IN 1893, EMPEROR Guangxu sat on the Chinese throne, the Qing dynasty still had 18 years to run and Sir William Robinson was the governor of Hong Kong. It would be five years before Britain and China signed the 99-year lease on the New Territories. In this year, the man who would go on to change the history of China, Mao Zedong, was born. And so was Cheung Kwai-mui.
Robinson left Hong Kong in 1898 and the lease he helped negotiate has come and gone. Mao, of course, went on to lead the Communists to victory in 1949, launch the disastrous Cultural Revolution and died in 1976. Cheung is still going strong and remembers it all.
Confined to bed in an old people's home since a stroke robbed her of most of her ability to walk and see, the fragile old woman mumbles in Hakka when asked how old she is: 'Many, many ages.'
Cheung is possibly Hong Kong's oldest resident. Born in Huiyang village in Guangdong province, she came to Hong Kong in 1979. She has two sons and one daughter, 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Out of her seven siblings, only two are still alive - in their 90s in her home village.
She talks rarely now and when she does her grand-daughter-in-law, Berry Lee Wan-nog, says it tends to be a rambling collection of memories about the Communist Revolution and going hungry in her home village, where she was born into a farming family. Lee says everyone in her grandmother's remote village in Guangdong's hills lived long lives, many to more than 90. But only one reached 109.
A few years ago, Cheung moved from her second son's home in Tai Po to an old people's home near the town's market. But today, the silver-haired matriarch is in a wheelchair on a makeshift stage in Tai Po's Kun Lin Wah Restaurant. Next to her is a relative youngster, Chan Chi, who says he is 102. Further along is 101-year-old Lai Yung. Lai, whose skin is tanned and rough, is hunched over with age but she is the only one who manages a smile for the cameras as they flash before her.
Making up this small group of centenarians is a more sprightly lady with fine, pale skin. She really shouldn't be here, but her identity card says she is 100, so she takes her place on the stage. 'I'm only 89 really,' claims Chung Wai-giu. 'I lied about my age when I came to Hong Kong to get a job.' No one seems overly concerned about the apparent oversight.