Leung Shek Lun

In 1936, SL Leung was born in Nga Tsin Wai. His grandfather, as told by the seniors, came from Lai Chee Yuen near Hau Wong Temple and could be regarded as a J.P. due to his reputation in the society. He had three wives. SL Leung’s First Grandma gave birth to his aunt and father. Grandfather loved the third wife the best and left her a great fortune. Her son (not surnamed Leung) ran a Chinese restaurant in Cheung Chau after the war. SL Leung’s aunt married Ng Yuk Tak from Nga Tsin Wai, and gave birth to a son and daughter, namely Ng Tso Hei and Ng Tso Fung. During the Jiao Festival, the master sang the names in Punti dialect, ‘Ng Yuk Tak and his wife Leung, son Tso Hei and daughter Tso Fung’, which was pretty funny in the pronunciation. Aunt had two daughters, who were married in Lung Ku Tan (Mr Lau) and Shek O respectively. SL Leung’s father graduated from Wah Yan College and later became the Postmaster’s secretary. It was really something to be a civil servant then, and probably due to his father’s arrogance, he was nicknamed ‘Post Guy’. When he was small, SL Leung used to go to the British army’s shooting range by car and play with the Postmaster’s kids there. His father always said, ‘A good boy should not fix his eyes at his grandpa’s lands’, aiming to encourage his offspring not to fight for a legacy.

SL Leung’s mother was a housewife from a place unknown to Leung, yet she was kind of educated and had taught him to read three red leatherback books at home, including the Thousand Character Classic and Three Character Classic. By the time of his comprehension of things, he was already living in Nga Tsin Wai with his family at the first house at 4th Lane, on lease. He had two little sisters of 2 and 4 years younger. In infancy, SL Leung suffered from an illness, probably a teeth growth problem or things of that sort. His mother lacked the knowledge of baby cares, and he was taken to the doctor by Ng Wai Chi’s wife. As a result, SL Leung’s father had respects for Ng Wai Chi and made his son Ng’s nominal son. SL Leung’s nominal mother was from Shanghai, where she met his nominal father when he did business there. During the Japanese rule, SL Leung’s parents and little sisters died from malnutrition. Before dying, his father entrusted him to Ng Wai Chi, and since then he had lived with his nominal father and mother.

SL Leung was born in Nga Tsin Wai. He lived in a stone house at 4th Lane. Houses in Nga Tsin Wai fell in three categories, namely clay houses, brick houses and stone houses. He only came to learn that stone houses could be regarded as ‘luxury houses’ at a later stage. He was naughty when small. His curiosity drove him to dismount the pendulum clock at home. His father placed the clock at a higher spot, yet it was not working anymore. His childhood leisure was spent at the Village Gate, where he enjoyed topspin, coin rolling, coin tossing, kite flying and others. He sometimes went uphill in Tsz Wan Shan in pursuit of fighting spider. He seldom went to the areas in the vicinity because the grown-ups worried that the kids might have gone too far and come across bag guys on the way. Before the war, Nga Tsin Wai used to be the leader village of the League of Seven thanks to, on one hand, its neatly arranged houses, and, on the other, its larger number of villagers who did community services such as taking up posts such as directors of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. The neighbouring villages were smaller, with some having just 8 or 10 houses and spanning an area as small as that of a football pitch, eg, Mau Chin and Shek Ku Lung. The arrangements of their houses were not neat either. Some faced south and some north. Some even just had wooden huts. Sha Po Village lay next to the former Ng Clan Ancestral Hall, and was just half as big as Nga Tsin Wai.

Not long after the Japanese army came to Hong Kong, SL Leung’s family passed away one after another. His father committed him to Ng Wai Chi’s care before dying in order to preserve the only descendant of the family. Since then SL Leung had lived with Ng Wai Chi, his nominal father. They lived in a double-storey brick house at No. 2, Lane 4. His nominal father slept on the upper floor whereas he slept on the ground floor, on a canvass bed, which had to be put aside during day time due to the lack of space. Adults in the village taught the children two ways to dodge the Japanese, that is, run if you can, or hide under a bed. They also taught them how to identify different gun barks: a ‘shasha’ sound signals that the bullets are in close range and one should lie prostrate right away. One day when SL Leung was hanging about outside the village, he came across the Japanese. It was too late for him to run back home, and he ran up to Tsz Wan Shan to hide. On the way he heard some gun shots. Seized by terror, he tumbled due to feebleness in the legs, and he just managed to get away from the bullets. Panicking, he grasped at an adult, and later found that it was a corpse. At that time some corpses were yet to be buried in Tsz Wan Shan, a then burial ground.  

