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Ng Yiu Fai
Ng Yiu Fai
Manager of Ng Sz Ko Tso, Nga Tsin Wai
Sex: Male Birthyear: 1956 Age at Interview: 56 Education: Upper Secondary Occupation: Airline catering services supervisor Theme: Community, Social Life Ng Yiu Fai was born in Nga Tsin Wai in 1956 and lived in the village until he moved out in 1972. By the time of his birth, his grandfather had already passed away and he learned very little about him. Back then, his grandmother was a lady of over 50 years old who had married into Nga Tsin Wai from a nearby village. Ng Yiu Fai’s father was the second of five brothers, one older and one younger of whom had died early on. By the time Ng Yiu Fai had grown up enough to understand such matters, he only knew about his fifth and seventh younger uncles and a younger aunt. Both of these uncles had both spent their childhoods in Nga Tsin Wai and went to work in the UK in 1960s as a result of clansmen’s referrals known as the “sale of pigs” (coolie trade). The two had since settled there. In those years, proceedings for the “sale of pigs” were very simple. As long as one had local relatives living in the UK, it was very easy to apply for and obtain a work permit. Many people from the Ng Clan had long been making a living in the UK after having emigrated there on steamships. Unwilling to leave his family behind, Ng Yiu Fai’s father did not follow suit.
Ng Yiu Fai’s father attended public schools such as King’s College or Wah Yan College up to secondary graduation and then took a clerical job. Before he retired in the early 1980s, he had worked as a clerk at Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company (HAECO) for about 20 years. As a child Ng Yiu Fai grew up with two brothers in an ordinary family which was considered as being comfortably well off. Ng Yiu Fai’s mother was a Hakka and a typical housewife.During his childhood, Ng Yiu Fai accompanied his mother to her childhood home at To Kwa Wan to visit his maternal grandmother at least twice a month every time he had school holidays.
Title This is Ng Yiu Fai’s family Date 02/11/2012 Subject Social Life Duration 3m3s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. LKF-NYF-HLT-001 Ng Yiu Fai’s family owned three houses in Nga Tsin Wai which were located respectively at No. 8, at the end of 3rd Lane and at 5th Lane. The dwelling at No. 8, 3rd Lane had been built well over 100 years before. The three homes, which the family always called “ancestral houses”, were passed down by Ng Yiu Fai’s grandfather, with ownership shared between his father and two younger uncles. Most houses within the walled village measured some 20-foot long by 10-foot wide (i.e. around 0.01 acres) and were divided into several width types such as 9, 11 and 13 pit of tiles. The ancestral house at No. 8, 3rd Lane was a complete house (complete houses occupied 0.01 acres whereas half houses occupied 0.005 acres), whereas the house at the end of 3rd Lane was a half house with the remaining 0.005 acre of land being owned by Ng Yiu Fai’s uncles. The house at 5th Lane was also a half house, with the other 0.005 acre of land belonging to his grandmother’s relatives. The three ancestral houses were what was called “poke mud houses” in which builders had used granite of varying sizes to build walls and mud or cement to poke between gaps in the stone. In other words, the dwellings were not really stone houses at all.
Title Of the three ancestral dwellings owned by Ng Yiu Fai’s family, one was a complete house while the other two were half units Date 02/11/2012 Subject Community Duration 2m17s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. LKF-NYF-HLT-002 The house at the end of 3rd Lane served as a kitchen and incorporated a mud brick sealing wall. While the kitchen initially used firewood, later kerosene was used instead. The kitchen doors in the kitchen were a pair of swing doors his family members used for cover when taking baths by hiding in the corner behind them. The houses at 3rd Lane and 5th Lane both had a cockloft. In the 3rd Lane house, this area was used for storage, while Ng Yiu Fai’s parents slept in the room downstairs. Ng Yiu Fai, his two brothers and grandmother, all lived in the 5th Lane house. Here, the three brothers slept in the cockloft while grandma slept downstairs. When his younger aunt returned to live in the village, the old lady began sleeping on the bed in the cockloft and the three brothers slept on the floor. As none of the three ancestral houses had a toilet, Ng Yiu Fai mostly used public facilities in Tung Tau Resettlement Estate. There was, however, a toilet jar inside the family’s home and every evening someone called round to collect what was then called “night soil”. The whole family ate at the larger 3rd Lane house, getting their meals from the kitchen at the end of the lane. Ng Yiu Fai thought that the living environment in his childhood was acceptable, though incomparable to that of those who lived in bigger buildings.
