainland China.  Some of the nephews and nieces of Lee Foo’s father fled Hong Kong with their mothers, but they were never heard again for decades.   A few members of the Ng Clan joined the guerrilla force.  Some got arrested and executed.   When Japanese Army caught a guerrilla fighter, they would tie him or her up at the eastern gate tower of Kowloon City.  If any passer-by greeted the fighter, that person would be considered an accomplice and get arrested.  On the eve of Japan’s surrender, lives of the villagers were harsh.  No celebration was held when the war ended.  Shortly after the war, the British government hired the villagers to mow grass on a daily wage of two dollars. Lee Foo answered the recruitment call and was assigned to different places for work.

The Ngs, the Lees, and the Chans were the indigenous settlers in Nga Tsin Wai.  The three clans did not live separately in different lanes, but instead they mixed with one another and celebrated festivals collectively.  In the mid-1930s, the Che and the Yung families moved into the village and settled in the First and the Sixth Lane.  Each family had three members.  They moved out three years later.  Before the war, Lee Foo lived with his parents on lot no. 4043, also informally called the “central house”.   The Lees occupied lot no. 4061 just in front, using the houses as pig farm and kitchen.  After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, immigrants flooded into Hong Kong from Mainland China.  A lot of foreign residents started to appear in Nga Tsin Wai.  Lee Foo’s family converted their pig farm into a bed room and rent the space out to a mother and her three children.  Lee’s mother also rented three other beds out at a monthly rent of three dollars.

The change of regime in Mainland China in 1949 caused a huge influx of immigrants into Hong Kong.  Rents in Nga Tsin Wai increased as a result, and it became common for four households to cramp inside a single house.  Many families simply placed their utensils in the corridor.   The houses did not come with kitchens and toilets, so the tenants had to fetch water from the standpipe at the village entrance.  After the staff of China National Aviation Corporation moved to Hong Kong and worked at Kai Tak Airport, some of the staff rented the houses in Nga Tsin Wai so that they could go to work conveniently.  After getting married in 1955, Lee Foo and his wife lived in the bedroom on the second floor of the house.  Lee’s mother and young brother took the bunk beds outside the bedroom.  When friends came to sleep over at the Lee residence, they spent the night in the living room downstairs.  After the children were born, Lee Foo added another bunk bed on the second floor.  His brother moved downstairs and stayed at a bed that was removed during daytime.  Later, Lee Foo became a civil servant and was assigned to the government quarters in Ngau Chi Wan.  He therefore left the whole house to his married brother.

Before the war, a large number of Nga Tsin Wai villagers went out to work and left the houses vacant.  The villagers mainly concentrated in the first, second and third lanes.  Each lane lived four to five families.  The number of households declined in the fourth and fifth lanes, and it was almost totally deserted in the sixth lane.  The children dared not get near the fourth to the six lanes, fearing that the area was haunted.  Meng She, a Taoist priest who hosted rituals for the villagers, lived in the fourth lane, while Meng Po, an insane woman who sometimes undressed herself for no reason, lived in the firth lane.  The war in the mainland against the Japanese did not affect Hong Kong much because the food and daily necessities were mainly imported from Southeast Asia. 

After the fall of Guangzhou, many refugees arrived in Hong Kong, resulting in a rise in rents and food prices.  Nga Tsin Wai alone received 200 to 300 new immigrants.  Houses within the village appreciated in value, and the monthly cost for a room and a bed rose to 12 and 3 dollars respectively.  A hundred catties of rice cost only 20 dollars in those days.  Many villagers abandoned pig farming, and instead rented the pig houses out to earn the “big money”.  Later, some of the refugees thought that housing rents were too high, so they built their own zinc metal houses on the hillside.  During the Japanese occupation, more unauthorized houses were built and they became the precursor of the squatter area in the vicinity of Tung Tau Estate.  

Gunagzhou refugees dwelling in Nga Tsin Wai were generally more educated than others and they behaved courteously.  They consciously accustomed to the local ways of life so as not to offend the indigenous inhabitants.  Sometimes they chatted causally with the villagers, though they seldom mentioned the war in Mainland China.  New immigrants generally did not engage in agriculture.  They made a living by weaving, sewing and making other crafts.  The refugee children also got along well with Lee Foo and his peers.  They played together and soon got to know each other.  Shortly after the fall of Hong Kong in 1941, the Japanese authority expanded the Kai Tak Airport and recruited a large number of workers to carry mud and rocks.  This brought employment opportunities to Nga Tsin Wai villagers.  Each worker received a daily ration of 6.4 taels of rice.

