Grass for my Feet: Death of a Village

I am fortunate to be living in Wong Keng Tei, which borders the large Sai Kung Country Park. Hong Kong teems with seven million people and this part of Sai Kung feels like another world.

This morning, a set off for the Sheung Yiu Folk Museum to meet Patrick Ng, who is the Museum Keeper. He wrote "A Ballad of Pak Tam Chung", which I published in this blog last year. Patrick told me that he had composed another section of the poem. Because he doesn't type, word process or e-mail, I had to get a handwritten copy from the man himself.

From my house in Wong Keng Tei, I can actually see the Museum, but the walk takes about 25 minutes. I enter the Country Park and make a right turn onto the footbridge about 500 meters from the entrance. This morning, I meet some runners taking part in a road race. The Country Park is popular for road races and other outdoor events. The annual Trailwalker hike, in which thousands of people take part, begins at the entrance to the Park.

The footpath, now called the Pak Tam Chung Trail, is paved, but I don't mind because it winds along the pristine Lung Hang River, which must be one of the last rivers not to be concreted in Hong Kong. I also pass four traditional houses which have gardens with banana, sugar cane, tangerines, mangoes and other crops being grown. There's a beautiful grove of trees on the hillside above the houses. This morning the householders had some tangerines for sale by the footpath.

Kevin Sinclair, who wrote lovingly about the New Territories, says the the walk is "a gentle stroll into the past" and the reason becomes clear when the Sheung Yiu Folk Museum comes into view. The museum was the site of eight houses occupied by the Hakka Wong clan which moved to these parts about 150 years ago. According to Sinclair, the Guandong coast was plagued by pirates and waterborne bandits at that times, so the Wongs built their village behind strong stone walls overlooking a narrow cove facing Jade Bay. The entrance to the museum, shown below, gives an idea of the fortifications.

Patrick does not work regularly at this museum. He is now attached to the museum in Tsuen Wan and only comes to Sheung Yiu on the last working day of the month. He was happy to see me (we have known each other for 8 years) and we chatted for a while. He seems older and says he is worried about "minor things" which he didn't elaborate on. I asked him not to watch the news or read newspapers too often, because there's only bad news these days. Unmarried, he lives with his mother of 76 years.

He has added about 100 lines to "A Ballad", and we talked about Pak Tam Chung, the museum, and other matters. When I began complaining about the elaborate garvesites that are springing-up all over the New Territories, Patrick said he didn't need a grave. Instead, he would like his ashes to be scattered in Pak Tam Chung. That's in keeping with the man, his modesty and simple lifestyle.

Patrick in his office.

Patrick with me.

Jade Bay can be glimpsed through the trees along the trail.

A few times a year, I pay a visit to the two abandoned villages that lie along the path, Wong Yi Chau and Hei Tsz Wan. I have written before about these villages but this was the first time I took a camera along. Long abandoned, collapsing houses can be seen along the path even before one gets to the two villages.

The Wong clan were Catholics, apparently converted by an Italian missionary in the late 1800s and early 1900s. A few meters beyond the museum lies Our Lady of Seven Sorrows chapel, built in 1900 to serve the congegration of the Sheung Yiu, Wong Yi Chau, and Hei Tsz Wan villages. Because the villagers have moved away, the chapel is now being used as the Sea Activity Center of the Catholic Scout Guild. A few canoes that lie alongside the chapel is evidence of these "sea activities". An interesting banner that hangs outside the chapel shows a map of the Sai Kung and Tai Po areas indicating where chapels and churches have been built, the earliest in 1873 and the last in 1910. The catholic congregations in Sai Kung and Tai Po are thriving but most of the chapels must now be abandoned.

Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Chapel, built in 1900

The Bradbury Holiday Camp lies along the path but I only meet a few hikers even on this Saturday morning. Actually, not all visitors to the museum may be aware of the interesting sites that lie beyond it.

I pass the open area shown below which may have been used as a paddy field. They abandoned rice cultivation when imported rice became cheap. Their cattle were set free, and the descendants of this cattle still roam the Sai Kung area.

I make a right turn to go into Wong Yi Chau village. A gate, which is latched, guards the village from intruders, although the "No Entry" sign is no longer visible. The house with the broken red door is what I see as I enter the village. The houses, which are in two rows, could be made habitable with some effort, but I have never met a villager during my visits over the past 8 years.

Electricity and pipe borne water is supplied to these houses and there is no doubt that the villagers and their descendants return here on festival days. There is some activity on the waterfront below, with some canoes in the open area. Amazingly, after walking through the dilapidated village, I come across this newly built, well maintained ancestral hall. The view of Jade Bay from the ancestral hall is idyllic.

I retrace my steps, glimpsing the water through the trees.

Back on the footpath, I now walk towards Hei Tsz Wan village. The trail winds along a low lying, marshy area which contains tall grasses. A can see a few gravesites but the terrain here is treacherous because of wells that lie hidden in the grass.

I cross a stream before entering the village. The lack of rain has dried it up although it must be filled with water at high tide.

Unlike Wong Yi Chau village, Hei Tsz Wan is truly abandoned, a village that has died. Here, no effort has been made to maintain the houses in a habitable state. A couple of houses have been padlocked probably to prevent intruders from entering and injuring themselves. The villagers appear to have left in a hurry, leaving old black & white TVs, rice cookers, other appliances, and furniture behind. Small stoves and bathtubs litter the surrounding area. The ground floors of these houses are of normal height but the first floors are rather short, with hardly enough head room to stand on. The inhabitants would only have gone upstairs at night, to sleep.

One house had been built in 1966, only about 50 years ago. Why did these villagers leave their homes? The earlier migrations, to the north of England and to Scotland, had taken place right after the Chinese Revolution of 1949. As millions of Chinese refugees poured in to Hong Kong, the residents of these villages left, fearing a Communist invasion from the North. Then, as Kowloon and other areas developed and more and more public housing were built, the remaining villagers left for the comforts of city life, leaving behind the hardships of life in remote villages that did not have motorable roads, electricity, pipe borne water, shops, or schools for their children. As Patrick Ng describes in his poem, life was difficult, and not appealing especially to the younger villagers. The bright lights of the city beckoned, and who can blame them?

Besides the footpath, the only way to the village was by boat. These steps lead down from the village to the bay.

The path wanders beyond Hei Tsz Wan, through bamboo groves and shady trees. A flight of steps lead up the hillside and I come across about 20 grave sites of the Wong clan. I note that more grave sites have been built since my visit last year. The number of indigenous village houses in the New Territories has increased tremendously since my arrival here, and the latest trend appears to be the building of elaborate monuments to departed ancestors. This is not environmentally friendly because it defaces the pristine countryside and also causes fires on festival days.

This is the bay seen from the gravesites. The dearly departed obviously have the best views!

I come down to the path from the gravesite and walk along till I come to this pier on a pristine cove. The water is clear, the hills are green and all is silence. I could spend hours here with some wine and John Updike novel or a Paul Theroux travel book!