Walled Villages and Poon Choi in the New Territories Explained

The walls around New Territories villages were not built for show. The government's own appraisal of Kat Hing Wai says its walls went up in the early Kangxi reign "to protect the villagers from pirates and other enemies", and the heritage office's plaque at Kun Lung Wai explains that villagers could "fire their guns through the embrasures to protect themselves against bandits".

This guide explains why those villages exist, which walled villages and ancestral halls you can actually enter and when, and how to get to each from the MTR. It then covers poon choi, or sek pun, the basin feast that the heritage office lists as a Representative List item — including the gap between that official status and any official guidance on where to eat it. Almost everything here comes from the heritage office, the Antiquities Advisory Board and the Centre for Food Safety.

Why the villages have walls

Walled villages grew out of lineage settlement, and the official record dates it clearly. The heritage office's Ping Shan trail says Tang Hon-fat moved from Jiangxi to Guangdong early in the Northern Song dynasty, that his descendants expanded the family home at Shum Tin, now Kam Tin, and that a branch "moved from Kam Tin to Ping Shan in the twelfth century". The Kat Hing Wai appraisal adds that "the ancestors of the Tangs had settled in Kam Tin as far back as in the Southern Song dynasty".

The heritage office's inventory gives settlement spans for the major lineages: the Kam Tin Tangs more than 900 years, the Ping Shan Tangs and the Fanling Pangs more than 800, the Lung Yeuk Tau Tangs more than 700, the Sheung Shui Lius and the Ho Sheung Heung Haus more than 600, and the San Tin Mans more than 500. The popular label "Five Great Clans" appears on none of the official pages read; the lineages are described separately.

Defence is the reason every official appraisal gives for the walls. Kat Hing Wai's walls were built by Tang Chue-yin and Tang Chik-kin in the early Kangxi reign, 1662 to 1722, against "pirates and other enemies". At Lo Wai in Lung Yeuk Tau, "the entrance was designed to be narrow in order to facilitate the defence of the village", with a well beside it and raised platforms on the walls serving as watchtowers. At Siu Hang Tsuen the Tangs moved back to Lung Yeuk Tau "as the village was frequently harassed by bandits".

The walls also had a political history. When the British occupied the New Territories in 1899, Kat Hing Wai's walls "were partly destroyed" and its wrought iron gate was seized and taken to the Ireland residence of the governor, Sir Henry Blake. The appraisal says it came back "after decades", after Tang Pak-kau represented the Kam Tin Tangs in petitioning for its return, but no official source gives the year. At Ping Shan, Tat Tak Communal Hall "is believed to be one of the meeting places at which the armed resistant against the British takeover of the New Territories in 1899 was organised".

Hakka villages were walled for the same reasons. The advisory board describes Tsang Tai Uk in Sha Tin, built between 1847 and 1867 by the Hakka stonemason Tsang Koon-man, as "the only sample of a fortified Hakka village in the territory", with gun holes "as pirates and bandits were active at the time"; it sheltered some 500 refugees during the Second World War. Sam Tung Uk in Tsuen Wan, a Hakka walled village built by the Chan clan in 1786, is now a museum.

The words on the signs

The decoder below covers the terms you will meet on heritage signs and menus. Entry prices are given where an official source states them; most sites have none, and no source publishes poon choi prices.

The grading distinction matters when you plan a visit. The advisory board defines Grade 1 as "buildings of outstanding merit, which every effort should be made to preserve if possible" and notes that gradings are administrative guidelines. Declared monuments get visitor pages with hours; graded private villages such as Kat Hing Wai and Tsang Tai Uk do not, because they are homes.

Ping Shan, the easiest visit

The Ping Shan Heritage Trail in Yuen Long was "the first of its kind in Hong Kong", inaugurated on 12 December 1993. It runs "about one and six tenths kilometres" through Hang Mei Tsuen, Hang Tau Tsuen and Sheung Cheung Wai, and the heritage office calls it "a convenient half-day excursion". It was proposed by the Antiquities Advisory Board and built by the heritage office and the Architectural Services Department with funding from the Jockey Club and the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust.