SL Leung went to school at 6. In the same year the Japanese army assaulted Hong Kong. His seniors taught him how to evade the Japanese gunfire: upon hearing a ‘P P’ sound, don’t panic; upon hearing a ‘sha sha’ sound, lie prostrate to avoid getting shot. Whenever the villages heard fighter jets bombing, they escaped to Tsz Wan Shan. In a bombing, SL Leung was not able to keep up with the adults and was forced to hide under a bed. The village got hit by lots of bombs, which did not blow. Some villagers enquired of the Cup in Tin Hau Palace. Tin Hau’s reply was ‘Needn’t fear or flee’. SL Leung developed a habit of enquiring of the Cup that has lasted till now.

After Hong Kong’s fall, SL Leung’s family passed away one after another. His nominal father Ng Wai Chi also had a rough time. He used to live at No. 2, Lane 4, Nga Tsin Wai, but was soon forced to move to Ap Chai Lake, Model Village, and was made the Village Head there (Editor’s note: In 1942, the Japanese army expanded the airport and requisitioned land on the peripheral of Nga Tsin Wai. The authority built Model Village in Kowloon Tong to rehouse affected villagers). Houses in Model Village were tight and balloting was needed for rehousing. SL Leung’s nominal father had a house of his own off the village and at the same time grew some pigs. He managed to be rehoused. The house in Model Village was bigger and had more open space, which might have been the reason for his moving in.

SL Leung lived with his nominal parents in Model Village. His nominal father sent his   2 sons and nephew to join the guerrillas. Many Nga Tsin Wai villagers joined the guerrilla, yet just a few survived. For instance, Ng Yau Fat became a platoon leader. His younger brother Ng Yau Hing, who also fought the war, was captivated and executed by the Japanese at an age of 19. Those who fought the war had great respect for SL Leung’s nominal father and Ng Wah Yau (both had organized the Nga Tsin Wai Self-defence Force). The Japanese were cruel in those years. They used guerrillas taken captive as bait. Any passer-by who acknowledged them would be treated as a collaborator. At a later time Ng Wai Chi was held captive. He and the other imprisoned villagers were put to cruel torture such as ‘Hanging like plane’ and injection of water. Some villagers could no longer stand the torture and gave names of the guerrillas. Ng Wai Chi was then already 50 or so. He persuaded the villagers not to involve the younger generation. He almost died from the torture in jail. As he was released, he gradually restored his health, and went to Huizhou in China to live with a member of the guerrilla. SL Leung and his nominal mother remained in Model Village growing vegetables.

As peace was restored, SL Leung’s nominal father returned to Model Village, and had lived there until the government reclaimed the land for development. Then he moved back to Nga Tsin Wai. His house in Nga Tsin Wai had been deserted since the Japanese rule, and was then rented to an outsider. To move back to his old house, he had his tenant move out by making compensation. In the early years he bought plots of farmland with the money he had made from sailing a ship. Watercress was still planted even after the war was over. The government later reclaimed the land for the expansion of Kai Tak Airport, and gave him 10 cents per square feet as compensation. During the Japanese rule, nine out of ten houses were deserted, and some outsiders occupied the vacant houses. The villagers were very simple then. They did not care if anyone had occupied a house or know if their neighbours were illegitimate occupants. After the war many outsiders moved in. Some rented the houses while some bought them. Aborigines kept declining in number. Some of them sold their property due to emigration. The majority of the outsiders came from Guangdong and spoke Cantonese and Punti dialect. When small, SL Leung spoke Punti dialect. The villagers were gradually assimilated in Cantonese.
 

