Hakka clan to resurrect Hong Kong village that was lost to high-rise development
Hakka clan secures a plot near original site now submerged by reservoir
About 90 members of a Hakka clan indigenous to the New Territories are planning to recreate their village, more than a decade after it was demolished for high-rise development in urban Tsuen Wan.
The Cheung clan has bought a piece of land measuring about 30,000 sq ft in Tuen Mun and is now seeking to gather fellow clansmen to reconstruct the original village that is at present submerged by Tai Lam Chung Reservoir.
If the plan proceeds, it will contrast with the fate of villages that have disappeared in recent years or are set to become history.
Tsoi Yuen Tsuen in Shek Kong was cleared for a cross-border, high-speed railway, the six-century-old Nga Chin Wai Tsuen in Wong Tai Sin is to make way for Urban Renewal Authority redevelopment, and some villages in Kwu Tung North, Fanling North and Hung Shui Kiu are to yield to the construction of new towns.
"It is nostalgia that brings us together again," Tai Uk Wai village chief Albert Cheung Ka-fu, 57, said.
The clan's ancestors hailed from Wuhua, Guangdong.
The earliest records of their settlement in Hong Kong could not be traced, but they were estimated to have relocated more than two centuries ago, Cheung said, citing date inscriptions on ancestral graves lying in Tai Lam Country Park, Tuen Mun.