Title Three generations of Ng Yiu Fai’s family lived in a poke mud house Date 02/11/2012 Subject Community| Social Life Duration 2m13s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. LKF-NYF-HLT-003 Ng Yiu Fai’s family left Nga Tsin Wai in 1972 and moved to a building in To Kwa Wan. Their new home was a purchased property, equipped with a lift. By that time, Ng Yiu Fai and his brothers had grown up and found it very hard to live in a home without a toilet. Ng Yiu Fai’s initial impressions of his new home were all about cleanliness and convenience as he and his family no longer had to visit public toilets. Back then, he did not feel very sad about his family’s ancestral homes as he does now. He regrets that the Government did not allow the ancestral houses to be demolished for redevelopment. Otherwise he and his family would not have had to move out. His grandmother initially felt sad about leaving the ancestral home and insisted on staying on. After she accidentally fell and hurt herself five or six years later, she could no longer look after herself and therefore moved to To Kwa Wan to reunite and stay with her other family members.
After leaving Nga Tsin Wai, Ng Yiu Fai’s family leased out the houses at 3rd Lane end and 5th Lane. The 3rd Lane end house later fell into disrepair and collapsed after a few years by which point the tenant had already left. Although originally living in the opposite hut, the tenant of the 5th Lane house was not surnamed Ng. As this tenant’s family had many children, they rented the house from Ng Yiu Fai’s parents for a very low monthly rent of about HK$120. Indeed so attractive were the terms that they lived in the house for decades!
Title Ng Yiu Fai moved out of the ancestral house, leasing it to other non-indigenous villagers Date 02/11/2012 Subject Community Duration 2m40s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. LKF-NYF-HLT-004 Ng Yiu Fai moved out of Nga Tsin Wai in 1972. After leaving, he occasionally returned to the village mainly to visit his grandmother. After the old lady finally moved out, he returned to the village less often. The amount of time he stayed during these increasingly infrequent visits varied. Sometimes, his trips would last a whole afternoon. On other occasions, he would only stay for as much time as it took to offer incense in Tin Hau Temple and ancestral hall. Influenced by his parents while growing up, he would burn incense and greet and chat with his former neighbours every time he returned to the village. Although some neighbours did not share his surname and were not really family, Ng Yiu Fai still addressed them as “uncles” and “aunties”. Examples included Auntie Hung, a neighbour who had watched him growing up. Ng Yiu Fai thought that neighbourhood relations had been very good in the past as everybody took care of one and other and happily sharing their food. This was especially true of kindness towards the elderly. Villagers liked to entrust others to do the marketing on their behalf. If ever his mother felt ill or uncomfortable, Ng Yiu Fai would go to the market to buy ingredients for meals with his neighbours and cook for his family.
Title After he moved away, Ng Yiu Fai missed the village’s warm neighbourhood relationship Date 02/11/2012 Subject Community Duration 1m39s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. LKF-NYF-HLT-005 Ng Yiu Fai grew up in the walled village, only leaving when he was 10 or so, retaining a few traditional concepts when he did so. He thinks that the ancestral hall still exists today and that as he belongs to his ancestral line, tai gong (ancestor) will always be tai gong. He hopes that the clanship will continue and will be very sad if it is lost during his generation (i.e. the 28th in the line). He also worries about clanships’ future during his children’s generation. Ng Yiu Fai was interested in things from his forefathers’ days when he was a child, but every time he asked his father to tell him more, he was scolded for being nosy! When he was young, Ng Yiu Fai had only the barest idea about his ancestral heritage. Only after his family emigrated to Canada leaving him alone in Hong Kong did he gradually begin to take interest in such ideas. He hopes that the next generation will follow a similar path. Ng Yiu Fai does not wish to deliberately indoctrinate the next generation and only takes his son to attend the clan affairs in a subtle attempt to cultivate his interest.
Title Living alone in Hong Kong gave Ng Yiu Fai the idea of following in his ancestors’ footsteps Date 02/11/2012 Subject Social Life Duration 3m31s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. LKF-NYF-HLT-006 Faced with demolition and redevelopment, Nga Tsin Wai has changed dramatically in recent years. As Ng Yiu Fai returned less and less, he had mixed feelings each time he went back as he found village houses demolished one after another and he had no real friends left there. The personal closeness of bygone days was what he missed the most, as he felt very comfortable living with his uncles and aunts. As he got older, Ng Yiu Fai felt the environment in and around the village was becoming increasingly inconvenient. For example, he could not pee anywhere like he could when he was a child, and he was afraid that the house might collapse whenever there was a typhoon or rainstorm! But overall, he was not too sad about the demolition as he broadly agreed with the Government’s conservation plans to help give the next generation the opportunity to learn more about the walled village. In the future will see one of Ng Yiu Fai’s family’s ancestral houses retained and transformed into something like a museum.
Title Ng Yiu Fai’s ancestral home is to be restored and converted into a museum Date 02/11/2012 Subject Community Duration 1m51s Language Cantonese Material Type Audio Collection Oral History Archives Repository Hong Kong Memory Project Note to Copyright Copyright owned by Hong Kong Memory Project Accession No. LKF-NYF-HLT-007