As the Japanese entered Nga Tsin Wai, the villagers fled in panic. Those having a hometown went back to their own hometown, whereas SL Leung stayed in Hong Kong with his seniors for a living. After the Japanese soldiers had demolished the houses in Mau Chin, SL Leung’s nominal father took advantage of his scanty knowledge in Japanese and managed to persuade the authority to build Model Village in Kowloon Tong to accommodate affected villagers. He held office of the Village Head. In those years he was Chairperson of the Seamen Union. Model Village was haunted by quite a number of people from the cultural circles who advocated the war of resistance. SL Leung kept a lookout, divulging the whereabouts of the Japanese soldiers. The houses in Model Village were interconnected to facilitate villagers in running among the houses and hiding themselves. Fleeing was so frequent that the villagers hardly had a moment of peace in one day. Outside the village there was a vegetable plot. The villagers watered the vegetable with the water taken from Ap Chai Lake.

SL Leung heard of the decollation competition held by the Japanese and of the corpses being dumped in Ap Chai Lake, which even kids dare not get near to. In those times, the strong earned a living by smuggling between China and Hong Kong while the others begged alms or snatched food. SL Leung’s nominal mother had to eat seed-grains. SL Leung could not go to school. He lamented that it was lucky just to have rice. He fed on sweet potato so often that he got sick of it. He once dumped a sweet potato secretly due to his dislike for the food, but it was seen by an adult and he was therefore tapped on the head as a punishment. The hardships and joys in those years were quite indescribable. The kids had nothing to do. Model Village had a vast open ground for the kids to play on. Yet the grownups were in low spirit and SL Leung dare not play when seeing them. Fortunately his nominal father and mother did not hit him. After peace was restored, SL Leung and his nominal father still lived in Model Village. His nominal father put his house in Nga Tsin Wai on lease. After Model Village was pulled down, his nominal father moved back to Nga Tsin Wai.

To SL Leung, the happiest festival was the Lunar Chinese New Year. Nga Tsin Wai used to be a traditional village. During the Chinese New Year, the old women prepared lots of New Year delicacies such as fried rice cakes, steamed sponge cakes and fried sesame ball. Ng Chi Wing’s grandma had a huge wok and stove. SL Leung excitedly watched the ladies preparing the food. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, the teenagers flew sky lanterns at the village gate. The sky lanterns took wings with a blazing flame and flew far until out of sight. The population was sparse in those years and fire was not something to worry about. Having a rough life in childhood, SL Leung rarely had the chance of eating moon cakes. He did not think the houses in Nga Tsin Wai were packed. He was contented with the dwelling place he had had. Sometimes he slept at a friend’s place and enjoyed the time of sleeping on the floor. As long as he told the adults before going out, and if he did not get out of the village, the adults would not be worried.

Between the 1940s and 1950s, Tung Tau Village had a lot of huts, some dwellers of which were related to Nga Tsin Wai villagers. The squatter area was not controlled by Nga Tsin Wai, and the Village Head’s permission was not needed for building a hut. The squatter area, like the Kowloon Walled City, was controlled by triad societies, with whom the dwellers had to maintain a good relationship. Huts were vulnerable to fire. A fire that broke out in Tung Tau Village might engulf Nga Tsin Wai as well at any time. A blaze that broke out in Tung TauVillage later on brought about the development of 7-storey resettlement blocks.

To SL Leung, the resettlement area had a human touch in the neighbourhood as people kept watch and defended one another. The inhabitants need not close their doors. Some Nga Tsin Wai villagers had relations and friends in the resettlement area. When SL Leung was a kid, adjacent to Nga Tsin Wai, on an open ground connecting another village, there was a dry pit (latrine), which could be regarded as a proper toilet. In that age the houses in Nga Tsin Wai had no toilets. The villagers had spittoons at home. Every night a collector came to the households to collect the night soil. Upon the establishment of resettlement area, there was no longer any dry pit. Villagers used the public toilets and bathrooms in the 7-storey blocks, but the elderly and the kids still used spittoons. As the 7-storey blocks were pulled down, SL Leung strived for a public toilet to be built by the government, and managed to get a fund of $500,000 from the Works Bureau.
 

