Week 6: Sheung Yiu; Today we feature the fifth of seven finalists in our Preserving Villages series, a project to highlight communities among the 600 surviving New Territories villages that are working to keep alive their heritage and communal traditions. The Post, together with the Home Affairs Department and indigenous villagers, has spent a year collecting suggestions from district officers, rural workers, businesspeople and friends. We visited more than 40 villages and identified seven finalists. We are featuring the finalists on Mondays and we will reveal a grand winner on October 23
The walk to Sheung Yiu is beautiful. The easy 2km hike through Sai Kung East Country Park goes along the pristine Lung Hang River, past waterside shrines shrouded by tall bamboo and along a deep coastal inlet.
It's a gentle stroll into the past.
As visitors walk down the shaded, well maintained concrete path, startled birds rise from the undergrowth and mangroves. It's an idyllic setting, tranquil as a traditional Chinese painting.
Sheung Yiu was not always so placid. When the Hakka Wong clan settled there 150 years ago, the Guangdong coast was plagued by pirates and waterborne bandits. That's why when the Wongs moved there from the interior of Guangdong they built Sheung Yiu behind stout stone walls on a protective knoll overlooking a narrow cove.
The eight houses inside the fortified village are today faithfully restored, a treasury of the past, thanks to a deal between the Wong clan and government. The agreement was hammered out in 1980 before the lime kiln on which the village built its prosperity was declared an official monument.
