Vignettes of the World
Guilin was my first trip in 2024. The trip lasted four days and three nights, and I visited the ancient towns of Huangyao, Yangshuo and Xingping. Perhaps at a long-forgotten time I have visited Guilin proper with my parents. When I was growing up, Guilin …
My bestie and I had a full day of fun with yummy food and interesting sightseeing in Shenzhen. We started the day at Fascino Bakery in CoCo Park in Futian, then visited Shui Wei 1368, then the Ancient Art Museum of the Shenzhen Museum. We …
Yuen Chau Kok’s Old House of Wong Uk stands in an area of Shatin that has but long-retired from significance. I lived in Shatin some thirty-five years ago and even then, Yuen Chau Kok was not anything that was talked about even amongst the residents of Shatin.
Now tucked in the backstretches of a public housing estate and an old hotel, Wong Uk stands still in time as the sole witness to a part of Shatin that was once a thriving major courier station for traffic between the New Territories and Kowloon.
In a time of glory long bygone, Yuen Chau Kok of Shatin was a waterfront area with ocean access. Most of the south Shatin Sea (Tide Cove) was filled by the Hong Kong Government’s reclamation efforts during the 1970s, a time that I have no personal memory of.
Its name meaning “the House of the Wongs,” Wong Uk belonged to the Wong Clan, who came to Hong Kong during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty (1736-1795) from Xingping in Guangdong. Wong Uk was once a village, like so many other walled villages of Hong Kong. The Old House of Wong Uk was built by the 19th generation of the ancestor Wong Tsing-wo circa 1911.
In its heyday, the Wong Uk Tsuen Village was bustling with visitors. Travelers and merchants carrying goods for trade often stopped in this part of Hong Kong as a rest stop enroute between Guangdong and Kowloon. The Wongs had once built a hotel next to the Old House of Wong Uk to provide accommodation, and it had booming business.
After the reclamation efforts of the late 1970s, the Hong Kong Government then began to resume the ponds and agricultural land for development in Shatin. With many of the villagers moving out as well, the Old House of Wong Uk became the only of what remains in the former Wong Uk Tsuen Village in Yuen Chau Kok now.
I think Wong Uk has been well-restored. The rear hall now houses a very simple exhibition (basically, four large posters) that explained the story of Wong Uk well with a good and simple narrative.
The Old House of Wong Uk has been a Declared Monument since 1989.
As a traditional Hakka structure meant for residency, Wong Uk comes with a common two-hall, one-courtyard and three bays layout. The old house was made of gray bricks and granite. The use of granite is somewhat uncommon for traditional village houses in Hong Kong, as it was a more expensive material than bricks.
The dressed granite blocks are what form the frame for the building’s main entrance, fitted with a traditional sliding timber grille door. The antique grille door is still being used today to lock the venue.
When one visits traditional Qing dynasty houses in Hong Kong, the roof is often a point of interest. Look up and you will see that the granite of the house supports “the pitched roofs of wooden rafters, purlins and Hakka-style tiles.”
Like other similar houses, the Old House of Wong Uk comes with extensive embellishments, including “exquisite mouldings, murals and a finely carved eave board” on the façade.
As with all traditional Hakka homes, the two halls in the main axis served purposes of receiving guests as communal space in the house. The kitchen, bathrooms and the bedrooms are at the bays.
The Wong Uk is special in that there are cocklofts above the ground floor of the bays.
Both the interior and the exterior of Wong Uk are well-restored, showing beautiful auspicious elements that typically adorn traditional Qing dynasty structures in Hong Kong. I found the adorned top beams on the roof in the rear hall to be particularly beautiful, and this is also an uncommon feature of the Old House of Wong Uk.
The Old House of Wong Uk lies across the street from the Regal Riverside Hotel on Yuen Chau Kok Road in the Wong Uk Garden.
Note that the walk from the closest MTR station, Shatin Wai, is quite far. Do look up bus options that will take you to the neighbouring residential estates, such as Greenfield Court (Route 170), or otherwise there is a bus stop right outside the Regal Riverside Hotel as well. Most buses stopping at that bus stop will return to the Shatin MTR station, and that was how I returned to Shatin station.
