Vignettes of the World
I have long wanted to visit the Liu Man Shek Tong Ancestral Hall in Sheung Shui because it is quite close to home. On this sunny spring day I finally went to learn about the Lius and their history at the beautiful, near-majestic Liu Man …
The day was bright with a perfect azure sky. I wanted to do an interesting but easy walk so I visited the Old Quarry of Lei Yue Mun. The History of Lei Yue Mun as a Strategic Location Photo: A Panorama of the Lei Yue …
I love visiting ancient towns in China. In this blog I have covered the Gankeng Ancient Hakka Townlet and the Dapeng Fortress in Shenzhen. Apparently, many tourists find ancient towns to be very attractive tourist sites, and China’s local governments and cultural heritage developers have caught on with this trend. A whole lot of ancient villages and towns are revitalized for the purpose of tourism, and so far I find these efforts to be laudable.
I found online sources describing Huangyao to be “one of the most low-key ancient cities in China.” I was intrigued. Certainly, the photographs show the many features of old towns for which I have a soft spot. The stone laid streets, mud-covered brick houses, old temples and maybe a stream or two running through the village — a poetic scenery murmuring an enduring pride from centuries of hardships and survival. I was determined to go.
Perhaps exactly because of its relative low profile in the tourism scene, Huangyao was not easy to get to. It being the first leg of my journey in Guilin, Huangyao presented the most difficulty out of the three ancient cities in this trip. The closest High Speed Rail (HSR) station is Hezhou.
From the Hezhou station I followed the way for “bus station” and walked a good 20 minutes before I arrived at the long haul bus station quite some ways from the train station. Follow signs, they are clear.
Once arriving at the bus station in Hezhou, I saw the bus to Huangyao. I boarded the bus and with this began the most frustrating part out of this whole trip. The bus driver told me that it would take 1.5 hours before getting to Huangyao, but 2 hours later, we were still winding through the provincial areas and not getting to the ancient town.
Eventually, the big coach dropped us off at an unknown spot in the backstretches of Hezhou and we then headed over to a smaller (and therefore slightly faster) car to finally arrive at Huangyao. The whole journey took me 2.5 hours.
Looking out the window while I was on the train, I noticed how the scenery changed as the train approached the Guangxi Province. Ranges after ranges of distinct mountains appear afar hugging all kinds of human settlements—farms, towns, cities—as we moved into the Guilin area. One cannot miss this change of character in the scenery, as these mountains, or hills, are distinctly Guilin. Each of these hills stand alone with its own clear contour, and they appear to be rolling and rolling endlessly, one distinct hill after another, as the speed train proceeds. This is described as “karst peak clusters.”
Photo: View at a Gas Station in Hezhou
The scenery indicates a way of life that is different from what I am accustomed to in Hong Kong, which is also enveloped by mountains, but their presence much less pronounced. Living in Guilin, one comes face to face with the magnificence of Guilin’s nature. As one develops the appreciation for hovering mountains all around, a human being feels like being dwarfed, infinitely and intimately so. One must also live with, and get around, the myriad waterways that branch out of the Lijiang (Li River). Here is a river, there is a river, with them comes the many bridges that one must cross — and they are all part of the Li River waterway.
Throughout the whole bus ride in Hezhou I kept thinking to myself that time is a cheap commodity in this part of China. The driver told me that the ride took 1.5 hours. An hour, an hour and a half, two hours… I was still not making it to Huangyao. The big bus was making its rounds all through Hezhou. As it did so, I could not help but to note some observations.
The views outside seems to confirm my grumbles about time being cheap there. Hezhou strikes me as a part of China that was left behind and forgotten in the nation’s stellar record of development. It was worlds apart from the vibrance and sophistication of China’s big cities like Beijing, Shanghai or even Nanjing. At the same time there were not the primitive, raw and untouched landscapes that make one’s heart drop, like in Xinjiang or Tibet. Other than the Guilin mountains being its saving grace, Hezhou was simply provincial, with a lot of vacant big buildings. Life seemed to go slowly and listlessly, and I sensed a hollowness and powerlessness in the air. On an afternoon of a weekday many shops were closed.
Despite the abundance of the Pearl River waterways the town was filled with billows of dusts, the dirt that got kicked up by vehicles seemingly running on diesel and belonging to a different era in time. People dressed in humble clothing. Although they looked a whole lot better off than the peasants that I saw some two decades ago in my China trips, their appearance was still quite a bit humbler than the well-dressed city-traveling crowd that I met on the train.
Perhaps it would be fair for me to call the sights of Hezhou a little desperate.
The lady that oversaw the bus ride was dropping off packages at different locations, causing delays. And one could only imagine how people in this part of China tried to make a business out of every ounce of their resources.
Finally at a little before 4pm I was dropped off at the Qianxing Square in Huangyao. This bus ride took me a total of 2.5 hours. I came to the first beautiful sight of the day, the Ancient Stage of Huangyao. At this sight a mixed emotion welled within me. I was at once sad and excited. Hezhou and Huangyao are both old but in wildly different ways. Hezhou is old in the sense that it is outdated. Huangyao is old in the sense that it is antique.
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 …
A First Visit at Mak Kee Yummy Food I was looking for simple food in North Point and saw a few favorable online reviews of Mak Kee. The fact that it has earned Michelin recommendation for a consecutive seven years was assuring. I love dumplings, …
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 …