Ng Chiu Ying

Ng Chiu Ying’s grandfather worked on a farm as a child. Because he never received much education, he eventually became a sailor, helping out in the kitchen on a passenger ship bound for New York. Ng Chiu Ying’s grandfather had two wives. The first woman gave birth to Ng Chiu Ying’s father and second uncle, while his concubine, a rural woman, gave birth to Ng Chiu Ying’s third and fourth uncles. By the time Ng Chiu Ying was born, his grandfather and his grandfather’s first wife had passed away. His grandfather’s concubine whom Ng Chiu Ying called “po po” (grandma) was already 70 to 80 years old at this time.

Ng Chiu Ying’s father was born in the 1910s. A diligent learner throughout his life, he attended La Salle College before studying at a local college of education where he met his wife upon graduation. Both of them eventually became teachers. Ng Chiu Ying’s mother was a native of Hunan and her family had come to settle in Hong Kong during her grandfather’s generation. Ng Chiu Ying’s mother and three uncles were all subsequently born in Hong Kong. Ng Chiu Ying’s mother’s family was quite well off, and two of his uncles worked as managers in Hang Seng Bank. Ng Chiu Ying’s parents eventually had four sons and three daughters of whom Ng Chiu Ying ranks sixth, with three elder brothers and two elder and one younger sisters. Ng Chiu Ying’s parents married in the early 1940s and gave birth to Ng Chiu Ying’s eldest brother soon after. When the Japanese army entered Nga Tsin Wai village, Ng Chiu Ying’s parents grabbed Ng Chiu Ying’s then tiny eldest brother in their arms and fled to Shatin to take refuge. Ng Chiu Ying was born in 1956 and lived with his parents and siblings in Happy Valley at that time.

Like his father, Ng Chiu Ying’s second uncle was also diligent in his studies. Having initially learned mechanical engineering in Taikoo Dockyard, he subsequently worked for Swire. Devoted to the construction of Mainland China, Ng Chiu Ying’s second uncle walked all the way back to Guangzhou after the war and having been joined by his family worked in Guangzhou Shipyard until his retirement. Ng Chiu Ying’s third and fourth uncles had spent most of their lives in Nga Tsin Wai. Having married and started their families in the village, the two only moved away following its recent demolition. As these two men both had lower educational levels, seeking a good job to earn a living was not easy. As a result, Ng Chiu Ying’s third uncle worked as a janitor at Nga Tsin Wai’s Chi Tak Public School, while the other man spent many years working as a driver for Kowloon Motor Bus.

During the Japanese occupation Ng Chiu Ying’s parents escaped the Japanese occupiers by travelling along an ancient trail from Nga Tsin Wai to Siu Lek Yuen that bypassed Lion Rock. They subsequently sought refuge with Ng Chiu Ying’s older aunt who had married and settled down in the area. Back then, the relationship between the villages of Nga Tsin Wai and Shatin was very close and villagers used to travel on country roads between the two. Ng Chiu Ying’s older aunt married a Siu Lek Yuen villager surnamed Choy which was a big clan there in those days. Siu Lek Yuen was a very traditional village and the family of Ng Chiu Ying’s older aunt maintained a self-sufficient lifestyle by growing rice, banana trees, potatoes and tomatoes. Ng Chiu Ying’s po po (i.e. his grandfather’s concubine) and his older, third and fourth aunts were all rural women and as such were so poorly educated as to be virtually illiterate. Ng Chiu Ying’s po po and older aunt spoke village language which Ng Chiu Ying only half understood, while his third and fourth aunts in the urban area spoke the local dialect which still prevails today. Ng Chiu Ying’s family stayed in Siu Lek Yuen until the Japanese were defeated in 1945. He subsequently returned to Nga Tsin Wai with his parents after the war where both took jobs as teachers. The entire family subsequently moved to Fuk Lo Tsun Road where Ng Chiu Ying’s reasonably well-off parents bought a property in the vicinity of Nga Tsin Wai. As their new home was adjacent to the market and Kowloon Walled City, the street was crowded with pedestrians. Ng Chiu Ying’s elder brothers and sisters had once previously resided at Fuk Lo Tsun Road before moving to a new home at Happy Valley. The move resulted from their father’s joining the Government Co-operative which built civil servant quarters in Happy Valley. At that time, Ng Chiu Ying’s father served in the Education Department as a government school teacher and was later promoted to school principal level. Ng Chiu Ying’s father lived in their Happy Valley home until his death. A few years later, the home was sold by Ng Chiu Ying and his siblings.