During the Japanese Occupation, the Japanese army expanded the Kai Tak Airport, and requisitioned nearby farm land including the land in Nga Tsin Wai owned by the Lee Clan Ancestral Hall from Po Kong Village.  Nga Tsin Wai’s headman, Ng Wai Chi, came forward on behalf of the villagers to talk to Mr. Yamashita (Editor’s Note: district leader) and strive for compensation.  The Japanese built 120 houses in Kowloon Tong, naming them “Model Village”, and assigned them to the affected villagers by means of a draw.  Nga Tsin Wai villagers were given 40 houses, two of which were occupied by the Lees.  During the expansion of the airport, Lee Foo’s mother worked as a mason.  Lee Foo, who was suffering from malaria then, stayed in bed all day, while his sister handled the housework.  One day, his sister was run over and knocked out by a truck when she was fetching water back from the well at the Ng Clan Ancestral Hall.  His parents decided to leave the place and moved into Model Village.   Their house became vacant and collapsed later after a period of disrepair.

After the Lees moved to Model Village, Lee’s mother raised chicken when his father took up work at the Blue Bird Dockyardin Aberdeen.  The father stayed with relatives in Aberdeen on weekdays and only returned to Model Village in the weekend.  The Lees were given three acres of land in Model Village.  They allocated one acre for vegetable farming and another acre for growing sweet potatoes.   The sweet potatoes yielded three crops, with harvest periods of 30 days, 60 days and 90 days respectively.  They also planted a breed of sweet potato from Japan (with harvest period of 60 days) which contained higher nutritional value.  Apart from using sweet potatoes as their own food, the Lees sold the surplus or used it as a kind of currency.  Each load could be exchanged for over 100 dollars worth of military yen.  Lee Foo, who was infected with malaria, would go to see Dr Yu Chiu Kwong in Kowloon City Market.  He paid the consultation fee each time with a load of sweet potatoes.  Eventually, Lee was healed by applying mugwort and taking ginger soup.

While being an apprentice at Luk Hor Kau Steel Factory , Lee would help his mother with farming after work.  Since he was only 13 to 14 years old, he could only do miscellaneous works such as mowing grass.   Lee Foo built a three-layer wooden cage by himself for the chicken to stay.  The chicken would walk into the cage on their own every day at 6pm.  The feed was a mix of rice bran and cooked sweet potatoes.  Lee Foo’s family raised more than 30 chickens.  Sometimes they cooked themselves a delicious meal by killing one of the chickens.  To ensure long-term food supply, the family only sold eggs but not the chicken.  Some people would come and collect eggs from Lee Foo’s home.  When weather was poor and a plague occurred, six to seven chickens could die in a day.  The dead chickens would be used as fertilizer.  In addition to sweet potatoes, Lee Foo’s famly also grew tomatoes and other vegetables as nutritional supplements.  They did not have regular meal times in those days and only cooked when they were free.  They usually had two meals a day.  Sweet potato was the main type of food.  Sometimes porridge was made with sweet potato leaves (seedlings).  The richest kind of dish was sweet potatoes with rice.  Lee Foo occasionally pulled sweet potatoes from the ground and ate them raw without cleaning or cooking.  As a consequence, he once got infected with ascariasis that caused his belly to swell and led to difficulty in walking.  At last, he was healed by Dr Yu Chiu Kwong who gave him an injection and prescribed western medication to him.

Lee Foo's neighbours were the villagers of Po Kong, Ta Kwu Ling and Kak Hang who were affected by the demolition.  Many of them were from Lam Clan and the Pang Clan in Po Kong Village.  The residents comprised locals and Hakka people.  Those who lived in Model Village got along peacefully, and the majority of them farmed for a living.  A pipe was located at the village gate, much to the convenience of the villagers.  Lee Foo's brothers from the first branch of the clan did not move into Model Village.  Instead, they moved to downtown Kowloon City when the Japanese expanded the airport, and rented three-storey, Western-style house.  After the war, Lee Foo’s family no longer raised chickens and changed to keeping pigs.  In 1948, they sold more than 30 pigs for cash, and reconstructed the abandoned ancestral home Nga Tsin Wai, adding an extra floor on top.  The family then returned to settle in Nga Tsin Wai.

