Ng Chi Wing

Ng Chi Wing was born in Nga Tsin Wai in 1947. When he was small, Nga Tsin Wai was a village of considerable size with good public order. Villagers were kind and simple. Those who possessed lands engaged in farming for a living, while those without lands worked outside the village. Ng Chi Wing’s father had two wives. Without land and lacking formal education, his father found it hard to obtain work. As a result, his family had to rely on their first mother to go out to work as a live-in maid (amah) to support them. Ng Chi Wing’s second mother stayed at home to take care of the housework. Ng Chi Wing had completed his primary education and passed the Secondary School Entrance Examination (SSEE).

As his family was poor, they could not afford any additional tuition. As a result, his father stopped him from furthering his education and he had to drop out of school to work. At that time Ng Chi Wing thought he should look for a job that offered him more future development opportunities. Repairing machines exactly matched this criterion so, following referral by an uncle, he worked as an apprentice in a shipyard in Aberdeen. The apprenticeship would take three years to complete. Unfortunately, the proprietor there often failed to pay Ng Chi Wing’s salary and the living conditions were very poor. Ng Chi Wing subsequently left after two years without completing his apprenticeship. When his son turned 18, Ng Chi Wing’s father referred him to seafaring. He subsequently spent more than a year as a seaman before returning to Hong Kong. Back then, the Territory’s economy was just starting to take off and the Government was beginning to construct seven-storey factory buildings. Introduced by a friend, Ng Chi Wing began to work on the production of refrigerators. After less than a year, he went seafaring again, repairing machines on a cruise liner and earning a healthy income of a few hundred dollars a month. He later resigned and returned to the village probably because his father had become seriously ill. The older man died about six months later. Soon after that, Ng Chi Wing joined the EMSD after a friend wrote him a reference letter and he passed an interview. He eventually wound up spending the remainder of his career to his retirement there.

Ng Chi Wing’s earliest memories are of Hong Kong during the Japanese Occupation of the early 1940s. Before the war, many villagers were engaged in fishing or farming. Ng Chi Wing remained largely unaware of his grandfather’s means of earning his livelihood and also had little impression of what his father did in terms of a formal job. Ng Chi Wing was also unaware of his grandmother’s life experiences, but the villagers all knew that she had been widowed for a long time. His uncle had also died during the Japanese occupation. Ng Chi Wing’s mother was a Hakka who married into Nga Tsin Wai from Shatin’s Wong Nai Tau Village. It was likely that she only wed his father because she was ordered to do so by her parents. In Ng Chi Wing’s home village, women surnamed Choi and Kwong had married in from various villages of Shatin.

It was likely that his father had studied in the old-style private school ran in the ancestral house for several years. As a result, his Chinese language abilities were quite good. Ng Chi Wing feels that the only help that his father ever gave him was to teach him to read the Enlarged Collection of Mottoes. He continues to believe that this Tung Shing almanac’s teachings have hugely benefitted him throughout his whole life. Although he did not have a formal job, Ng Chi Wing’s father’s remarkable eloquence made him an ideal choice to conduct external negotiations on behalf of the village. He was also familiar with Chan Shu Ching, Principal Assistant Secretary of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs. Ng Chi Wing’s father even occasionally acted as intermediary in land and property transactions. Later, the Government began the resumption of agricultural lands in rural areas like Wong Tai Sin, Lo Fu Ngam and Ta Kwu Ling to develop East Kowloon. During these times Ng Chi Wing’s father served as “Ex-officio Village Representative”, assisting Nga Tsin Wai and other villages in their negotiations with the Government.

Ng Chi Wing began his education at Kai Tak Primary School, transferring to a church school in Kowloon Walled City not long after. Around Primary 3 or 4, he transferred again to Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society Free School where he studied until primary graduation. Although he passed the SSEE and obtained a place at a church school in Kowloon Tong, Ng Chi Wing’s father could not afford to pay for his son’s education. For this reason, Ng Chi Wing had to respect his father’s urging to drop out of school to work and help his family to make ends meet.

While then only 14 years old, he found work in To Kwa Wan but had to give this job up as he could not afford to pay the guarantee fee. At that time, an uncle of Ng Chi Wing’s called Ng Sui Mo was working in a shipyard in Aberdeen. The boy asked his older relative to recommend him for a job as an apprentice in the shipyard. The boss had no objections so Ng Chi Wing started work earning around HK$10. When his boss kept defaulting on his wages, Ng Chi Wing later had no option but quit. An employment agent subsequently referred the boy to seafaring. He then repaired machines on a ship and his income increased. Due to the technical nature of his job, his salary was higher than that of sailors, cooks and waiters. In those years, shipping companies recruited people through agencies who then referred the jobs to middlemen. Successful appointees had to pay one month's salary to the employment agent in a practice then commonly known as “head shaving”. As he grew older, Ng Chi Wing learned that civil service jobs were more stable than seafaring because the chance of being sacked was very slim. He therefore asked for help from a friend who worked in the Government and wrote the reference letter that earned Ng Chi Wing a place at EMSD.

