Curse of the New Territories

The members of Wong Fu's clan from a remote village in the northeastern New Territories meet once a year to discuss the 'affairs' of So Lo Pun, where not a single person now lives. Some of these clansmen are old but rich village gents who migrated to Europe decades ago and who - like Wong, 84, still consider the village where they spent their childhoods as the only place where they have real roots.

But for people outside the clan, it is nothing more than a 'ghost village' that has been deserted for nearly three decades and is now almost buried under a growing jungle. There are even myths, widely circulated on the internet, that some supernatural forces have cursed the village.

These mysterious forces, it is said, can distort compasses and make visitors disoriented or even disappear forever.

No one has ever tried to prove or disprove the idea that the village - once a thriving coastal farming and fishing community - is cursed. But Wong, who returned from Britain last year, was determined to do something to revive the ruins of his ancestral village, which is about a two-hour boat trip from Tai Po and opposite Shenzhen.

Unfortunately, his plans almost got him into legal trouble after he arranged to remove weeds and trees in the village.

The work to fell hundreds of trees on government land and the formation of an access road from the pier to the village was stopped by officials who were tipped off by a green group.

'This is outrageous. Why can't we, the villagers, clear the mess in our village when the government has not done anything to protect it? Some officials even managed to deny the existence of our village,' said Wong.