I was intrigued by the Lau Village Houses in Tung Shing Lei, Yuen Long after seeing photographs online.  Upon some research, I learned that the property was the subject matter in a highly contested court case.  Therefore I will draw on the case to report on the history of the Lau Village Houses.

The History of the Lau’s in Tung Shing Lei, Yuen Long

The story of the Lau’s originated with Lau Wai Chau, who was the ancestor of the Lau’s in Tung Shing Lei.  His hometown was Toi Shan in Guangdong, China.  He was a successful businessman even before he came to Hong Kong.  At some point he settled down in Tung Shing Lei, Yuen Long.  He acquired land there and continued to do business.  By the time he died in 1933, Lau Wai Chau has left behind a hefty inheritance consisting of properties and businesses in Hong Kong and China.  The land that he owns in Tung Shing Lei alone spans a whopping 3.5 million square feet.

Lau Wai Chau had five spouses and eight sons.  In Chinese, each son would be a lineage in the family line, known as “fong.”

Lau Village Houses

The Lau Village Houses in Tung Shing Lei, as shown in the photographs, are a row of five blue brick houses.

Although each house stands alone, each house is also perfectly aligned with the other four.  The houses have two storeys, and symmetrical side chambers that were meant to house one “fong.”  Although very much aged, the mural painting on the roof and the outer walls are still visible today.

Hak Sut Tong, No. 68 Tung Shing Lei

Amongst the five Lau Village Houses, No. 68 Tung Shing Lei is well-known as Hak Sut Tong.  It was the ancestral hall for the Lau’s.  As such, it served as the common area for the family, where they gathered for ancestral worship and meetings.  Built in 1919, Hak Sut Tong was the first of the Lau Village Houses.  Before WWII, Hak Sut Tong might have been a village school.  After the war, it became mostly a storage space.

No. 67 Tung Shing Lei completed in 1926, with Nos. 63, 65 and 66 following in 1935.  These four houses gave home to the eight “fongs” of the Lau descendants.  Two “fongs” shared, with its own exclusive living space, half of each house.

Because of its vicinity to the Pok Oi Hospital, the general area of Tung Shing Lei originally stood for bad luck.  For Pok Oi Hospital received leprosy patients.  People then avoided this general area.  It would not be far from the truth to say that Ancestor Lau Wai Chau acquired these land with very low price.  By now, the land value has appreciated to more than HK $1 billion.

A Court Fight

As with many wealthy families, the Lau’s had decades-long fight about family properties.  The 1998 judgment that I have come across shows the bane of wealth, which certainly sows relationship-breaking discord in the Lau family.  Because this is a private matter made known only due to the fight in court, I shall be brief here.  Please feel free to read the case itself for more.

The crux of the contention in this case concerns the eight fongs’ attempt to reach a unanimous agreement to sell the parts of the land in Tung Shing Lei that private developers have offered to purchase for development.  The defendants contended that there was an agreement by all the fongs to sell their respective shares of land for which the private developers have shown interest.  Although the size of the land to be sold to prospective buyers would be different for each fong, there was some evidence of agreement that the proceeds would be divided equally amongst them.

The court held that there was ultimately no legally-enforceable agreement from the years-long discussion amongst the family.  It did have to walk through some pretty dramatic stories before reaching this conclusion.

Suffice to say, that Lau Wai Chau, the ancestor of the Lau’s in Tung Shing Lei, might have turned in his grave watching his descendants fighting in court this way.

Sources

The history above came from the following judgment:

LAU  YUE KUI v.  LAU  LEUNG CHAU AND OTHERS [1998] HKCFI 1007; [1998] 1 HKLRD 579; [1998] 3 HKC 562; HCMP 3924/1995 (7 January 1998), available here.

Antiquities Advisory Board, No. 618 on Hak Sut Tong (Chin).

A Walk in Yuen Long: The 1 billion property of the Lau’s in Tung Shing Lei, blog.terewong.com.

Reminders

A few of the Lau Village Houses of Tung Shing Lei are still inhabited now.  Be sure not to disturb the residents there.