In the days when Ng Chi Wing started working, most fellow villagers believed that young people who did not study should learn a trade. At that time, electricity and machinery were two of the most popular professions. Ng Chi Wing’s uncle, Ng Sui Mo, had started his career by learning machinery, whereas Ng Sui Mo’s elder brother, Ng Kau, learned electricity. Both later went seafaring, earning a decent income that significantly improved their standard of living. The boy regarded his two uncles as role models. At that time, Ng Chi Wing’s father did not have a formal job and relied on his family’s second mother to make a living by collecting kitchen waste from restaurants and sold it to farmers in need of swill to feed their pigs. Back then, Ng Chi Wing’s family was forced to subsist by eating kitchen scraps. The boy’s hopes of working in a higher paid occupation were simply to improve his family’s lot in life. He therefore changed jobs to seafaring and eventually the civil service. In those years, there were not many factories around Nga Tsin Wai. While a factory worker’s income was far less than a seafarer’s equivalent, seafaring was far less stable than working for the civil service.

The family’s second mother collected waste from restaurants and sold it as swill to farmers wishing to feed their pigs. Household chores were taken care of by Ng Chi Wing’s grandmother and second mother. Although his father was nominally head of the family, decisions about family affairs were mostly made by this grandmother. Many people in Nga Tsin Wai came from polygamous backgrounds. Among them were the families of Ng Chi Wing’s biggest younger sister’s husband and Mr. Kong. Both families had two mothers and many siblings. Ng Chi Wing’s family members did not mind about the identity of their father’s legal wife or concubines. Only Ng Chi Wing’s aunt deemed the boy’s natural mother as his father’s legal wife. Ng Chi Wing was poor during childhood and the adults were so preoccupied with feeding their many kids that there was little room for conflict. Ng Chi Wing never really cared about who was closer to him in terms of blood and gave his salaries to his second mother for dispatch after starting work. This was because his second mother spent all her time at the family home looking after the children. In the early 1960s, Ng Chi Wing’s father became a supervisor of Chi Tak Public School, and their family conditions began to improve. After Ng Chi Wing’s younger siblings all found jobs, his two mothers no longer had to go out to work anymore.

Ng Chi Wing’s several younger brothers rarely bothered to study. Two years younger than him, Chi Yung, his second younger brother, did not proceed with education after primary school due to family problems. Referred by a fellow villager who worked in the airport, the boy took a job packing in-flight meals in Kai Tak Airport’s catering department. Following a friend’s introduction, Chi Yung later obtained a heavy goods vehicles’ driver’s license and became a driver for trucks and container trucks. He later worked as a crane lorry driver for the Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC), assisting in the subway construction and earning a fairly good income. The family’s conditions had already improved by the time Sing Chau, Ng Chi Wing’s third younger brother, was just a toddler. Sing Chau was academically unmotivated and dropped out of school very early. A fellow villager referred the boy for a job in the Kai Tak Airport’s catering department. He later went on to earn his living as a meter reader for China Light and Power Company (CLP) following his eldest brother-in-law’s referral. Ng Chi Wing’s fourth younger brother, Chi Ming, also failed to do well in his studies and continues to work as a salesman in another brother-in-law’s factory to this day. Ng Chi Wing’s youngest brother, Chi Yin, died young in the early 1960s due to illness.

Ng Chi Wing also had four younger sisters. His biggest sister graduated from primary school, whereas the other sisters carried on their educations up to lower forms in secondary schools. While the family could by this time afford the second, third and fourth younger sisters’ tuition, the girls were not able to catch up with their studies. At that time, Hong Kong’s economy was starting to take off. The garment and wig industries flourished and boasted many factories in San Po Kong. Like many female villagers in Nga Tsin Wai, Ng Chi Wing’s younger sisters were all found work sewing. In those days, it was popular for factories to place recruitment notices in newspapers and also for villagers to refer one and other for jobs.

Ng Chi Wing’s family had lived in several places in Nga Tsin Wai over the years. At first, they occupied the second and third house from the first turning on the right after entering 1st Lane from the gatehouse. They later moved to 3rd Lane and 4th Lane for short periods. They finally settled in a single-side house in 1st Lane. As the owner of this latter house was Ng Chi Wing’s second aunt, his family had to pay little or no rent. In the past, Ng Chi Wing’s father had a house in 1st Lane, but lost its title ownership after helping a friend to repay his debts. The single-side house was small with two-foot thick walls. Ng Chi Wing’s family trimmed off these walls by about 12” and had a builder add a one-storey cockloft on the roof using asbestos roofing whose dangers were not known back then. Thanks to these unauthorised building works, the family’s tiny home expanded to become the village’s largest house! Ng Chi Wing joined EMSD in 1972 and left Nga Tsin Wai a few years later to staff quarters in Shatin when he got married. Having been resident of the staff quarters for several years, Ng Chi Wing applied for a low-cost housing unit, eventually moving into a new home after the application was approved. After living there for a few years, he and his family took a place in a Home Ownership Scheme unit.

At that time, all of Ng Chi Wing’s siblings except Sing Chau had moved out of Nga Tsin Wai following their marriages. In the late 1980s, Ng Chi Wing’s second aunt sold their single-side house to Cheung Kong Holdings (CKH). Before selling the house, the old lady issued rent receipts to Ng Chi Wing’s family so that they could receive relocation compensation. Ng Chi Wing’s mother was so used to life in the walled village she did not want to leave. As a result, she did not receive the HK$200,000 compensation from CKH she would have done had she left. Following his mother’s death recently, only Sing Chau continued live in the house as his wife was a Mainlander and could not immediately enter Hong Kong after their marriage. After the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) announced the redevelopment of Nga Tsin Wai, more insightful villagers suggested that the Government should rehouse the residents. At this time, Sing Chau had still not left his family home, waiting for the allocation of public housing. Only in 2012 when he was rehoused in Upper Wong Tai Sin Estate did he agree to move.