Having both worked as teachers, Ng Chiu Ying’s parents placed great emphasis on the education of their seven children. The family’s eldest son attended Queen’s College before studying and settling in the U.S. The second eldest sister went to Ying Wa Girls’ School before being admitted to the University of Hong Kong where she majored in social sciences. This daughter subsequently took a job in the Social Welfare Department’s adoption team after graduation and eventually emigrated to Vancouver. Like his oldest brother before him, Ng Chiu Ying’s third elder brother studied at Queen’s College and furthered his studies in the U.S. before settling in Vancouver. His fourth elder sister was educated at Maryknoll College in Happy Valley and enrolled in the University of Hong Kong where her major was liberal arts. This sister then worked in the local business sector before moving to live in Shanghai over 10 years ago. The family’s fifth eldest brother attended St. Joseph’s College at Garden Road and went on to study in the U.S. before moving to Vancouver like two of his other siblings. Ng Chiu Ying himself studied at St. Joseph’s College with his fifth elder brother. He subsequently went on to major in science at the University of Hong Kong, later obtaining a Master’s Degree in business administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. After graduation, Ng Chiu Ying worked with various local banks’ commercial lending divisions. His youngest sister went to Maryknoll College and later took a degree in medicine at the University of Hong Kong. After graduating, she subsequently worked in various public hospitals before moving to Singapore about 10 years ago.

Ng Chiu Ying’s father had four elder sisters, all of whom were married to men either locally in Shatin or as far abroad as Sandakan in East Malaysia. The family had a higher standard of educational qualifications than most other villagers in Nga Tsin Wai. After graduating from the college of education, Ng Chiu Ying’s father started his life-long career by teaching in government schools. Promoted from the rank of teacher, he subsequently became the Principal of Ellis Kadoorie Primary School in Shau Kei Wan before his retirement. Ng Chiu Ying’s father occasionally returned to Nga Tsin Wai after his career was over. As he had a lot of friends in the education and business sectors, Chiu Ying’s father was also active in the teachers’ union. He also participated in many village affairs, including helping to raise fund for the renovation of Nga Tsin Wai’s Tin Hau Temple and serving as a Director of Chi Tak Public School. He also assisted villagers in dispute resolution and occasionally helped them to negotiate with the government. Ng Chiu Ying’s mother was also a teacher. As she had to stay home to take care of her seven children, she taught only occasionally, once her at Pui Chung College in Caine Road. 

After Ng Chiu Ying’s family moved to Happy Valley, it was mainly thanks to his father that they maintained connection with Nga Tsin Wai Village. The whole family returned there for holidays during every Chinese New Year, Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals and also the Birthday of Tin Hau. Ng Chiu Ying’s mother occasionally went back to the village on her own to collect rent and visit relatives sometimes taking Ng Chiu Ying and his siblings along in the trips. Each time he took his family to the village, Ng Chiu Ying’s father drove a car directly from Happy Valley. When the kids accompanied their mother to the village, they firstly took a bus to Central then crossed the harbour to Tsim Sha Tsui via the Star Ferry, before taking a bus to Nga Tsin Wai. In the days when Ng Chiu Ying returned to the village as a child, there were still many vegetable fields in the surrounding areas. Crops like cabbages that were easy to plant and quick to ripen were popular with the local farmers. That said, some of the farmlands were already deserted. The nearby public housing blocks and factory buildings in San Po Kong were completed in the 1960s. Ng Chiu Ying did not regard the rural landscape of Kowloon City as interesting since agricultural development in Kowloon City was not comparable to that in Shatin where his older aunt lived.

Back then the village houses in Nga Tsin Wai were arranged in a similar layout to what it is like today but the cramped, small houses of that time were in poor sanitation. As a result, an unpleasant odour could be smelled immediately as one entered the village. Having an area of only 100 to 200 square feet, the houses along the edge of the village were built with just a few pieces of wood and iron sheets. The dwellings were even shabbier than houses at the inside. Some houses had no water or electricity supply and their roofs leaked when it rained. The village houses at the edge on Nam Pin Street (now Tung Lung Road) were mostly used as small workshops for hardware, furniture and radio repair or as shops for haircutting, grocery, clothes and shoes. These small tenancies changed hands every few years. Ng Chiu Ying’s family owned one such house which they leased to an ivory merchant who employed three to four workers for a monthly rent of HK$100-200. Ng Chiu Ying’s mother took her children to collect rent once every three months. By the time Ng Chiu Ying had begun secondary school, he already undertook rent collection by himself.

