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Local history is not necessarily limited to the narrating of local chronicles, it can start with real people’s recollections of their daily lives...

According to villagers’ accounts, lands and properties owned by the ancestors of Nga Tsin Wai’s original inhabitants stretched all over areas such as Kowloon City, San Po Kong, Wong Tai Sin and Diamond Hill. After the Second World War of 1941 to 1945, Hong Kong’s Government decided to develop East Kowloon. They subsequently built various housing estates such as Tung Tau, Lok Fu, Wong Tai Sin, Jordan Valley and Tsz Wan Shan to make this happen. While family histories that have been passed down from generation to generation continue to survive these changes, there was no way to ascertain which pieces of land belonged to Nga Tsin Wai’s villagers.

Many Nga Tsin Wai residents claimed that families dating back three generations had been living in ancestral homes in branched out villages of Nga Tsin Wai such as Sha Po Village and Mau Chin. During pre-war times, elderly grandmothers used to till the soil while their husbands sat around smoking opium. Sha Po Village has now metamorphosed into Shek Ku Lung Road Playground, while located just outside Nga Tsin Wai’s entrance, Mau Chin is now better known as Kai Tak Nullah. The big houses with a few halls, lush green fields and the spirit possession act of “Pok Sheng Ngau Chai” during festivals in olden days have now all but vanished. Yet such scenes remain vivid and lifelike for those old enough to still remember and talk about them.

Records show that Nga Tsin Wai held a Jiao Festival for five days once every 10 years. It was an event for which the villagers turned out in droves! Celebrants carried a statue of Tin Hau and paraded through Ma Tau Wai, Nga Tsin Long, Chuk Yuen, Po Kong and Yuen Ling during the days. Later in the evenings, everyone watched puppet shows and enjoyed specially prepared delicacies. Traditional customs like this may no longer endure like they once did, but for many villagers, childhood memories are still fresh and alive!

Residents recall that in 1982 Cheung Kong Holdings began acquiring houses in Nga Tsin Wai, buying one and demolishing one. In recent years, there were often quarrels among villagers over monetary issues. Simple folk manners and kindred friendships have suffered as a result. But villagers still come together during every meeting of their ancestral trusts. They also attend every celebration of the Birthday of Tin Hau, worship their ancestors during Chung Yeung Festival and observe the Jiao ritual.

There were some villagers had never lived in Nga Tsin Wai as their fathers had left the village when they got married. As a result, they had little in the way of deep feelings about the place. However, they often returned to Nga Tsin Wai to participate in its activities when they got older as a means of rediscovering his spiritual roots.

Ancestors of modern-day Nga Tsin Wai clansmen built the village in the early 15th century. In 2013 hoardings were erected by the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) announcing the village’s forthcoming demolition and redevelopment into high-rise residential buildings and a conservation park. What makes Nga Tsin Wai so special and worthy of being preserved by oral historians such as ourselves is that it is the last remaining walled village in urban Kowloon. That said, Nga Tsin Wai’s landscape changes did not begin with the URA’s recent acquisition. As early as the start of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in 1941, its branch villages were demolished to make way for the expansion of Kai Tak Airport. This development started a process via which villagers were scattered to all four corners of Hong Kong. In the early 1960s further upheavals occurred when the village’s well was levelled and its ancestral hall was demolished to make way for a Government-constructed resettlement estate. Along with changing times, several other factors contributed to the deterioration of Nga Tsin Wai’s once indomitable community spirit. In addition to the buying and selling of homes and increased choices in one’s ways of making a living, they included the moving away of the original three-surname indigenous inhabitants and the moving in of immigrants with other family names. Ultimately, the story of Nga Tsin Wai is a narration of a big era!

In retellings like this, everyone has a story of his own. In the case of Nga Tsin Wai, these stories all share a unique style but also a common face. Each person has their own mental map and treasured memories of their walled village home and its houses, homes, life, human feelings, traditions, institutions, customs, ancestors, history, identity and consciousness. While such elements may all look random to begin with, the moment they are pieced together, we observers enjoy a much clearer picture of the village’s old landscape. The end result is a valuable insight into the many profound changes that have made Hong Kong the vibrant city it now is.