Ng Chi Wing’s second aunt married an indigenous inhabitant of Nga Tsin Wai surnamed Lee. His second uncle was relatively more educated, doing clerical work at Whampoa Dock where he was responsible for such matters as warehousing. As Ng Chi Wing’s uncle’s life was stable and his family background was comfortable, he rented a flat and moved to Kowloon City following his wedding. After leaving village life behind, the man went on to buy a few houses in Nga Tsin Wai. Ng Chi Wing’s second uncle was an elderly chap with an old-fashioned mindset who valued his home village highly. Indeed, after earning his fortune, he still returned to the village to purchase properties there. Ng Chi Wing thinks that his second uncle was planning for his children. There were not that many people coming back to the village to buy properties as the younger generation thought that village houses were not worth much money. Ng Chi Wing’s second uncle’s children all attained good academic results. The three eldest respectively became a nurse, teacher and bank staff, while the two younger children furthered their studies and settled in Canada.

After his kids found work, Ng Chi Wing’s uncle’s family’s conditions improved. As a result, they bought the flat they rented in Kowloon City and also began investing in properties in Kowloon City and To Kwa Wan. Today Ng Chi Wing says with a smile that maybe his uncle had the Tin Hau’s blessing as he made healthy profits in every one of his property transactions! Two of Ng Chi Wing’s second aunt’s properties in Nga Tsin Wai were subsequently leased to the families of her eldest and third younger sisters. Both girls had married partners from outside the village who were happy to move to live in Nga Tsin Wai due to its cheap rent and convenient transportation. As Ng Chi Wing is her eldest brother’s descendant, his second aunt loved him dearly. She continued to meet him after she moved out of the village to ensure he had enough money. Ng Chi Wing says today that he was proud he had a steady job as Works Supervisor II of EMSD before his retirement as he had not disappointed the old lady. 

The only family elders whom Ng Chi Wing had ever seen were his paternal grandmother and his father. He believes that many of his male ancestors had passed away during the Japanese occupation. The oldest elders he had seen in Nga Tsin Wai were his great-uncles Ng Yun Chor and Ng Wai Chi. Ng Chi Wing is a descendant of Ng Clan’s second branch (Editor’s note: Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng Clan is divided into four branches, and the ancestors of the second branch are Ng Tung Un Tso). Great-uncle Ng Tung Hing was the oldest member of the second branch whom Ng Chi Wing had known, with his brothers and descendants living in Sha Po Village. In all, three families from the second branch lived in Nga Tsin Wai – the families of Ng Chi Wing, Ng Kwun Lin and Ng Sui Mo.

According to Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng Clan’s genealogical records, the second branch has a sub-branch in Tseung Kwan O. Ng Chi Wing had never met this group of clansmen as their ancestors had moved to Tseung Kwan O long ago. As this branch of the family had no contacts with Nga Tsin Wai’s clansmen for so long, they had their own genealogical records. Ng Kau subsequently established that there were brothers of the second branch in Tseung Kwan O. He also hoped that Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng clansmen would move to Tseung Kwan O and build small indigenous-style houses there. Ng Kau had made additional enquiries about this with the clansmen there, but the matter finally ended up with nothing definite being decided. Ng Chi Wing estimates that the Clansman worked out that they simply did not have enough land to build small houses and therefore did not agree to the relocation.

In recent years, the URA acquired the site occupied by Tin Hau Temple to carry out a redevelopment project via title owners surnamed Ng, Chan and Lee. With a purchase price of about HK$11,000,000, Clansmen of each surname could expect to get HK$3,000,000. Tseung Kwan O’s Ng Clan took the initiative to contact Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng Clan to discuss the allocation of compensation. Ng Chi Wing thought that it would not be easy to contact all the Clansmen. As the number of Clansmen in Tseung Kwan O was not clear, it would also be difficult to fairly share all the money. In order to avoid any disputes in future, he proposed to retain the Ng Clan’s share of compensation as funds for maintaining the ancestral hall. His motion was unanimously carried.

At the time when the Government had began developing communities in Tung Tau and the demolition of Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng Clan Ancestral Hall was scheduled to make way for a new ancestral hall and school. Managers of the four branches had all signed off on the plans on behalf of the Ng Clan. As no conflict of interest was involved when the Clansmen submitted their proposed manager list to the District Office, the authorities registered the request accordingly without bothering to check the number of Clansmen from each branch. Ng Clansmen from both Nga Tsin Wai and Tseung Kwan O subsequently admitted that while they shared common ancestors, only with the consent of Tseung Kwan O’s Ng Clansmen could they be included in Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng Clan’s genealogical records. Back then, the Government had absorbed Nga Tsin Wa into East Kowloon 13 Villages whose villagers belonged to a rural district within the urban city where they no longer possessed small house rights. As a result, including Tseung Kwan O’s Ng Clansmen into the genealogical records might affect or even end the small house rights they already enjoyed.