When Ng Chiu Ying accompanied his mother to the village to visit relatives, they mainly stayed at the homes of Chiu Ying’s third and fourth uncles or mother’s friend, Kam Mui. While on such trips, they greeted their relatives over tea and chatted at their homes. Ng Chiu Ying did not really understand the accent of his “po po” (i.e. his grandfather’s concubine). Kam Mui was of similar age to Ng Chiu Ying’s mother and had also married into Nga Tsin Wai village. As she was related to a former village headman, her house was roomier and had a more comfortable living environment than most others. As a traditional rural woman, Kam Mui used to fetch water for cooking every day and had developed what could best be called a village way of life. The way she stored food in the refrigerator and sun-dried her clothes were examples of such village lifestyle, not paying any attention to health, hygiene and tidiness. As Ng Chiu Ying had no real playmates while growing up in Happy Valley, the visit to his village relatives was some kind of entertainment. As he and his mother would leave the village as soon their rents had been collected, it was hard to form lasting friendships with the local kids. As a result, visits to the walled village were not that much fun.

Ng Chiu Ying thinks that his happiest times at Nga Tsin Wai came during Chinese New Year holidays. On the second or third day of the Lunar New Year, he returned to the village with his father to pay his respect to his third and fourth uncles, po po, Kam Mui, the village headman and various elders. In those years, Ng Chiu Ying’s father often attended reunion gatherings with his clansmen, while Ng Chiu Ying and his brothers played nearby. They liked setting off firecrackers in the open space in front of the village. They also bought toys using red packet money given by generous villagers who they knew. Locals decorated their houses each Chinese New Year and many households fried festive rice and turnip cakes. Ng Chiu Ying went to the village with his family in the early morning and stayed for about an hour before leaving. He believes that Nga Tsin Wai was a bit more urbanised than Shatin’s Siu Lek Yuen, which had retained more rural traditions. Ng Chiu Ying’s older aunt was a wealthy woman in Siu Lek Yuen, living in a standard three-storey 700 square-foot village house she owned and with large expanses of farmland. Older aunt liked farming, raising chickens and used to make sticky rice dumplings to celebrate Lunar New Year. Farmers’ crops here were for their own families’ consumption, and if they had any surplus, they liked to share among the neighbours. Built to a lower density than in Nga Tsin Wai Village, houses in Siu Lek Yuen were spacious and had better sanitary conditions as each household had a septic tank for treating sewage. 

Ng Chiu Ying’s grandfather worked as a sailor earning American dollars. As he was quite well off, he was regarded as a rich man in Nga Tsin Wai. Ng Chiu Ying’s father and brothers owned four ancestral houses, three of them were located in the middle section of 3rd Lane, while the fourth was at the village edge. Ng Chiu Ying’s father moved out of the village as soon as he could afford to improve his living standard while his third and fourth brothers stayed behind. Each man occupied one ancestral house while the remaining two units were leased out. The village houses in Nga Tsin Wai were cramped and small, with only an area of about 100-200 square feet. The villagers cooked outside their homes on kerosene stoves. There was no standard toilet inside these houses back then. Indeed, so poor was sanitation that the discharged sewage meant the village literally stank. In the old days, villagers used to fetch their water from the wells. When Ng Chiu Ying returned to the village to visit relatives as a kid, water pipes had already been connected to their homes. The houses of Ng Chiu Ying’s  third and fourth uncles each covered an area of over 100 square feet. Both units had a cockloft with a ladder for climbing up and down to increase the living space. The two houses also had radio and TV and a lower floor that accommodated a bed, stools plus a folding table and connected the toilet and kitchen. Ng Chiu Ying’s third uncle had two sons, the eldest of whom died young while the youngest survived to become a labourer. Ng Chiu Ying’s fourth uncle also had two sons, the eldest of whom spent a few years as a policeman before starting a small business. Ng Chiu Ying’s cousins all went to schools near Nga Tsin Wai.

Three or four years back, Ng Chiu Ying’s family’s four ancestral houses were sold to the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) in a transaction that was mainly handled by his brother, Ng Chiu Pang. Resolving the title ownership of all four houses was a complicated matter. While three of the houses were owned by Ng Chiu Ying’s father and his three younger brothers, the percentage of who owned what was different for each unit. The fourth house was solely owned by Ng Chiu Ying’s father. As the second uncle had moved to Guangzhou many years before and the URA required his signature to complete the transaction, the man’s family in Guangzhou had to hire a lawyer locally. This had created more complication to the problem. Ng Chiu Pang negotiated with the URA mainly on questions of price and he insisted in dealing the four houses as one lot. The families of Ng Chiu Ying’s third and fourth uncles had not moved out while the negotiations were ongoing. Ng Chiu Ying’s third uncle subsequently reached an agreement with the URA, received compensation and was allocated some public housing. At that time, Ng Chiu Ying’s fourth uncle had passed away and his family had been allocated a public housing unit of their own. Ng Chiu Pang entered into negotiations with the tenant of the house on the village edge, leaving the tenant to settle the issue of rehousing by himself. The negotiations of Ng Chiu Ying and his brothers with the URA stretched out for two or three years. As the owners in Nga Tsin Wai had their own unique wishes, the villagers preferred to negotiate acquisition matters with the URA separately.