What he liked MWCS the best was that it offered such subjects as Electrical Appliances and Lathes, which would help pupils make a living. Given the limited seats at MWCS, family background counted when it came to enrolment. Workers’ children had a rough life and cherished the chance of going to school. SL Leung could not afford an abacus and always had to borrow one before the class started. There was a time when he failed to borrow an abacus and was forced to tell the teacher that he had forgotten to bring it back. The teacher mocked him by asking if he would ever forget the side dishes when having rice. After the scold, he lamented over his unspeakable bitter suffering. The teachers led a simple and poor life. Those earning a better income would offer financial help that might be as much as half their salary to their counterparts. Their selfless spirit had a great influence on SL Leung.

SL Leung’s did quite well at school. After graduating from primary school, he was admitted by Heung To Middle School. Yet his nominal father was in a financial hardship and unable to support his studies. SL Leung had no choice but dropped out to work. He became Office Boy at 15. Ng Clan Ancestral Hall in Nga Tsin Wai came with a school. Nam Fong School, Oi Kwan School and Hong Kong Vernacular Normal School Alumni Association School were founded in the ancestral hall at different times. Before the war, Nam Fong appointed 3 male and 1 female teachers, who were willing to teach for an extremely low salary. They had a belief in helping the poor. They taught vernacular Chinese and sowed the seeds of revolution. After peace was restored, Hong Kong Vernacular Normal School Alumni Association founded a school in the ancestral hall. It was a private school and the tuition fees were higher. Upon the development of the nearby resettlement area, the district had only rooftop schools, and therefore the subsequently founded Chi Tak Public School was already something to be impressed by.
 

Leung entered the workplace after graduating from primary school. He was hired as office assistant through friend’s referral. He worked in Central, and because the job required him to read addresses, he learnt a bit of English. Afterward, he did several temporary jobs of the same nature. However, none of those jobs had lasted long, and he realized that it was tough to make a living. After the establishment of Chi Tak Public School, SL Leung’s nominal father asked Leung to operate a kiosk in the school. As a result, he became a hawker at an age of about 25. Ng Shing Tat Tso, as the school sponsoring body, was eligible to join the school management committee, appoint school supervisors, and select teachers, janitors and other posts.

Leung had no experience in running a kiosk, but he had the experience of helping others move goods in the school, so he had a good start in his new job. All the food and drinks sold in the kiosk were children’s favourites, including Cosmos Beverage and Vitasoy. He considered slicing bread as the most troublesome task. Every day he had to wake up early to slice bread. At the beginning he had a friend to help him with the slicing. But that friend passed away later and Leung had to run the shop on his own. He handled the shop well though. He bought goods from nearby stores during school hours, and he only dealt with certain stores after familiarizing himself with the business. The income from running the kiosk was so scarce that he could barely make ends meet.

Pupil enrolments in Chi Tak Public School reached 1080 at the peak (i.e. 45 pupils x 24 classes). Many pupils of Chi Tak came from poor families. They could not afford the snacks and they stood outside the kiosk. Leung had pity on them and gave them some crusts. Some alumni came back to express their gratitude to him. Leung himself also ate crusts very often, and, to make ends meet, had to do many handcrafts such as making plastic flowers and cutting thread. The school kiosk was self-financed, and he needed to pay 200 dollars to Ng Shing Tat Tso for electricity and rents for the kiosk and the dorm. Later he had to pay extra electricity fee and the rates. The kiosk was licensed but he need not pay the licence fee. Besides operating the kiosk, Leung also worked as a part-time school security guard. His dorm was on the rooftop of the school building. It was blazing hot due to the scorching sunlight in summer times.

He had operated the kiosk for over a decade. However, as the number of classes kept declining, his business slipped into hardship. He even had to work as a part-time school janitor to save his business. Eventually, he could not afford the rent and closed the shop, which, he thought, was a loss of the pupils. After that, he turned full-time school janitor until 60 years old, the statutory retirement age. At his retirement, he was still living in the dorm, but he applied for a public rented flat after he had left his post. To his surprise, he was accused of having an excessive living area and income. The department concerned considered the whole school as his living place, and, when assessing his income, overlooked the fact that he had no business throughout the summer vacation. Finally, a lawyer friend of him helped him write a pleading letter, and he successfully got a flat after some twists and turns.  