When Ng Chi Wing was still a child, Nga Tsin Wai was a village of considerable size with a watercress field that stretched all the way from Lion Rock to Nga Tsin Wai via Lok Fu and Wong Tai Sin. Nearby was an army firing range equipped with paper targets. At what is now Choi Hung Road near Tai Shing School was located an airport gate. In the evening, aircraft did not take off or land, so kids happily climbed over the fence to play football! Ng Chi Wing misses his carefree times in this old landscape very much! Before the completion of its first seven-storey factory buildings, the area around Nga Tsin Wai became lush everywhere after showers and could best be described as “dripping green” as the literati called it! Today, Ng Chi Wing sighs that pollution is always so heavy the sky is constantly grey. He feels urban development is what made the beautiful scenery disappear. Therefore, once his standard of living improved, he began to travel all over China to enjoy its scenery and landscape.

The villagers have long referred to the Kai Tak River which collected water flowing via streams from Lion Rock to Lok Fu and Wong Tai Sin as the nullah. The water here was clear, sweet and drinkable. In those days, the nullah was built with stones, with no curbs on either side. The bottom of the nullah was mud covered in crystal clear water that roughly knee-deep. Villagers captured freshwater goby fish in the nullah for cooking. Ng Chi Wing often jumped into the water with other children like his future brother-in-law and Mr. Kong to splash one and other. Outside Tung Tau Village was a stairway leading down to the nullah, where villagers washed clothes on the river bank and collected water from the spot where the groundwater gushed out. During times when water was restricted, Ng Chi Wing’s mother used to head over to fetch water at the nullah where it was on sale at HK$0.50 or sometimes HK$1 per bucket! While there, she helped others to use strings to pull the buckets of water ashore. In the year when a fire broke out in Ping Man Village near the present Regal Hotel, villagers jumped into the nullah with their belongings to escape the flames.

The area along Nga Tsin Wai to the present Regal Hotel had fewer vegetable fields. Perhaps this was because it was quite near to Kowloon Walled City where there were a soy sauce shop and a preserved fruits shop. Able to lease lands that sprawled out over an expansive area, proprietors rented plots from Nga Tsin Wai’s Ng Clan. As a boy, Ng Chi Wing knew an elderly refugee farmer from the Mainland who came to Hong Kong and rented farmlands near Nga Tsin Wai. The old man lived in a squatter hut in Lo Fu Ngam as people renting lands in those years generally lived in such housing. The old farmer later moved to Tai Po’s Fung Yuen to farm. Ng Chi Wing stresses that there was no such concept as a “new immigrant” in those years, as even the Ng Clan’s ancestors originally came from the Mainland. 

When he was aged 11 or 12, Ng Chi Wing often went up to Lion Rock with friends like Ng Siu Kei to catch jumping spiders they placed in a small box for fighting. The spiders made netting between the leaves in trees and capturing them required careful observation. In seeking out their prey, the friends travelled all over Lion Rock and often as far as Shatin’s Hung Mui Kuk. In summer, they played around in the water in the hill pits. Every time they went up the hills, Ng Chi Wing, who was slightly older, took the lead. While the kids came from different families, they treated each other like family. Ng Chi Wing also went to Lai Chi Kok beach for swimming with his elder friends whose work paid them enough to treat other kids to bus rides there.

Ng Chi Wing’s best friend in those days was Mr. Kong who was like a blood brother to him. The two were so close, they could almost read each other’s thoughts. A native of Haifeng, Mr. Kong was one year older than Ng Chi Wing and entered the job market earlier when he took a job at a steel mill that only recruited staff from his hometown. If the day after payday was a holiday, Mr. Kong would take two or three good friends like Ng Chi Wing to Mong Kok by bus in the morning and buy them breakfast at the Good Hope Restaurant there. Everyone would then catch an early movie at the nearby Ritz Cinema where a friend, a fellow villager from Nga Tsin Wai, worked as an usher. Mr. Kong asked their pal to buy the morning show tickets in advance and usually bought bargain seats in the last row. After watching the film, the friends would stroll around the streets for a while before going home. Ng Chi Wing believes that only a few of the village’s real indigenous inhabitants back then had formal jobs. Those who found work tended to move away while those who remained in the village stayed quite poor. He observes that villagers coming from outside mostly worked in nearby companies such as CLP in Argyle Street or at Kai Tak Airport. The outsiders tended to have stable jobs and better financial conditions. At the end of the day, Ng Chi Wing feels that, villagers from different families did not really care who was rich or poor and got along regardless of their surnames. 

As a child, Ng Chi Wing’s birth mother often took him back to her maiden home at Shatin. Departing from Nga Tsin Wai, they first took a bus to Mong Kok Railway Station, transferring to a train for the rest of the trip. Once in Shatin, they had to walk for more than two hours before reaching Wong Nai Tau Village. Sometimes, the pair might take a boat at Shatin Railway Station to Chap Wai Kon and then stroll the rest of the way to save some time. When in the village, Ng Chi Wing usually stayed in his mother’s family home for one or two days. As his uncle and other relatives used to give him pocket money, he felt very happy there! Ng Chi Wing remembers that his father never accompanied him and his mother on these trips.