Ng Chiu Ying’s family went grave sweeping once or twice every year, paying respect to their ancestors at burial grounds in Shatin and Tsz Wan Shan. A larger group of clansmen went to Shatin for grave sweeping. Last year, for example, more than 100 people came along to pay their respect to the Ng Clan’s eleventh generation of Ng Yat Un Tso. Close to what is now the Regal Hotel in Shatin, the graves were built with a government permit and are about a 10-minute drive from Siu Lek Yuen Village. On the grave sweeping day, some clansmen gathered at Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng Clan Ancestral Hall and travelled together to Shatin by coach while others went to the graves themselves. Before the grave sweeping could commence, a Master of Worshippers had to be elected. Each kinship branch took turn to be the Master of Worshippers, but occasionally an election was involved. The Master of Worshippers was in charge of preparing offerings for grave sweeping. He bought candles, incense, roasted pigs, bread and drinks with the money from the Tso’s fund. He also had to inspect the graves in advance, clearing any weeds or trees he found on the route to the grave. The ceremony began at noon when the Master of Worshippers led the clansmen to pay their respect in turn by lighting candles and incense. Over the years, Chiu Ying observes that the worship ceremony is simple and each clanman came forth to pay their respect without special attention to members’ seniority.

The clansmen shared the food after their worship was concluded, with everyone present - both men and women - getting a portion of food. In the old days, the amount of roasted pig purchased depended on the number of attendants, with the clansmen chopping up the meat at the grave and then shared among the clansmen. Back then, children and poor people from nearby villages also came to the graveyard to ask for food. The clansmen would not turn them away and would happily share meat with them so that the ancestors could enjoy peace. The clansmen used money from the Tso’s fund for grave sweeping each year. Any remaining balance after the expenditure on sacrificial offerings and transportation would be equally divided among every male clansman regardless of whether they came to the sweeping or not. Absentees had to inform the Master of Worshippers of their absence in advance and authorise an attendee on the day to collect their portion of money on their behalf. When distributing money, the elderly received preferential treatment. Male clansmen aged 60 or over would get an extra portion and then a further portion for each additional 10 years of their age. The grave sweeping ceremony generally lasted for over an hour. In the old days, Ng Chiu Ying and the other children had fun playing firecrackers. Women could also participate in grave sweeping but were not entitled to a share of Tso’s money distributed. Nowadays, the elderly are the most enthusiastic participants in grave sweeping. Built under government permit, the graves of Ng Fung Ko Tso were located close to Fei Ngo Shan and Tsz Wan Shan. Facing the Shatin Racecourse, each could only be reached via a steep hill track. The grave sweeping method here was similar to that used in Ng Yat Un Tso where the same group of clansmen belonging to Ng Fung Ko Tso paid their respect every year (Editor’s note: Ng Chiu Ying’s family belongs to the Ng Fung Ko Tso branch).

Influenced by his parents since childhood, Ng Chiu Ying had developed heartfelt affection with Nga Tsin Wai. Although he spent most of his youth in Happy Valley, he still regards the village as his spiritual home. Ng Chiu Ying knew that his grandparents were born in Nga Tsin Wai which had a long history of 600 years. When he joined his university classmates for gatherings, Ng Chiu Ying never concealed his ancestral identity with the walled village. He also updated them the recent development of this village. In recent years, Nga Tsin Wai was acquired by Cheung Kong Holdings (CKH) and the URA for redevelopment. This made Ng Chiu Ying feel sad and helpless. If his spiritual home could be preserved, he would be a very happy man. The village’s ancestral hall is one of the sources of his sense of belonging to Nga Tsin Wai. Even if the ancestral hall will be relocated in the future, Ng Chiu Ying says he will continue bringing his descendents to worship the ancestors there. Before he emigrated to Canada, Ng Chiu Ying had spent his whole life living with his father in Happy Valley until father died in 1995. After emigration, Ng Chiu Ying regularly returned to Hong Kong for ancestral worship mostly during Chung Yeung Festival. Sometimes he also returned to Hong Kong during Tin Hau’s birthday, taking the time to attend the preparatory meetings of the Tin Hau Temple.