When Chi Tak Public School was founded, the monthly tuition fee was 5 dollars and the monthly class fee was 1 dollar. Ng Shing Tat Tso got 80 tuition-free quotas. Clansmen who wanted to enrol their children had to register in the ancestral hall on a first-come-first-served basis. Leung thought that the 80 quotas were more than enough because they were not used up every year. Some clansmen might send their children to other schools. Chi Tak was regarded as a well-equipped school in the district as most schools in the area were founded on rooftops. Chi Tak had standard classrooms and an outdoor playground, so many people sent their children to Chi Tak. There were 45 pupils a class and the school once raised the student quota to 50 per class. Students of Chi Tak achieved good results in inter-school competitions, but things got worse gradually later due to poor management.

SL Leung’s two daughters also studied in Chi Tak. They were the student representatives making the graduation speech in their graduation ceremony. The school song of Chi Tak was composed by the principal Chung Hei Yin and the lyrics were written by officer Yau Pak Hong. The song eulogized Ng Shing Tat Tso and made people feel intimate when it was sung. At first, teachers in Chi Tak were from the Vernacular Normal School Alumni Association. They understood that the establishment of Chi Tak was not something easy, and they were willing to help out in Nga Tsin Wai’s Tin Hau festival in case of shortage of manpower. But later teachers were appointed by the Education Department, and they stood aloof from the village. They did not quite agree to the rituals as they deemed them “old eight-legged”, and they were scanty of donations during the Jiao Festival. Leung felt a bit disappointed. Although he supported freedom of religion, he regarded traditional ceremony as something good for uniting the people.  

In the 1960s, there were many hawkers around Nga Tsin Wai, especially along the slope opposite to the Ng Clan Ancestral Hall, and most sold fruits. Their stalls were mobile at first, but later became fixed stalls. Since most of them did not have any special skills, they could not work in the factories but hawked in the street. Later, the government developed the community and rebuilt some seven-story buildings, and hence demanded all the hawkers opposite the ancestral hall be cleared. But the hawkers were not satisfied with the compensation and turned to Leung for help. Fortuitously, the principal of Chi Tak Public School was an appointed District Council member, so Leung advised the hawkers to seek help from the principal. However, the principal’s stance was pro-government. He told the hawkers to accept the compensation. Moreover, there were public standpipes in Nga Tsin Wai at that time, and there happened to be a suspension of water supply due to standpipe maintenance. SL Leung turned to the principal for help and pleaded the school to supply water to the villagers for cooking. Although Leung ran the kiosk in the school, the principal relentlessly turned Leung down, and did not bother to approach the Department of Education.

Leung thought that the principal did not properly handle the problems of the hawkers and of the supply of tap water, and therefore the principal lost much of the public support. Soon the principal was running the District Council election. He asked Leung to help electioneering. In that very election, there were 300 registered voters in Nga Tsin Wai. The principal needed just half of their votes to be elected. But Leung told him that he could not help, and hence the principal lost with a narrow margin. Leung had no regret for it. After the election, Leung won the trust of many as he had disobeyed his ‘boss’ and ran the risk of losing his job. Thereafter, someone encouraged Leung to run in the District Council election, but he declined because he did not want to be thought as having an ulterior motive in what he did. Also, he regarded himself as ‘stupid’, claiming that it was the influence from his nominal father, whose act of selling his house to clear the debt of the Seamen Union had profoundly moved Leung. 

The official name of the Jiao Festival in Nga Tsin Wai was ‘the Jiao Festival of the League of Seven’. Nga Tsin Wai was the head of the League of Seven, and the other villages vanished after war. Having consulted the villagers, the organizer kept the name.‘League of Seven’and noticed the descendants in other villages to attend the festival. SL Leung was the organizer of festival in that year. He invited Ng Shu Fat(, a Ng’s clansman living in Tseung Kwan O, to be the Vice-chairman (Editor’s note: the Jiao Festival Preparation Committee). Leung respected and considered his opinion, and hence Ng’s clansmen in Tseung Kwan O still made donations for the 29th Jiao Festival. They were collected by Leung for the committee. The committee of the 28th Jiao Festival devoted part of the donation to make commemorative plaques bearing the words‘Hing Yau Yu’and intended to be given to the consultants and staff. During a committee meeting, Senior Liaison Officer of the Kowloon City District Office Tse Lam Hei reminded Leung that the commemorative plaques should note the year as well.