He also used to go back to his mother’s family’s home for Chinese New Year, sometimes bringing a pig and chicken along as gifts. His maternal grandfather killed a pig and home-made rice crackers for Ng Chi Wing’s mother to bring back to Nga Tsin Wai. The boy’s grandfather on his mother’s side was an indigenous inhabitant of Wong Nai Tau Village, with several of Ng Chi Wing’s uncles having emigrated to the UK. The family was a big one which cultivated rice on their farmlands. As a result, Ng Chi Wing learned how to transplant rice seedlings from his relatives. Initially, when Nga Tsin Wai village started preparing for Jiao Festival, the family of Ng Chi Wing’s maternal grandfather usually joined the celebrations. Later they held their own festivals and no longer participated in village activities. Ng Shing Tat Tso had a branch in Siu Lek Yuen. Because of this connection, Ng Chi Wing believes his parents met before they began dating. There were several women in Nga Tsin Wai who had moved there first from Shatin before getting married to local villagers. While some women directly married and stayed in Nga Tsin Wai, no one in Nga Tsin Wai ever asked a Wong Nai Tau resident to be their wives.

Ng Chi Wing’s fondest memories of the Chinese New Years he spent in Nga Tsin Wai as a boy include traditional foods such as sticky rice dumplings, rice crackers and steamed and fried rice cakes. These dishes were home made in both local and Hakka ways, with their taste depending on the cook’s ability to buy and assemble ingredients. For example, richer families steamed sticky rice dumplings with plentiful materials, whereas poorer people made their dumplings without stuffing. Most villagers were not snobbish when it came to sharing their food with others. The traditional worship ceremony was presided over by a village elder as children ate and played.

In earlier times, the Jiao Festival used to last for three days and two nights. Ng Chi Wing’s parents bought new clothes for their kids, as it was traditional for youngsters to wear such apparel to greet the first day of the Jiao Festival. During the Jiao ritual, villagers had to eat vegetarian meals for three days and children were not exempted from this rule. The villagers hired cooks to prepare vegetarian food in the open space at the gatehouse. They happily ate their vegetarian dishes in the gatehouse for all three days. Puppet shows were also staged in this area while Taoist priests performed their various sacrificial rites. Ng Chi Wing vaguely remembers participating in one or two parades for which villagers had to apply to the Government to close off the roads. As in the past, villagers who moved away tended to see their ties to their home village weaken over time. The scale of the Jiao Festival had been reduced with the most recent event lasting just a day and a night. That said, by organising and conducting festivals and celebrations, villagers who had moved to all four corners of Hong Kong could gather together and talk about the old days with childhood friends. Such celebrations were always wonderful opportunities for people to reminisce about the past and helped strengthen everyone’s affection for their old home.

Ng Chi Wing believes that the sense of “community” began with the establishment of formal addresses, before which Nga Tsin Wai had been a quiet and harmonious village. Construction of buildings around Nga Tsin Wai began in the 1950s with the springing up of Tung Tau Estate, Wong Tai Sin, San Po Kong and other communities. As there were now no longer any more green spaces around each village, everyone felt upset. As a child, Ng Chi Wing often thought: “Why are we being surrounded?” As their walled village home often flooded when it rained, villagers were fortunate to have Kai Tak River in which to discharge their sewage. Some people felt that such development negatively affected the feng shui in the walled village and caused residents to suffer strange diseases that shortened their life expectancy. Ng Chi Wing believes that the resettlement area was a magnet for bad sorts as the triads would come to recruit new members. The elders of the walled village also forbade their children from playing football in the resettlement area.

Ng Chi Wing believes that the sense of “community” began with the establishment of formal addresses, before which Nga Tsin Wai had been a quiet and harmonious village. Construction of buildings around Nga Tsin Wai began in the 1950s with the springing up of Tung Tau Estate, Wong Tai Sin, San Po Kong and other communities. As there were now no longer any more green spaces around each village, everyone felt upset. As a child, Ng Chi Wing often thought: “Why are we being surrounded?” As their walled village home often flooded when it rained, villagers were fortunate to have Kai Tak River in which to discharge their sewage. Some people felt that such development negatively affected the feng shui in the walled village and caused residents to suffer strange diseases that shortened their life expectancy. Ng Chi Wing believes that the resettlement area was a magnet for bad sorts as the triads would come to recruit new members. The elders of the walled village also forbade their children from playing football in the resettlement area.

Ng Chi Wing thinks that the communities around Nga Tsin Wai were not really big enough to be considered as cities, and should instead be regarded as “poor communities”. To be a real “city”, Ng Chi Wing believes a place should have shops, schools and entertainment venues. The resettlement area lacked such facilities and had only a second-class school. When Nga Tsin Wai’s Chi Tak Public School opened, it was regarded as the most prestigious school in the district and was overwhelmed with application for admission by the parents of nearby children. While the resettlement area was built to resettle fire victims and squatter dwellers, Ng Chi Wing feels it became filled with bad people and things. Most residents came from low-income families whose children received little education. Some even gathered there to commit crimes. Worst of all, the resettlement area was very near to the ungoverned and largely lawless Kowloon Walled City where young people easily went astray. Ng Chi Wing recalls that in the early period just after the resettlement area’s completion, it was magnet for drug addicts.

Looking back, Ng Chi Wing agrees Nga Tsin Wai’s development can be broadly divided into four stages: (a) indigenous inhabitation; (b) people of different families began to move in to rent or buy houses; (c) houses were acquired and demolished by CKH and other property developers; (d) redevelopment proposals were implemented by the URA.

