The stories behind Hong Kong districts: Ngau Chi Wan and Choi Hung – from lively rural village to the first low-cost housing estate

Ngau Chi Wan is more than 200 years old and was a rural village along a mountain stream. In the early 1960s, Choi Hung, the first permanent public housing estate, was built. Later, half of the village was razed for an MTR station

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Published: 1:00pm, 7 Nov 2017Updated: 4:06pm, 4 May 2021

It’s late afternoon in Bo Fuk, a neighbourhood cha chaan teng in the East Kowloon village of Ngau Chi Wan, and a crowd of regulars has assembled for tea. “We’ve been coming here for about 10 years,” says a man sitting with his son. Why? He laughs. “It’s cheap!”

Bo Fuk restaurant owner Chow Chi-soon chats with regular customers. Photo: Chris DeWolf

That’s a point of pride for Bo Fuk’s owner, Chow Chin-soon, whose family opened the restaurant in the front room of their house in 1964. “We own the house so we keep prices low,” he says. A lunch set costs just HK$31.

The customers like more than just the prices. “Look at this place – this is the kind of place that needs to be preserved,” exclaims one man finishing his drink. The dining room still has its original wooden booths and patterned tile floors; the menus are still handwritten on the walls, framed neatly by green trim. There’s even a vintage 1960s clock hanging from the wall. “It’s been working since day one,” says Chow.

The stories behind Hong Kong districts: Ngau Chi Wan and Choi Hung – from lively rural village to the first low-cost housing estate

Ngau Chi Wan is more than 200 years old and was a rural village along a mountain stream. In the early 1960s, Choi Hung, the first permanent public housing estate, was built. Later, half of the village was razed for an MTR station

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