As with all village visits, beware of unleashed dogs.

How to Get There

The village is very easy to get to.  Bus Routes 54, 64K, 68, 68E, 68F, 76K, and 77K stop at the Yeung Uk Tsuen stop.  Head on over to the overpass and cross Castle Peak Road.  The entrance to Tung Shing Lei is right by the overpass, right at the San Kong Hotel.

Many villages in the New Territories only come into the media spotlight when the government takes action to resume the land.  Such is the case of the Ping Yeung Village in Fanling, where villagers painted murals in the village as part of their effort to garner support from outsiders by an artistic display of their struggle.

The Fu Tei Au Tsuen Village has to confront the same reality of land resumption.  When the Hong Kong Government made plans for the North East New Territories New Development Areas (NENT NDA), Fu Tei Au became part of the plan.  About a third of the village will be subject to government resumption.

Photo: These numbers on the houses indicate that the Hong Kong Government will resume this structure.

I learned from a few news reports about some of the interesting sites in the village.  I was intrigued and so I took a walk there.

The Story of Fu Tei Au Tsuen Village

The Fu Tei Au Tsuen Village is a village in Sheung Shui.  However, it is perhaps closer to Man Kam To.  Its location is rather remote even for a village.  Yet this is the reason why the village ended up becoming the settlement area for “new immigrants” beginning in the 1950s.  They only had to cross the Shenzhen River to arrive at Fu Tei Au Tsuen.  At first the villagers came from Chiu Chow.  Then came the Hakka and Dongguan settlers too in the 1960s and 1970s.  Their numbers grew and the village became a mixed Chiu Chow and Hakka village.

Fu Tei Au Tsuen village is very different from the long-standing walled villages that have indigenous inhabitant status under Hong Kong law.  Most villagers do not own the land on which their homes, mostly squatters, stand.  The land belongs either to the Hong Kong Government, or the villagers rented from the indigenous inhabitants in the area.

The Fu Tei Au Story Room

Due to the pandemic, the Fu Tei Au Story Room was closed when I visited the village.  It is a great pity, for I think visitors will only see the “KCR bricks” there (more below), for many of the original KCR bricks in the village were stolen.

Photo: The Fu Tei Au Tsuen Story Room

The Visit

There are quite a number of significant sites in the village.  I managed to find a few on my own.  I must say, however, that the village is relatively hard to navigate as compared to the walled villages that I have visited.  The village spans a good 30 acres, and the sites of interests are rather scattered.  Needless to say, most of the interest points are also not found on Google Map.

The Stone Plaque of 1957

I parked somewhere by River Indus.  Then I headed over to the village proper on foot, absorbing wonderful riverside views of River Indus.

Photo: On this sunny day views at River Indus seemed like somewhere abroad

At the village entrance I came across the stone plaque commemorating the stepped rock gradient works on River Indus commissioned by the Old District Office in 1957.

The Fu Tei Au Tsuen Village lies on the low plains next to River Indus, known locally as Ng Tung River.  River Indus collects water from the other waterways in Sheung Shui, including the Shek Sheung River and Sheung Yue River.

The terrain had serious flooding problems due to this river.  Yet the villagers also relied on the water for irrigation.  According to the stone plaque, raging waters destroyed the original embankment of River Indus.  The name of this rocky embankment was Pak Shek Po, and it took a whole village’s effort to build it.  The Government stepped in during the 1950s to build the stone gradient to ease the flooding problem.  In 2000, even this stone gradient of the 1950s was demolished, but the village requested that this stone plaque be preserved as a historic relic.

It is believed that the River Indus acquired its English name from the Indian officer that surveyed the river for the Hong Kong Government.

Ponds of Pontederia Crassipes

I took a leisurely walk and saw the two large ponds that give home to Pontederia crassipes.  In May and October each year, this blooming species will turn the ponds into seas of violet.  It is not yet time for blossom, but I did observe an egret happily resting amidst the dried bulbs, showing that this village habitat supports wildlife.