During stages (a) and (b), villagers lived a simple life. As Hong Kong had yet to become a global economic powerhouse in those years, villagers found it hard to make a living. Those who moved into the village tended to stay there for a long time and indigenous inhabitants and outsiders with different surnames lived side-by-side quite happily. As people tended to meet every day, everyone got along well with their neighbours. The indigenous inhabitants never gave discriminating against outsiders a second thought. Except from taking part in grave sweeping, outsiders joined their indigenous neighbours in organising and celebrating the Tin Hau and Jiao festivals. Later, even residents of the resettlement area joined in. As the Jiao Festival was expensive to mount, everyone who wanted to take part was welcomed.

By the time the village’s development had progressed to stage (c), CKH’s acquisition of properties began to impact villagers’ lives. In acquiring homes from the villagers, CHK made two offers. Firstly, owners delivering vacant possession were given an extra HK$200,000. If tenants were still resident when CKH took possession they could use the HK$200,000 as the tenants’ relocation compensation without actually resettling the tenants. The double-edged acquisition policy led to conflicts between owners and tenants, but was mostly resolved when the owners compensated the tenants. If tenants refused to vacate properties, CKH ordered in the bailiffs to enforce eviction orders. Aggrieved tenants then sought help from District Council (DC) Members. As CKH had not recovered title ownership of the entire village, it could not implement the relevant Lands Resumption Ordinance. As a result, CKH was powerless against tenants who refused to vacate. Tenants who had nowhere to go simply waited for the Government to rehouse them.

When owners delivered vacant possession properties, CKH quickly hired workers to demolish them. This was to avoid having to bear legal and compensation costs should the houses collapse, injuring someone. Demolition of the houses made the villagers very uneasy as their lives were no longer as simple as they once were. The earliest sellers to CKH tended to be non-indigenous house owners. As CKH started upping prices to encourage sales, the indigenous inhabitants also gradually began selling off their properties. Ng Chi Wing thinks that there were eventually no diehards who refused to sell. Those who held out simply did so until the price was impossible to refuse. When CKH first started acquiring homes in the village, the villagers had held a general meeting. The discussion only covered the conditions involved in selling their homes. At no point did it discuss the possibility that the village might be demolished.

By the time of the URA’s intervention, the villagers were resigned to the fact that the end of the homes and lives they once loved was inevitable. By that stage, most people wanted redevelopment as their living conditions had become so bad and most homes in the village had already been demolished. As the houses in the lanes were built connected into rows, units remaining between demolished dwellings became unstable as they no longer had any support at their sides. The steady erosion by rain and sunshine further added to the likelihood of houses’ collapse. Ng Chi Wing greatly admired Auntie Hung who would not be budged from her home until the last moment. Wishing to be rehoused in nearby public housing, the old lady insisted on staying in a dangerous house until she got her way. It goes without saying that Ng Chi Wing worried about her during every rainstorm or typhoon.

Before property developers arrived in the village and started their large-scale acquisition, villagers were generally not very well off. In those days, Nga Tsin Wai village houses tended to sell for between HK$30,000 and HK$50,000. Such trades usually took the form of private transactions between buyers and sellers who knew one and other well. Before the LDC came onto the scene, the villagers had no real concept of “acquisition”. Title owners lived a better life, mostly living outside the village and leasing out their properties for just a few hundred dollars per month. Those who stayed on in the village did so mainly because their circumstances left them no choice. Sanitation there was poor and the now almost forgotten practice of night soil collection continued to endure until the mid-60s.

As rents were so low, tenants also had to bear maintenance costs themselves. Property developers were among the first who came to make acquisitions and generally looked to start discussions with individual owners. One potential buyer hoped to buy two houses from Ng Chi Wing’s uncle, offering him HK$800,000 for each house. The buyer subsequently paid 50% of the non-refundable deposit. When the transaction eventually fell through, Ng Chi Wing’s uncle wound up earning a small fortune for nothing! As the ownership of the land between the lanes and outside the walled village was not clear, the buyer grew nervous. At the end of the day he worried that even full ownership of the houses would not guarantee his ability to develop the place.

A few years after Ng Chi Wing’s uncle got his big deposit for free, CKH began launching an acquisition via its subsidiaries. Negotiations were made with the Village Headman Lee Foo in which CKH offered hundreds of thousands of dollars for each house. Seeing someone offering such high prices for their homes, the villagers couldn’t wait to sell. Soon, CKH owned the titles to many houses in the village. The main sellers during the stage of CKH’s acquisition were outsiders with no real idea of what it was to own an ancestral home.

Ng Chi Wing believes that only elderly folk really understood the concept of ancestral houses. Younger owners thought that the village houses had a low rental value and were so dirty and dilapidated they might collapse injuring someone. They were quick to accept high prices for their houses and cast off this burden. Such people rarely felt sad about selling off their homes as they had a weaker sense about ancestral house. Older people tended to let their children make their decisions and then use the money to set up a business or invest. As a result, the chance of disputes arising over the selling of houses was not great. When the LDC began carrying out its acquisition, the villagers all had much to look forward to regardless of whether they were tenants or owners. Tenants hoped to be allocated public housing while owners could earn a good profit. Those owners who did not sell their houses immediately were simply holding out for higher prices. Ng Chi Wing feels that the villagers’ willingness to move was simply a sign of the times. Having grown up in a big family in a crowded environment, he felt it was inevitable his siblings would want to move after their marriages.
 