The Old House of Wong Uk is open daily between 9am and 1pm, closes for lunch between 1pm and 2pm, then reopens between 2pm and the 5pm. It closes on the major public holidays of Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and the first three days of the Lunar New Year.
Descriptions on site at the Old House of Wong Uk.
The Béthanie is an antique building in Pok Fu Lam with beautiful 19th century neo-Gothic architecture. Built in 1875 by the Paris Foreign Missions Society (Missions Estrangères de Paris), its long history came with surprising turns that enabled the ultimate preservation and recognition of it …
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There are many private studies in the villages of the New Territories. In the past, I have visited quite a few and introduced them in this blog. In the Kam Tin villages, there is the Yi Tai Study of the Shui Tau Village.
Photo: An Unexpected Visitor at the Chik Kwai Study Hall
And I never get tired of them. Although many of them adopt similar architectural layouts and purposes as Qing dynasty village structures, they do give out different vibes when you visit. Oftentimes I find that my words do not do justice to these antique buildings. Therefore I encourage all my readers to make the effort to see them and feel the spirit that breathes in these buildings.
The Chik Kwai Study Hall had an air of serenity about it, mainly because the ancestral altar in the rear hall is exceptionally well-kept. It impressed me to be quite a bit simpler, and minimalist, than many other elaborate ancestral altars that I have seen in the traditional ancestral worship venues in Hong Kong.
According to the Wikipedia, there was a Hong Kong movie and a TV show that filmed sets in the Chik Kwai Study Hall.
The Chik Kwai Study Hall was bult before the British took over the New Territories in 1899. The Lai’s of Pat Heung came to Hong Kong from Jiangxi during the Song Dynasty. During the Ming dynasty, the 13th ancestor Lai Wui-wan led his clansmen to settle down in Pat Heung by establishing this village called Lai Uk Tsuen (meaning the “House of the Lai’s”).
In Qing dynasty, Lai Kam-tai built the Chik Kwai Study Hall to offer education for the Lai children. During the 1930s, it also served as the venue for ancestral worship, community gatherings and weddings. The study hall closed its doors throughout the duration of WWII. Thereafter, it became a kindergarten offering modern education. This kindergarten was closed in the 1970s. The traces of a former decoration for the Chik Kwai Kindergarten remains still now on the back wall of the rear hall.
The Chik Kwai Study was named a Declared Monument in 2007.
The Chik Kwai Study Hall was built in the two-hall, one courtyard layout with side chambers. The structure was built of granite and gray bricks.
I found the wooden carve work in the doors of the side chambers to be particularly intriguing. I was very much drawn to the beautiful wood carvings throughout the site, “lively decorative plaster mouldings are found on the roof ridges, and finely carved truss beams and vivid murals at the top of the entrance porch.”
There are study tables in the two side chambers, and they certainly impress the visitors with a taste of what it was like to study there. According to the descriptions on site, due to damage caused by a typhoon, the two side chambers underwent significant renovations in the 1960s.
There is also a neat ancestral altar in the main bay of the rear hall. The pots of flowers throughout the venue suggest that the villagers do take care of the Chik Kwai Study Hall.
Throughout its existence, the Chik Kwai Study Hall has had few restorations. By the 2000’s, it was becoming decrepit. With supervision by the Antiques and Monuments Office, it was restored to its current state in 2010.
This recent restoration has been sensitive to the Chik Kwai Study Hall’s original appearance, as such most of the Qing dynasty era interiors were preserved, including the carvings on the wooden beam, the two fish-shaped gargoyles, and the wall murals.
Green top Minibus Route 72 and Bus Route 251A runs through this part of the New Territories. The stop to get off at is Lai Uk Tsuen. Once getting off at the bus stop, follow the signs and enter the village here.
There is a clear main road – do not make any turns and you will see the back of the Chik Kwai Study Hall within five minutes of walking.
Descriptions on site as the Chik Kwai Study Hall.
The Wikipedia on the Chik Kwai Study Hall (Chin).