The ancestral homes of three clans of Nga Tsin Wai was located next to Tin Hau Temple on lot no. 5975, which was co-owned by indigenous inhabitants from the Ng, the Chan and the Lee families.  The ancestral home was also known as Chung Koon, meaning that it was jointly managed by all.  Chung Koon was a free storage house before the war, where people kept festival props such as flags, qilin, percussion and paper models.  With increasing housing demand after the war, the house was converted and opened for rent.  In 1964, Lee Foo inherited the title of the house.

ChuiLok (Editor’s note: short form of ChuiLok Luen Shuo Tuen) was a gathering place for the nine villages in Nga Tsin Wai.  It was a joint venture built and operated by the nine villages.  Located next to the vegetable field outside Nga Tsin Wai, it was double-chamber big house with a front garden and a theatre on the side.  The back chamber was used as a store room for keeping tableware and furniture.  ChuiLok was the only houses with electric power and lamps with glass shades.  Villagers would play cards in the clubhouse, e.g. mahjong, sap ng wu, poker. ChuiLok’s main furniture included a Pak Sin Table (octagonal table with two seats a side) and chairs.  Some villagers took their meals with bowls and plates printed with rooster figures.  Lee Foo's father, second uncle and Chan Shui Chuen were all members of the club.

Chui Lok (Editor’s note: short form of Chui Lok Luen Shuo Tuen) was a gathering place for the villagers in Nga Tsin Wai. Members of the management committee were either appointed or elected by villages such as Nga Tsin Wai, Kak hang, Sha Po and Po Kong.  Chui Lok was installed with electric lamps, which was one-of-a-kind in the region.  This allowed villagers to gather and have fun at night.  The venue had three mahjong tables and one sap-ng-wu table.  Apart from playing card games, they also played chess or had casual chat.  An old person was the Chui Lok’s welfare and catering person, who took care of cleaning and refreshments.  This welfare and catering person served guests with mandarin tea.  The tea pot and tea cups were normally kept inside a cane basket.  All food expenses of were recorded on welfare and catering person’s book.  The commission obtain from card games would be offset against expenses incurred by cleaning, lighting and refreshments.  Lee Foo started going to Chui Lok with his father since he was six to seven years old.  When his father played cards, Lee Foo would play on his own.  The culture was conservative before the war, and no women were allowed to be present among the men inside Chui Lok in order to prevent gossips.  Lee Foo’s mother could only summon his son at the door or send messages into the house through other people.

Next to the Tin Hau Temple in Nga Tsin Wai stood a free house named Chung Koon.  It was a free public place in the village where people mainly kept things like percussion and flags, among other festival props.  Nga Tsin Wai population was mainly concentrated in the first, second and third lanes.  The fourth, fifth, and six lanes had little residents and most houses were vacant.  Those three lanes at the back of the village were quite after dark, and children would not dare to go near.  There was a stark contrast between the three lanes in the front and those in the back.  Chung Koon, a premise located in the sixth Lane, was only accessed by villagers during the day.  With the influx of refugees into Hong Kong after the fall of Guangzhou, Chung Koon was rented out for residential use.  The rental income was set aside to cover the expenses of worship activities or festivals like Tin Hau Festival.

Whenever there was a dispute between villagers of Nga Tsin Wai, the elders would come forward to settle it on most occasions.  The elders of the Ng Clan and Lee Clan had supreme authority and were well respected by the younger generations.   For disputes between villages, powerful people such as martial art masters would come forward to mediate.  One year, when Nga Tsin Wai was holding a qilin dance during a festival, some Po Kong villagers intercepted the dance and provoked conflict.  Before the war, there used to be one or two masters in each village to guide the children in martial art.   A lot of people in Lee Foo’s father generation practised master art when they were young, but the trend subsided during Lee Foo’s early years.  Martial art declined further after the war because people were busy making a living and, at the same time, practice venues were becoming increasingly short.

Chui Lok was suspended during the Japanese occupation.  When peace was restored, the houses next to Nga Tsin Wai’s front gate were turned into the Village Office (Editor's note: the present venue of Nga Tsin Wai Village Committee) and became a gathering place for the villagers.  It was similar to the old ChuiLok in nature.  There were four mahjong tables inside the Office, and a commission of one dollar was changed after every four rounds of game.  Ng Shu Hing  returned from the USA after the war and became Nga Tsin Wai’s headman.  For the convenience of out-of-school children in the village, he expanded the Village Office into a two-storey building.  A free school, which worked like a family-style tutorial centre, was set up on one of the floors.  Soon after, the school could not be maintained due to a lack of enrolled students.  When Ng Kam Ling was headman, he further expanded the Office by resuming the house that stood next door.  The office venue was scaled up to become a structure with two houses.  When Lee Foo was headman, he removed the wall between the houses and linked the two wings up.  He also extended the ceiling height.