Ng Chi Wing thinks that only indigenous inhabitants of his grandfather’s generation such as Ng Yun Chor and Ng Wai Chi really understood the true value of an “ancestral house”. During his father’s lifetime, many outsiders moved to the village to buy homes. Ng Chi Wing feels that there were more villagers with different surnames than the indigenous Ng Clansmen who collected rents! While Ng Chi Wing’s father originally owned a property where his family had lived, his grandfather’s generation rarely used the term “ancestral house”. When the older man later acted as a guarantor for someone who eventually defaulted on a loan, he was forced to sell the house to settle the debt. As Ng Chi Wing had no fixed abode in the village during childhood and had moved home several times, he, too, had little concept of what an “ancestral house” actually meant. Nor did his contemporaries.

During Ng Chi Wing’s childhood, a village house was only worth about HK$2,000. Due to pressure of life, most indigenous inhabitants were happy to sell their homes to improve their living with price as the main consideration. Ng Chi Wing is not sure if anyone kept their property purely because it was an “ancestral house”. For example, Ng Chin Hung’s family had a few properties in Nga Tsin Wai which had been passed on to his father and his uncle from his grandfather. As his father earned a good living as a policeman after the war, he faced no financial pressure to sell his houses. Ng Chin Hung’s uncle died recently in the United States. The houses could not be sold without the signature of his dead uncle who was one of the title holders. It is therefore difficult to judge whether it was the “ancestral house” factor that the houses were not sold.
 

Once property developers started acquiring and demolishing their houses, villagers quickly moved away and the once busy environment bustled no longer. Those staying behind grew increasingly anxious about the constant risk of termites and house collapse. After CKH’s acquisition, circumstances began to change. In the past, owners had been prohibited from increasing rents at will by the Landlord and Tenant (Consolidation) Ordinance. So while Ng Chi Wing’s family had lived in his aunt’s property for years they only ever paid a nominal rent of around HK$100 per year. Sometimes, they even lived rent free! After his aunt sold the house, CKH applied to the Lands Tribunal to start charging rent in line with the urban rental value. They subsequently asked Ng Chi Wing’s family for a monthly rent of around HK$2,900. Ng Chi Wing and his family were unhappy about the rental increase. The two parties started legal proceedings, and the case was heard in North Kowloon Lands Tribunal. CKH privately agreed with Ng Chi Wing’s family to reduce the rent to HK$2,600 per month in an out of court settlement. As Ng Chi Wing’s family could not afford to hire a lawyer to make a valuation, they had no option but to accept the substantial increase.

After the URA implemented the redevelopment of Nga Tsin Wai a few years ago, the families who stayed fought hard to be resettled in public housing. However, Ng Chi Wing thinks that the URA was not very willing to provide such accommodation. Take the case of Ng Chi Wing’s brother. He had been living in the village his whole life. As he worked in Wong Tai Sin and his daughter also went to school in Wong Tai Sin, he hoped to be rehoused within the same district. But the URA initially only offered him old-type estates in To Kwa Wan and Ho Man Tin. In 2012, he was finally accorded local rehousing. A tenant called Auntie Hung was a special case which was followed up by the Social Welfare Department, Salvation Army and the URA. While she should have been quickly rehoused, her insistence on moving to a newly completed housing estate nearby meant she has still not yet moved out of the village.

The two groups of villagers had no major differences and often met for discussion. Everyone agreed that the most vital and immediate thing was to rehouse the residents, relieving them of worries about house collapses. The Village Headman and Village Office also agreed to this suggestion. Everyone felt that the DC Members served as a bridge between the Government officials and the villagers as matters they raised on the villagers’ behalf tended to have a greater chance of success. Consequently, Village Headman Ng Kau authorised the Wong Tai Sin DC Members to act on redevelopment matters on behalf of his fellow villagers including the indigenous inhabitant owners. The DC Members then immediately asked the URA to start work. As the indigenous inhabitants still held title ownerships for properties in the village, their consent had to be obtained before the Government could resume land for demolition under the Land Resumption Ordinance.

By now, Ng Chi Wing had already moved out of Nga Tsin Wai and had no title ownership in the village. But since his brother was still living there, he would often return for his holidays and to chat and play mahjong. While there he also updated himself about the ongoing redevelopment. Ng Chi Wing believes that while redevelopment was essential to urgently enhancing residents’ quality of life, possible conservation was a secondary issue. Although he agreed in principle that the entire village should be preserved in-situ, he felt such work was just not feasible. As developers had acquired so much property, it was impossible for them to abandon the development without any compensation. As huge financial losses were likely to result, it was not likely that the Government would exchange lands with the developers. Since both parties saw the Nga Tsin Wai site as rich pickings, the construction of high-rise buildings there seemed inevitable. Under the terms of the URA’s current scheme, eight houses, the Tin Hau Temple and archway are all to be preserved. Ng Chi Wing is unsure whether just keeping a few things can really be said to be conservation. While he endorses building a Kai Tak Heritage Trail, he feels this is not a concern of the villagers and the matter has to be undertaken by the DC Members with the Government.

