Ng Sui Mo

Biography

Ng Sui Mo was born in Shek Ku Lung Village in 1937 and is one of the 25th generation of the Ng Clan in Nga Tsin Wai, belonging to the second branch of the Ng Tung Un Tso line. His eldest brother Ng Kau was the last village headman of Nga Tsin Wai. Although Ng Sui Mo’s family owned farmlands and ancestral houses, his father worked in Green Island Cement Factory while his mother was a Hakka originally from Zengcheng. After the 1941 fall of Hong Kong during World War II, the Japanese army demolished Shek Ku Lung Village. As a result, Ng Sui Mo and his family were forced to move to Nga Tsin Wai. Many second branch Ng Clansmen were separated or died during the war, leaving their descendants no way to trace exactly who their ancestors were. After the Territory’s liberation in 1945, Ng Sui Mo received education for several years. He eventually dropped out of school in the early 1950s to become an apprentice in a Mong Kok hardware shop. He subsequently worked with construction and shipping companies where he repaired machines until he retired in the late 1990s. Ng Sui Mo moved out of the walled village in 2000, selling his properties there several years later. He feels sad at the disappearance of traditional rural life and the decline of his home village following the recent wave of acquisitions and redevelopments.