The vegetarian banquet of the Jiao Festival was prepared by the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery. Chi Tak Public School served as the kitchen. Vegetarian meals are free for old villagers, who were informed by other villagers. At last, the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery recorded a deficit, for which Leung was so grateful and sorry. Besides, at that Jiao Festival, there was a shortage of manpower and the neighbourhood from Tung Tau Estate came to help. Those from Kwai Tung House and Hing Tung House helped cook the vegetarian meals, while others prepared the midnight snacks in the Jiao Shed. With the fund-raising for Tung Wah Group of Hospitals underway at the same time, the whole neighbourhood was very busy. People from Tung Tau Estate did not help much in the early Jiao Festivals. Besides, a triad member had earlier threatened to burn the Jiao Shed. Thanks to the many strategies he had learned from years of hawking experience, SL Leung applied the ‘dark force for dark force’ strategy as a solution. He gave lucky money to a ‘dark force’, invited them to guard the Jiao Shed at night, offered them with midnight snacks and even had their brothers dine at the banquets.  

SL Leung had joined the workforce since his early teenage. After Chi Tak Public school was founded, nominal father Ng Wai Chi asked Leung to come back to do village affairs. Since then, he, as a volunteer, had participated in the negotiations on the demolition of the nearby villages. In 1989, Ng Kau was elected Village Headman of Nga Tsin Wai, and the Vice-headman were Ng Chi Wing and Ng Yeung Kin. Nga Tsin Wai Village Committee was registered in 1963, and had one post‘Village Representative’. Because Leung had been helping with the village affairs, some thought that Leung should receive the title ‘Village Representative’. Leung agreed to take up the post, but some villagers opposed to the idea of having a village representative with an outsider’s surname.

Leung had assisted Ng Kau since then. It was a time of transition of the headman post, and not all the clansmen supported Ng Kau, so the new headman had to face a lot of controversies. At the same time, Cheung Kong Holdings had started to acquire the land in the village, triggering conflicts of interest. Leung advised Ng Kau to act carefully and not repeat the former headman’s mistakes. Thence, there were gradual changes to Ng Kau’s characters and outlook of life. To Leung, to work for the village, one must sacrifice personal interests, for example, the lack of pension. He had no regret due to the influences of his nominal father and his father. Leung’s grandfather was a J.P. and had some properties in Lai Chi Yuen. And his father received western education, graduated from Wah Yan College, and then worked for the Royal as a secretary of the Post Master. He often said, ‘A good boy should not fix his eyes at his grandpa’s lands.’ Leung’s generation were not left with any property by the family.  

When SL Leung was young, he studied written vernacular Chinese in Ng’s ancestral school, where a Confucius portrait was hanging. Every student had to kneel before the portrait to worship Confucius, but in seeing nasal hairs in the portrait, Leung refused to kneel. That’s why he did not achieve much at school. During his teenage, he followed Ng’s clansmen in tomb sweeping in the ancestor’s mountain graves of his nominal father Ng Wai Chi. But Leung just went sweeping occasionally as he worried that he might be said as taking advantages. He followed them because his playmates asked him to go to the mountain to catch jumping spiders, and he was curious about mountain tombs. On the mountain he would get a share of food, but when people shared money, he quit because he knew that he was not in a role as to receive the money. His nominal father felt that Leung would inherit his personality, and knew that Leung was willing to do work, so, before his death, he had instructed Leung to help with Ng’s clan affairs.

Leung saw himself inseparable from Ng’s clansmen. His aunt was married to a Ng’s clansman. His mother-in-law and Nominal father were Ng’s too. However, since Leung did not know how get started, he had hardly served the village until 1989. In 1989, Ng Kau and Leung were appointed as Village Headman and Village Representative respectively, and at the same time Ng Kau invited Leung to be the secretary of Ng Shing Tat Tso. Because the handover of Hong Kong was imminent, the manager posts of the eldest branch and the fourth branches were unfilled. Leung had to look for new managers to handle the procedures of name updating in land leases. Besides, he assisted in the affairs of Ng’s ancestral worship, such as arranging for clansmen’s transportation to the mountain and buying stuff for tomb sweeping. He handled carefully the clan affairs. On one occasion, there was no green lettuce in the market for use in the lion dance, so he turned to a vegetable farmer to buy the lettuce. Being mindful of his nominal father’s grace on his life, he had no regret over working on public affairs. He upheld the spirit of ‘all for me, me for all’, and regarded himself worthy for others and his ancestors, although sometimes he might have offended others unintentionally. It was just a pity that he made no money, and hence affected his next generation.  