The plan for the day was to have a picnic at Hong Kong Park and then visit the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware for the first time. The Hong Kong Park A very popular public space, the Hong Kong Park was built in 1991 …
The Fire Dragon dance of Tai Hang resumed for the first time after the pandemic during the Mid-Autumn Festival of 2023. We arrived at Tai Hang too late that evening and as a result did not manage to secure a photo-taking spot for the Fire …
Throughout this wonderful first trip in Uzbekistan, I have had many memorable encounters with the locals. For most of the times, they approached us for photographs and we would begin a conversation. It was through them that I gathered the perspectives that Uzbeks hold close to their hearts. Our conversations with the hiking guide Mr. S, who took us through the peaks of the Nuratau ranges, would forever remain dear in my heart.
This encounter in a local bazaar in Bukhara is of quite a different nature from our sobering chats with Mr. S. It was by far the most jovial and comical haggling that we did in Uzbekistan. I came away with a humorous memory of the kindness that the three young men shared with us on that sunny, final afternoon in Bukhara.
Right outside of the Chashma Ayub Mausoleum, there is an exit that leads to the Markazi Bazaar. For all purposes and intentions, this market serves mostly the daily grocery needs of the locals. We were not particularly looking for anything this late afternoon.
What drew us to the bazaar was the myriad colors and fragrances of the spices at the spice shops there. We stopped to look, then began conversations with the shop owner, then one thing led to another… and… we bought spices, and a whole lot of them too.
From the most basic cumin to saffron, the royalty of all spices, this spice shop is the haven for epicureans and serious students of Uzbek cuisine. Three young men were there at the store, and they received us with incredible hospitality.
The fun part of this encounter was the fact that we spoke no Uzbek and they spoke very little English. We communicated by busting out all the little words that we knew in each others’ languages. The shop owner had a pretty good idea of the spices’ English names. The device that we used to communicate was actually not the Google Translate app on our phones, but the calculator to display the prices of the spices. The rest was about hand signs and a keen sense of observation by all parties involved to get the meaning of what we wanted to convey.
Take, for example, the many kinds of cumin on display. I pointed and said “plov?” and the shop owner immediately understood that I wanted to make plov. He then proceeded to show me how to make plov in Uzbek. Besides the cumin, I also bought the special Uzbek raisins with which they make the plov.
I pointed at another pile of cumin, and he said, Afghanistan—Afghanistan! Then he moved his hand across his neck in a head-slitting gesture. I responded by pointing at a star anise and said China! China! Then I gestured a head-slitting sign and we all laughed. My friend thought I was being such a fool.
I then said shashlik, and he pointed at a pile of bright red spices. Before we even said we would buy, he was scooping up quite a large pile of different kinds of spices across the full spectrum on display. The scooping was itself amazing theatrics. He did not have to think twice about the recipe. He used a ladle with a long handle, and swept through a whole collection of the spices held in large buckets.
Soon enough, the other two young men were hand-pounding the larger pieces of the spices, including cinnamon and star anises. We learned that their grinding machines were not working that day, so the young men had to crush the spices by hand. We were then presented with the spices for shashlik, a combination of many, many different kinds of spices.
I tend not to buy any souvenirs when I go on traveling. The writing on this blog and the photographs that I take are the memories that I share with my family and friends. For Uzbekistan, I had been contemplating the replication of some Uzbek foods as “souvenirs” for my family. This spice shop fulfilled all my needs in this initiative. At the end, my friend and I each spent about US $20 to $30 on the spices.
Amongst the many items I bought, there was cardamom and saffron for me to replicate the spiced tea that I had at the Silkroad Teahouse. Like the Silkroad Teahouse, this spice shop at Markazi Bazzar is worth a stop just for the aroma. We were having such a party that the shop owners at the other shops looked on at us with big smiles.
It was time for us to move on.
After we bought all the Uzbek spices that we wanted, the rest of the day was about killing quite a bit of time before we headed on the train to depart past midnight. We had a scrumptious dinner before our trip to the next destination, which is Muynak.
We relaxed and shopped a bit at the Sitorai Mokhi Khosa. Dusk would befall upon us soon so we hurried and got a taxi to get to the Samani Park. We would be seeing the Ismail Samani Mausoleum as the final sightseeing in Bukhara on …