The Stone House Family Garden in Kowloon City
I learned about the Stone House Family Garden when I looked up the free tours for heritage sites under the Heritage Fiesta 2021 programme of the Hong Kong Government. From the pictures the Stone House looked beautiful, and I was keen to pay a visit.
The Stone House Family Garden – Community
When I arrived at the site, I noticed the clear effort to maintain both the Grade 3 Historic Building and the garden space. The Stone House has five adjacent rooms in one row. There is a large garden in front of the building. A good number of tents provide shade for the tables and chairs. Customers of the restaurant, which is a social enterprise, can dine at their leisure outdoors.
Worthy of mention is the labyrinth that spans all of the garden space on the site. Old aerial photographs show the patterns on this site. The restoration of the garden thus included a re-construction of the original patterns. Seven exhibits display the history of Kowloon City here, and visitors are encouraged to meditate as they follow the patterns on the ground.
The café operates as a social enterprise. It is the main source of income that sustains the Stone House Family Garden as a heritage site as well as its ongoing community service commitments. It provides training in the food and beverages industry to those who would like to acquire experience. In the past, the Stone House organized Poon Choi banquets (treasures in a tub) for the elderly in the neighborhood. Now, there are paid and unpaid programmes such as open theatre performances, board game sessions and guided tours.
Architectural Features
I quote the description on the pamphlet that introduces the Stone House:
The Stone Houses consist of a row of Chinese style two-storey tenement buildings, constructed of granite blocks with walls supporting pitched roofs of timber rafters, purlins and clay tiles. The roofs are covered with Chinese pan and roll tiles. A kitchen and a toilet are found at the rear court of the Houses. Doors of the Houses are in Chinese Style, with timber locks and rock sockets.
Ryan greeted the group for a tour and introduction of Stonehouse Family. As he himself grew up in Kowloon City, he has a commitment to the betterment of this neighborhood.
The interiors of the Stone House show some interesting features. Ryan took note of the stairwell. When the residents built the original stairwell, the first few steps from the ground up were cement steps. Then came the wooden staircase leading to the first floor. They have intended this feature to prevent the humidity of the ground from eroding the stairs. This was a very thoughtful design.
This following is the best-preserved original window of the whole Stone House. You can see that the alignment of the wooden planks are off. The horizontal planks are slanted slightly upward. The glass pane was specially ordered to show the typical patterns of the windows in those times. The restoration throughout the structure showed significant efforts in their details.
This following shows the toilet that the residents used. Note the spot is very narrow. In those days, human excretion was valuable. The families collected their own waste in a bucket, and later can sell it for a profit. In fact, there were people that stole the sewage if they did not keep watch.
Life at the Stone House
The five rooms of the original Stonehouse now serve different purposes, including the space for the restaurant, an interpretation center with interactive and still historical display and illustrated installation, and the administrative office of the social enterprise. Ryan conducted most of the tour in Room 32. He said that in the old days, the small area accommodated as many as 30 people in that room alone. Even considering the fact that people were of smaller stature then, the living condition was terrible by any standard.
But they did have a roof, and in those days, that was a blessing in itself.
This installation illustrates the small living space for a whole family in those times. Ryan told us about an interesting practice then. He said that many people of that era would stuff their most important belongings in the hollow legs of the bed’s metal frame. Things like birth certificate, gold bars, jewelry or anything would go inside the metal frame. The difficulty in lifting the whole bed would prevent thieves from stealing. The metal frame was also fire-proof.
History
As of the day of the visit, the standard history of the Stonehouse Family as I learned from the official sources on site is as follows.
The predecessor of the Stonehouse Family is Ho Ka Yuen, meaning the home village of the Ho’s. The village had existed since the late 1800s. The Ho’s were rich. Their village consisted of large houses, lychee groves, and streams and wells. The Ho family vacated their home during the Japanese Occupation of 1941-1945.
Until this week, the official account at the Stone House is that the structure was built during the Japanese Occupation years upon the foundations of the Ho Ka Yuen. The Japanese expanded the Kai Tak Airport. They built the Stone House and other settlements to accommodate the displaced residents of Kowloon City.
However, new evidence has emerged to contest this view. The understanding of its history continues to evolve, and it will result in a revision of its standard history. I will discuss more below.
In those times, there was a rocky hill right across the site, in the general area of Mei Tung Estate today. The residents just took the building materials from that hill. It was their stone quarry.
A discussion of the Stone House’s history would not be complete without a comparison with the nearby Kowloon Walled City. Like the Kowloon Walled City, many industries have sprung up within the squatter settlement.
The immigrants of the 1940s and 1950s brought with them the technical know-how for a number of practical industries, which used to be their trade in China. As a result, skilled workers of all kinds opened factories here. Stonecutters, smiths and home building and furnishing craftsmen found a livelihood in this neighborhood.
There is a large stone plaque with the store name Nam Yan Kee. Nam Yan Kee was a company that made tombstones. The business had existed since the 1980s. It was an example of the industries that sprang up within the settlement area.
The squatter area surrounding the Stone House represents the era of explosive population growth in Hong Kong, owing both to the refugee influx and the baby boomers. The public hospitals could not handle the high birth rates at the time. The government decided to grant licenses to midwives, who would help women give birth outside of the hospitals. As a result, there were a number of maternity homes in this community as well.
In 2001, the Hong Kong Government demolished the surrounding squatter areas to make way for new development. The Stone House serves as a remembrance of this once-thriving immigrant community of the mid-20th century. It remains the only original building standing now in the area known formerly as squatter settlement of Hau Wong Temple New Village.
An Evolving Understanding of History
Recently, the Stone House Family Garden has considered new evidence in relation to the actual construction date of the structure. Although it has held that the Stone House was built during the Japanese Occupation years, former residents and community members have disputed this view. Oral evidence suggests that the Stone House came into being after the end of WWII. This would comport with the historic fact of immigration influx into Hong Kong post-WWII due to the civil war in China, creating the need for squatter settlement.
In light of this finding, the Stone House Family Garden considered the old aerial photos of the relevant years. They learned from these old photographs that a shadow showing the potential existence of a structure at this location only appeared on the aerial photos post-WWII as well.
Our tour guide Ryan told us that they are revising the museum captions to reflect this new understanding. That means some of the museum displays on site would undergo revision. Therefore the standard history is still changing.
Photo: This grinder was an original item on-site at the Stone House.
Sources
The Guided Tour of the Stone House Family Garden.
The Descriptions on site.
The website of Stone House Family Garden.
The Pamphlet on the Stone Houses Family Garden.