Ng Chi Wing sighs when asked if all villagers enjoyed the rights of indigenous inhabitants. Had everyone possessed the right to build small houses and hold funerals, he feels they would be sure to deem their properties as “ancestral houses”. As such, they would fight for their right to retain them. As of now, Nga Tsin Wai has been incorporated into the city and villagers have no strong feelings either way about being regarded as “indigenous inhabitants”. Ng Chi Wing thinks that when villagers lost their rights to own small houses, both the Hong Kong Government and the village elders were responsible. When Ng Chi Wing was a toddler, the Government included Nga Tsin Wai in “East Kowloon 13 Villages” for urban development purposes. The village’s original gazetting only necessitated an adjustment of the district plan and no change to its name or its residents’ way of life. The elders back then simply did not know that their descendants would lose rights rural people like them had long taken for granted. It is now difficult to establish whether they were exploited by the Government or not.

Subsequently, Village Headman Ng Kau proposed to relocate Nga Tsin Wai villagers named Ng who would then build small houses in Tseung Kwan O Village. Neither the Government nor Tseung Kwan O’s Ng Clan thought that was possible and the proposal was shelved after brief discussions. Dating back to when it was first set up some 600 years ago, Nga Tsin Wai has a longer history than many other villages in the New Territories. Today, Ng Chi Wing regrets that he did not take the villagers’ fight for their rights to the Equal Opportunities Commission. As unity amongst the villagers has now disappeared, there is no point in raising the matter again.

As the houses in Nga Tsin Wai were classified as “village house” rather than “small house”, their title deeds did not set out any building height restrictions. Most Nga Tsin Wai families lived in crowded home environments. As a result, houses tended to have two storeys, with the second floor consisting of a cockloft which was mainly used for sleeping. In the past, villagers generally did not have the ability to build three storeys. It was only at a very late stage that a handful of Ng Clansmen began building such homes. When the small house policy was introduced in 1972, Nga Tsin Wai had already been earmarked as one of the “East Kowloon 13 Villages” by the Government.

In Ng Chi Wing’s memory, no Village Headmen had ever fought over small house rights. His father’s generation was probably simply unaware such rights existed! Ng Chi Wing only found out about such matters because his mother came from Shatin’s Wong Nai Tau and his uncle and cousin could easily apply to the Lands Department for building small houses. Nga Tsin Wai villagers had never really thought about building such homes. Firstly, they did not know whether they had the right. Secondly, they could not afford the costs (back then, around a few hundred thousand dollars per unit). It was not until the mid-1990s that the villagers heard of news about small house rights transfers and enquired with departments such as Home Affairs. It was only around this time that the villagers learned that they had lost their small house rights when their home village had been included in the “East Kowloon 13 Villages”. 

Considering his limited personal ability, Ng Chi Wing invited trusted friends like Ng Siu Kei who were only too happy to help him out with village affairs. As he was honest, fair and open, and had good performance during his term of office, Ng Chi Wing retains the post of Village Headman to this day. Although he had moved out of Nga Tsin Wai before he became the Village Headman, Ng Chi Wing still regularly returned to visit his mother and other relatives, chatting, playing mahjong and enjoying meals with them. His siblings also continued to come back for gatherings after his mother died in the mid-2000s. Even if the village is demolished in future, Ng Chi Wing believes he will still return home as the URA had promised the Village Committee it will rebuild the Village Office. As the Village Committee must still manage the day-to-day operation of the Village Office and Tin Hau Temple, it is likely villagers will continue to gather there in future.

Nga Tsin Wai Village has not only a Village Headman but also a Village Representative. Ng Chi Wing guessed that when the Government included Nga Tsin Wai into the “East Kowloon 13 Villages”, it asked the village elders to set up a Village Committee that included the posts of Village Headman, Committee Chairman and Village Representative. The definition of the functions and powers of the Village Headman and Village Representative were not clear. The Village Headman was generally an older villager while the Village Representative was largely responsible for external negotiations. Ng Chi Wing’s father was elected by the villagers as Village Representative because of his good connection network included many Government officials. Most of the time, Ng Chi Wing’s father negotiated with such external parties on behalf of the villagers and then reported back to the Village Headman. Ng Chi Wing’s father continued to discharge these responsibilities until his death in 1972. Later holders of his post included Leung Shek Lun in 1989. At that time, Ng Kau was far more active and handled the village affairs together with Leung Shek Lun. The relationship between the Village Representative and the Village Headman had also changed.

The Village Committee had applied for registration of societies as early as 1963. However, unlike the annual election system in other New Territories villages, there was no clear means of selecting the Village Headman or Village Representative. When Ng Kau was voted Village Headman in 1989, the Village Committee had invited the East Kowloon District Residents’ Committee to monitor the election. But the Home Affairs Department did not send people to observe the vote and the police station remained unaware of the system being used. Ng Chi Wing feels that the Government has failed to recognise Nga Tsin Wai Village and may have even forgotten it altogether. Recently, the Police Licensing Office informed the Village Committee that many on its list of registered office-bearers had passed away and as a result its licence was no longer valid. Ng Chi Wing thinks that the Village Committee should apply to renew the licence and undertake restructuring after making reference to other organisations. Ng Chi Wing recalls that past registration of Village Headmen was simple as no conflict of interest was involved. Villagers simply submitted a list of office-bearers to the District Office, and the authorities registered the names without stringent examination.