When Ng Chiu Ying’s father was alive, the clansmen would contact the old man to discuss clan affairs. Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng Clan was divided into four branches, each of which elected a manager to be responsible for liaising the clansmen in its branch. When there was something to be decided on, a circular would be issued as a formal document for liaison. After Ng Chiu Ying emigrated, he mainly relied on clansmen who he knew well to keep him informed of the ongoing  matters in the village. Occasionally, he had to take the initiative himself and make enquiries with the village headman or other villagers. In recent years, Ng Chiu Ying was the member of his family who returned to Hong Kong most regularly. As a result, he became the contact person for his brothers. Ng Chiu Ying felt sad that in recent years the Nga Tsin Wai villagers had gradually dispersed living elsewhere and their interest in their village’s affairs was no longer as strong as before. Their concerns about their homeland were less than the fellow clansmen who had emigrated overseas. Chiu Ying related this situation to the history that the overseas Chinese were more enthusiastic than the local natives about their homeland when Dr Sun Yat Sen called for national revolution. Ng Chiu Ying’s eldest brother had left this homeland for many years and would sometimes feel homesick. He bought an air ticket to Hong Kong once every other year and occasionally even returned here spontaneously! Ng Chiu Ying’s fifth eldest brother Ng Chiu Pang also remains enthusiastic about clanship affairs.

Ng Chiu Ying used to pay respect to three ancestral graves every year since his childhood. One of these was his grandparents’ burial ground in Pak Sha Wan in Sai Kung. When Ng Chiu Ying’s father was alive, he used to go to sweep the grave every year. After he passed away, Ng Chiu Ying and his brothers continued to uphold this family tradition, returning to Hong Kong to sweep graves every Chung Yeung Festival. The Pak Sha Wan graveyard was mainly looked after by Ng Chiu Ying and his brothers and sisters among all grandparents’ descendents. At every grave sweeping occasion, they were inevitably elected as the Master of Worshippers. Weeds grew rapidly in the graveyard, reaching chest level in less than six months! Ng Chiu Ying and his brothers hired villagers living near the graveyard to help clearing up the area. Sometimes Chiu Ying and his brothers removed the weeds with their own hands, spending one or two hours and suffering painful mosquito stings and insect bites as they did so! Having personally experienced the difficulties of being the Master of Worshippers, Ng Chiu Ying and his brothers felt the management of the graveyard was a real headache after they emigrated overseas.

As Ng Chiu Ying’s sense of belonging to Nga Tsin Wai mainly came from his parents, he felt his own sense of identity was not that strong. As a result, he only paid real attention to the affairs of the village during his spare time. In the old days, when Ng Chiu Ying’s father returned home to visit the village elders, he seldom brought his children along. As a result, Ng Chiu Ying had only met the village elders once or twice. When Ng Chiu Ying was a child, he rarely told others that he came from Nga Tsin Wai. Only in recent years did he regret taking this matter too lightly. Having found out that the walled village would soon be demolished, he advised his daughter that she should waste no time in grabbing the opportunity to visit the village and to understand her root for herself. While Ng Chiu Ying was sad to sell his family’s ancestral houses in Nga Tsin Wai, his seven brothers and sisters were more serious about their home in Happy Valley being sold after they left! After all, this was the place where they had all grown up as children.

When Ng Chiu Ying was a kid, he felt the appearance of the village office was not impressive, and he was not used to the narrow stairs there. The outlook of the village office remains largely unchanged today and villagers still gather there to play cards and mahjong. Although Nga Tsin Wai is going to be demolished soon, the ancestral hall will be preserved. This decision has met with Ng Chiu Ying’s approval as the hall is where the villagers place their ancestors’ soul tablets and where clansmen burn incense for worship. The hall is also the place where clansmen gather to hold meetings for important clan events. Some of the Ng Clan’s ancestors had handed down properties, they had formed into ancestral trusts for different generations. Specific examples included Ng Shing Tat Tso, Ng Yat Un Tso and Ng Fung Ko Tso. Each ancestral trust has its own members and manager to care for the property. The Ng Yat Un Tso ancestral trust owns tenement buildings in Fung Wong New Village and the income from property rentals every year are its main source of income. As Ng Yat Un Tso was registered with the government as a non-profit association, its properties are collective assets with a manager handling the accounts. The assets cannot be carved up at will. The ancestral trust updates its membership records every six months. Clansmen can report births and deaths at each occasion, or they could choose to update the record during the registration period.