The Ruins of KCR’s Stone Quarry

Perhaps one thing that the village wants to be known for is the “KCR bricks.”  In 1911, the Kowloon-Canton Railway set up a stone quarry in Fu Tei Au.  The materials that the workers mined became the “KCR bricks.”  These bricks had the initials KCR engraved on them.

This photo shows the remains of the anchor for the stone crusher.  The stone crusher turned the mined rocks into smaller pieces, with which the workers made the KCR bricks.

The Colorful Old Well

The villagers think of the Colorful Old Well as a main attraction in the village.  With help from the Lutheran Church Hong Kong Synod and volunteers, the villagers built a new pathway to the well. They also put up a very colorful sign.  This is perhaps the best illustrated site in the village.  The house next to this pathway has a mural painting too.

This area of the village was the living quarters for the KCR workers during the early 1900s.  The workers dug this well for fresh water, using the stones that they could find nearby.  It is a living proof of this village’s interesting past.  However, the colors seem to be faded by now, and it seemed to be just an old well.

The well remains functional now, although it only serves as a heritage site in the village.

The Ruins of Man Ming Temple

The Liu’s of Sheung Shui built the Man Ming Temple of Fu Tei Au Tsuen in 1924.  The resident deities of this temple were the Man and Mo (the Civil and Martial) Gods.  Fui Sing, the deity that blesses the examinees of the imperial examination in ancient China, was also worshipped here.  The temple is very much in ruins now, so the resident deities moved home to the Liu Man Shek Ancestral Hall in Sheung Shui.

One cannot miss the marvelous sighting of the aerial roots of the banyan tree there.  The hollows of the root shows the shape of the angular roof that the tree has formerly grown over.  Super typhoon Mangkhut destroyed the failing structure beneath the tree.  Now only the aerial roots showing the hollow remains.

Besides this Angkor Wat-like view, I also note that this temple is quite special because it used to have two storeys.  The structure was once determined a Grade 2 Historic Building, but after the final destruction it was downgraded to Grade 3.  The temple had a three-hall format, which, besides its height, is quite unusual for village temples.

Tak Yeung Tong

Quite unlike the Man Ming Temple, the Tak Yeung Tong of Fu Tei Au is a well-built, well-attended and well-known temple.  The resident deity is Lu Tong Bun, who is one of the eight immortals in Chinese folklore.  He is also a key figure in Taoism.

According to the South China Morning Post, the celebration of the Yu Lan festival at Tak Yeung Tong on the 17^th and 18^th of the seventh month of the Lunar calendar is on the Hong Kong Government’s list of intangible heritage in Hong Kong.  There are three days in a year where outsiders can participate in a guided tour in the village, and that is during the Yu Lan festival.  It is unclear whether the pandemic has disrupted this festival.

Reminder

Besides the fact that the sites of Fu Tei Au Tsuen Village are scattered in a large area, another difficulty with this walk was the village dogs.  Most villagers keep the dogs behind tall fences, but there were some unleashed ones.  They did look very fierce and I almost gave up.  A villager who lived right by the temple ruins told me that these loose dogs do not bite, and she advised me to slowly walk through them.  If not, I would not have been able to see the temple ruins.  In the end I did walk slowly through them without incident.  It was very scary though.

Sources

I learned about the Fu Tei Au Tsuen Village mostly from two newspaper articles:

An Exploration of Historic Relics in Sheung Shui’s Fu Tei Au Tsuen, Epoch Times, 22 January 2020.

Touch the Bricks: Fu Tei Au’s Effort to Preserve Village History, Ming Pao Daily, 12 December 2021, at

See also the Facebook Page of Fu Tei Au Revitalization Cultural Centre.

The Wikipedia on Ng Tung River.

The South China Morning Post, Living Heritage of Hong Kong.

How to Get There

I went by private car and randomly parked where I thought was safe.  This practice is not encouraged and be very sure to post a sign with your phone number if villagers need to contact you.

By public transport, Bus Route 73K runs between Sheung Shui and Man Kam To.  Get off at the Fu Tei Au stop.