Digging in - an old farmer faces one last battle against the odds

Yau Kai-woon fled his hometown of Huizhou with his mother at the age of 16 after seeing his neighbours tortured and their land seized under the newly founded People's Republic of China because they were of the wrong social class.

They came to Hong Kong with nothing and set about a new life by working on farms in Kam Tin, where employers provided food and accommodation. After six years they had saved enough money to buy 7,000 square feet of land from indigenous owners at Tsoi Yuen Ysuen in Yuen Long and set up their own farm.

In the summer of 1962, Typhoon Wanda, the most powerful recorded in Hong Kong, blew away their house and they had to rebuild.

But none of the challenges Yau and his mother, who died 10 years ago, faced over the years was as big as the one he is facing now: at the age of 77 he has to leave his land and start again somewhere else. This time it's nothing to do with his social class, but because he is in the way of works for the high-speed railway to Guangzhou.

'The past two years were the most difficult period,' Yau says. 'Perhaps I am too old. I don't have as much energy as I used to have. There is no way I can rebuild a house now as I did 40 years ago.'

Yau is one of dwindling number of villagers sticking with a plan to move their farms to an eco-friendly village they want to build on land they are buying in nearby Pat Heung - a plan stalled by deadlock with residents of the area over use of an access road.

Reflecting the difficulties, the number of families who are determined to carry through the plan to form a co-operative with streams, vegetable fields, fruit trees and ponds has dropped from 86 a year ago to 47.