After the war, SL Leung’s nominal father Ng Wai Chi was occupied with the affairs of the Seamen Union and had little contact with Leung when Leung was young. When the Seamen Union was restored after the war, Ng Wai Chi had been Chairman of the Union for 10 sessions until he became a consultant for the Union. Seto Fai,founder of A. Fai Engineers & Shiprepairers, gave a yacht to the Union for free in order to show his respect to Ng Wai Chi and also facilitate the workers in boarding and alighting the ships. Before Leung was born, Ng Wai Chi was Village Headman of Ng Tsin Wai. At that time, Village Headman was elected by the villagers in the ancestral hall. Besides, only villagers with the surname Ng, Lee or Chan were eligible for the run. Those with other surnames were auxiliary, but they could be appointed as Village Representatives, who would exercise full power in the absence of Headman. Whenever a quarrel ensued among villagers, Ng Wai Chi certainly intervened and always managed to resolve the conflict with reason because the villagers were quite simple and respected the elders in those times. Ng Wai Chi had never been Manager of the Ancestral Trust, but he recommended the younger generation to take up the post.

Based on the practice of primogeniture, there was only one manager in Ng Shing Tat Tso, ie. Ng Yu Chi from the eldest branch. When the government levied the land of the ancestral hall, Ng Yu Chi insisted that he was the only person-in-charge while Ng Wai Chi proposed a reform, suggesting that the number of managers of Ng Shing Tat Tso should be increased to 4. Each branch, i.e. Kwong Un, Tung Un, Tai Un and Yat Un  should elect one man to take up one manager post and share the affairs of the Ancestral Trust. However, Ng Yu Chi rejected the proposal and refused to be Manager of the eldest branch. He initiated a legal proceeding and even appealed to the British courts. But Ng Wai Chi was concerned about others but not his own self. He believed that the traditional system brought about self-interests. In this dispute many clansman listened to him but still some saw him as an eyesore. Subsequently, when the government levied the land of the Ancestral Trust, the clansmen met to debate over the allocation of the compensation. A clansman, who was a policeman, showed his gun and spoke harshly. Even Ng Wai Chi had to give him face. Eventually, the compensation was allocated according the follow rule: half up to branches, half according to the number of heads.

When peace was restored, Leung lived with his nominal father in Model Village and later moved back to the ancestral house in 4th Lane. Leung still lived in Model Village when he was studying in the school, but he did have a fixed dwelling place after working. He sometimes lived in a dorm. Ng Wai Chi died in 1975 and had been ill since a year ago. He knew that his time was near, and he told his life and deeds to Leung and asked Leung to write a biography for him. Ng Wai Chi trusted Leung, yet he told Leung that there was something that must not be detailed.

After Ng Chi Wai fell seriously ill, Leung asked no further. Leung regarded himself profoundly influenced by his nominal father’s selfless spirit. The couple of Ng Wai Chi were taken care of by Kam Mui before their deaths. Kam’s husband used to be in the guerrillas. He died during the Japanese Occupation. Ng Wai Chi had sympathy for her and so Kam went living with the old couples. They counted on each other. After Mr Ng passed away, Kam asked Leung for advice because she wanted to continue her accomodation in 4th Lane. Leung understood that he did not take much care of his nominal father and took into consideration that Kam got no other place to live. Therefore, Leung thought it was reasonable to fulfil Kam’s request. But for fear that the Ng Wai Chi’s descendants might fight for his legacy, Leung asked Lee Tong, Ng Siu Cheun and other renowned figures in the village to bear witness, with written contract, in approving Kim to continue living in the ancestral house of Ng Wai Chi.