Cha Guo Stories, Part V: Community Spirit in a Changing Place

This is the fifth in a series of stories looking at the protagonists in Cha Guo, an upcoming documentary by Daphné Mandel and Guy Bertrand that focuses on the people of Kwu Tung North. Read the previous stories here.

A ceramic rooster, horse and three gods of fortune survey the café tables and booths from their position on top of the small television fixed to the wall above the shiny lime-green counter. The wall is covered in small square tiles; next to a round wall clock is a paper calendar, the number declaring each day in dark green type, ready to be torn off to mark the passing of time. The restaurant furniture has survived well. Decades-old wooden panels and sturdy tables with their iron railing legs reside here on the upper floor of the wet market in Kwu Tung, just a few undulating green hills south of Shenzhen.

It’s 2:45pm on a Saturday afternoon at the Fook Lee Cafe. One customer is having an iced drink and the eatery’s proprietor, Ethel Cheung Pui-man, 53, is taking a quick break, post-lunch, pre-afternoon tea. The family business is in its second premises, and was previously along the now demolished Kwu Tung high street. In front of Cheung on the table is an album filled with black and white photographs taken by her uncle decades ago. And in one is a rather unusual sight: you can see the rise of the water on those same iron table legs as customers were forced to pull their legs up onto the seats. 

“There were often floods along the main street because the drainage system was so bad,” says Cheung of the village where she was born in 1971. She remembers playing in the surrounding fields, near the reservoir and even in the main street itself; there were few cars around. Shops were small, each offering set trades. Farmers brought in crops and chickens were readied for sale in round wicker cages. She recalls seeing Gurkha soldiers who were in the British Army Nissen huts nearby. 

Cheung leafs through the album with fellow Kwu Tung resident Pang Ching, 66, as they reminisce about old times. Cheung grew up here, later working in Kowloon in real estate, in jewellery, for the Hong Kong Jockey Club and in commercial advertising before deciding to help out her mother. When she died earlier this year, Cheung finally took over the restaurant.

Both Cheung and Pang have Hakka heritage. Pang moved into her husband’s ancestral home in Kwu Tung when she married him in 1976. Her husband is the third generation in the village. His grandfather died fighting the Japanese army on the mainland. His grandmother founded the Kam Yick Tea House, which has been at the heart of the community in Kwu Tung since 1961. Nearly 50 years on, Pang is also an integral part of the community, volunteering with the elderly, like Lai Wan-chu, aka, Popo, a 90 years old resident, and representing their interests to local government during the development of Kwu Tung North. In preparation for when Kwu Tung residents will need to move, she and her husband now live in a flat in Sheung Shui, but she comes back every day to her house, to volunteer with the church, and to tend to her plot of land.

Sitting here at the wet market, she and Cheung have much to share about their lives here. It wasn’t always easy. When Pang joined the family home, her husband’s grandmother, siblings and parents all lived there – and she and her husband then also had children. As the siblings moved out to set up their own homes, Pang was tasked with taking care of her demanding in-laws and the house. “I was so busy doing housework and cooking, it was non-stop,” she recalls.

The family rented out part of their home to be used as a small glove-making factory. Her husband worked as a bus driver and after her children grew up and her household responsibilities lessened, Pang also got a licence to drive light buses and would do the school runs in the area for 20 years. She retired at the age of 62 and these days ferries lunch boxes to the elderly residents or takes them out for yum cha. “I like old people,” she grins. “Some of the residents are illiterate so I help them out with admin and with letters to the government.”

The fact that times are changing in Kwu Tung is perhaps what makes the women eager to look back on decades past. The black and white images in Cheung’s album taken by her uncle, George Cheung Wai-kuen, are a record of a time long gone, the vanished main street and people of a different era. He was also quite experimental, she says, enlarging images of fleas and ticks that he photographed on dogs. These days he is confined to a wheelchair following a motorcycle accident.

Cheung’s father had been a bus driver but after he had major surgery in his 40s, he and his wife decided to rent a space for a restaurant. They moved the business to the wet market in 1984, and the café sits among other eateries on the first floor, with stalls on the ground floor selling crockery, household goods, rubber slippers, red plastic buckets and electrical items. On the café menu is salted chicken and braised pork among other dishes. For Cheung, continuing with the restaurant is also a way of remembering her mother. “I grew up here. It was a lively, friendly, tight-knit community. I will miss the people here,” she says. As the Northern Metropolis redevelopment gets underway, many people and businesses have already been located, and the future remains in flux.

We leave the restaurant and return with Pang to her house. Around 20 years ago, she says, her husband had serious problems with his eyes and temporarily lost his vision. It was restored through surgery. It was a stressful time and it was during that time that Pang became a devout Christian.

Outside her house are short and tall plants in pots, and beyond the fence are her vegetables and fruit trees. It’s hard to think that this can be swapped for a Sheung Shui flat. She leads the way into a front room where there is a piano. Pang learned the piano to play hymns during services at the Church of the Holy Trinity. Then, seven years ago, an elderly community centre was set up and needed volunteers. Since then, helping those she had known for decades and seen become older in the 48 years she has been here became her vocation.

She smiles, seats herself at the piano and begins to play.

All photos are stills from Cha Guo, courtesy of Guy Bertrand and Daphne Mandel

Public Screening of Cha Guo Stories at the Hong Kong Arts Centre – 3 December 2024. For more information visit here