In mid-to-late 1970s, Lee Foo became the headman of Nga Tsin Wai, taking over the post from his predecessor Ng Kam Ling, who had passed away.  Lee Foo is a full-time civil servant at that time who was interested in village affairs, so he was supported and elected by the villagers to serve as headman.  The headman was in charge of the main events in the village such as Tin Hau Festival, Lunar New Year gathering, and leasing of Sam Sing Tso’s ancestral home.  He also managed the village office’s expenses.  Since Lee was a civil servant, he was able to work harmoniously with government departments, and successfully convinced the government to allocate the parking spaces at the pavilion (Editor's note: the open space in front of Nga Tsin Wai’s front gate) to villagers of Nga Tsin Wai.  The District Council had once contacted Lee Foo and invited the Village Office to become some kind of a government-subsidised subsidiary of the District Council (similar to a Mutual Aid Committee).  The plan was dropped because the villagers did not want to come under the government’s control. 

During the 1980s, the owner of Metropol Restaurant Lau Yui Chi (Note: transliteration only) and the boss of ATV, Lam Sou Fung, planned on acquiring Nga Tsin Wai.  Each of them contacted Lee Foo, who was the headman.  Lau offered to buy each lot of land at HK$880,000 – a value that equalled two levels of a building on Kwei Chow Street in To Kwa Wan.  Though Lee Foo thought that the price was worth considering, the deal fell through due to the objection of the villagers.   Lam, on the other hand, brought Lee Foo a detailed acquisition plan and offered both human and financial capital.   The villagers urged Lee Foo to take the offer, but Lee abandoned the talk in order to avoid conflict of interests.

From the beginning of Lee’s appointment as headman, he had actively travelled around to fight for the interests of Nga Tsin Wai’s indigenous villagers.  In 1937, the British government posted in the Gazette, delineating the boundary of New Kowloon.  This stripped Nga Tsin Wai’s villagers of the small house entitlement that the New Territories’ residents enjoyed.  Most of the villagers had a low level of education and did not know about that policy.  Learning from the example of the New Territories’ Heung Yee Kuk, Lee Foo collated historical information about Nga Tsin Wai from multiple sources to prove that the village has a long history.  With a glimmer of hope in his heart, he once went to the UK to make his case to the British House of Commons and the House of Lords – an attempt that turned out to be futile in the end.  Lee Foo served as headman for 11 to 12 years until about 1987.  Before he left his office as headman, he renewed his contract with the Fire Services Department and got a 100% raise in salary. This improved his life significantly.  He had actively participated in the construction of the Tin Hau Temple in 1985 as well as the Jiao Festival in 1986.

In the 1960s, Lee Foo moved out of Nga Tsin Wai village with his family to the civil servants quarters.  His mother and brother continued to live in Nga Tsin Wai until they sold their residence in the 1980s.   After moving out, Lee Foo still had dinner in the village with his wife and children every day.  His wife would pick up the children from school every afternoon, and helped with the chores and cooking in the village.   They only returned to the quarters for sleep after they finished dinner.   In 1980, Lee Foo’s family moved out of the civil servants quarters into their current unit in Choi Wan Estate.   Lee Foo’s living condition has continually improved since he left the countryside many years ago.  He did not have any adjustment problem.   Houses in Nga Tsin Wai had no toilets, so the residents to use spittoons, and emptied them in early morning each day.  There were toilets in the quarters and the estates, which greatly enhanced hygiene conditions.  In the early years, residents of Nga Tsin Wai had to fetch bath water from the wells each day.  After the completion of the seven-storey building nearby, people could boil tap water for their baths.  When Lee Foo moved to the quarters and then the estate, he could boil water more easily by making use of liquid petrol gas and the gas stove.

What Lee Fee missed the most about his old country life were the Mid-Autumn Festival and Chinese New Year in his childhood.  At the festivals, children could enjoy sumptuous portions of food.  When it was New Year, villagers would go to by a large amount of sugar cane in Yau Ma Tei.  The children would bite on the cane’ tassels for fun and compare who had the longest tassel.  A lot of hawkers did business near Nga Tsin Wai during New Year time, selling a variety of snacks to children.  They saw an opportunity to make money from children who had received red pockets.  Each skewer of char-grilled squid feeler or pigskin was sold at one cent.  Cuttlefish, braised food, pig liver, coconut with pickled ginger were also available.  Red pockets in those days usually contained one cent or two at the maximum.