Qualla: Lai Chi Wo

Lai Chi Wo: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Underwaterbuffalo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Somewhere in the village records, there is a metal plaque listing names and donation amounts — the overseas-based members of the Tsang family who sent money back to restore the place their ancestors built. The plaque hangs at the gate of Lai Chi Wo, and it says something important: this village, remoter than almost anywhere else in Hong Kong, has never been entirely abandoned. People left, yes — for Fanling, for Tai Po, for the United Kingdom — but the connection held. They still come back for the Tai Ping Ching Chiu festival, celebrated once every ten years. And the walled village they return to looks much as it did when their grandparents lived in it.

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Image: Underwaterbuffalo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lai Chi Wo: Two Clans, One Village

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Underwaterbuffalo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lai Chi Wo was founded more than 300 years ago by two Hakka families: the Tsangs and the Wongs. Their histories arrived from different directions. The Tsangs' ancestors had migrated south from Shandong, the long journey that Hakka families made over centuries as they moved throug...

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Image: Underwaterbuffalo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lai Chi Wo: The Forest That Protects the Village

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LN9267, CC BY-SA 4.0. A hundred years or so ago, Lai Chi Wo fell into poverty. A feng shui master was consulted and prescribed a remedy: three feng shui walls, and a forest to embrace the village from behind. The villagers planted what grew into the Lai Chi Wo Fung Shui Wood, a 5-to-7-hectare arc of d...

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Image: LN9267 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lai Chi Wo: Trees That Remember

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chong Fat, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two particular trees carry the weight of Lai Chi Wo's history. The Five-Finger Camphor stands 25 metres tall and 3 metres in diameter, named for five branches that spread like fingers from the trunk — though today only four remain. During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, sol...

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Image: Chong Fat | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lai Chi Wo: At the Water's Edge

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 姒姓賢寧, CC BY 4.0. The shore at Lai Chi Wo is as ecologically significant as the village above it. Hong Kong's only significant beds of seagrass — specifically Zostera japonica, a dwarf eelgrass first recorded in Hong Kong at this location in 1979 — spread across more than 2 hectares of open mudfla...

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Image: 姒姓賢寧 | CC BY 4.0

Lai Chi Wo: Reaching the Forgotten Village

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 姒姓賢寧, CC BY 4.0. Lai Chi Wo does not give itself up easily. On weekends and holidays, a ferry runs from Ma Liu Shui pier near the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Hikers can walk in from Wu Kau Tang to the west, threading through Kau Tam Tso and Miu Tin before descending to the coast, or approach...

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Image: 姒姓賢寧 | CC BY 4.0