The trail has 14 official stops: the Ping Shan Tang Clan Gallery cum Heritage Trail Visitors Centre, Hung Shing Temple, the entrance hall of Shut Hing Study Hall, Kun Ting Study Hall, Ching Shu Hin, Tang Ancestral Hall, Yu Kiu Ancestral Hall, Yan Tun Kong Study Hall, Yeung Hau Temple, the Old Well, Sheung Cheung Wai, the Shrine of the Earth God, Tsui Sing Lau Pagoda and Tat Tak Communal Hall. The Ping Shan Tangs, the office says, built "Three Wais (walled villages) and Six Tsuens (villages)".

Sheung Cheung Wai is the walled village on the route, and you cannot go in. It was "built about two hundred years ago" by a line of the Hang Tau Tsuen Tangs and once had a moat, but the heritage office states: "This is a private property and is not open to the public." Its entrance gate and shrine were rebuilt in 2003 and carry no grading.

Tsui Sing Lau is "the only surviving ancient pagoda in Hong Kong", about 13 metres high and three storeys, "originally seven storeys" according to the Tangs, and built, according to the Tang genealogy, around the Hongwu reign of 1368 to 1398. It was meant "as a fengshui structure designed to ward off evil spirits from the north and to prevent flooding". The Tang Ancestral Hall, built in the Yuan dynasty "about seven hundred years ago", is "still used regularly as a venue for worship, festivals and ceremonies, and clan meetings", and the heritage office currently marks it as partially closed.

The visitor centre is where to start. It occupies the Old Ping Shan Police Station, "completed in 1900" and "the only Western architecture along the trail", and its Ping Shan Tang Clan Gallery is "the first exhibition gallery jointly organised by the Government and a local clan". Admission is free. The heritage office asks visitors to remember that "not all of the historic buildings on the Trail are open to the public" and to "lower your voice and keep the place clean". The tourism board also notes that one of the cha chaan teng names on its cha chaan teng list started out on this trail.

Kam Tin, Lung Yeuk Tau and beyond

Kat Hing Wai in Kam Tin is the walled village most visitors picture. The advisory board's appraisal says it was established in the Chenghua reign of the Ming dynasty, 1465 to 1487, measures some 8,500 square metres, roughly 84 by 88 metres, and has four corner watchtowers and walls "some 6 to 7 metres high", built mainly of green bricks. It calls it "one of the biggest preserved walled villages in Hong Kong" and says it is "frequently visited by tourists and locals"; its shrine, entrance gate and four watchtowers were graded Grade 1 together on 31 August 2010.

Kat Hing Wai is private, and no official source gives hours, rules or any charge for entering. Villagers still take part in Kam Tin's Tin Hau Festival and Da Chiu, and the moat was filled in the early 1980s except for its northern and eastern portions. The MTR's Kam Sheung Road Station map lists Kat Hing Wai at Exit B. The Residence of Tang Pak Kau nearby, declared a monument in 2024, is temporarily closed.

The Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail near Fanling, "inaugurated on 4 December 1999" and 2.6 kilometres long, covers the Tangs' "Five Wais and Six Tsuens": Lo Wai, Ma Wat Wai, Wing Ning Wai, Tung Kok Wai and San Wai, also called Kun Lung Wai. Lo Wai "was the earliest walled village among the five", and its entrance tower and walls are open daily from 9am to 5pm, but "to avoid disturbance to local residents, the interior of Lo Wai is not open to the public". Tung Kok Wai's interior is closed too.

Kun Lung Wai's walls and watchtowers were "fully restored in 1994 with funding from the Government", and its gate tower, declared a monument in 1988, has "two free-standing, separate halls". Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall, "one of the largest ancestral halls in Hong Kong", built around 1525, opens 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm except Tuesdays. The MTR's Fanling Station map shows minibus 54K from Exit C to Lung Yeuk Tau.

The choice between the areas depends on what you want to see inside. The table below compares them on what the official record says is open.

Several other clan halls publish hours. Hau Ku Shek Ancestral Hall at Ho Sheung Heung opens 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm and closes on Tuesdays; Tai Fu Tai at San Tin, built in 1865, opens daily 8am to 1pm and 2pm to 6pm. Man Lun Fung Ancestral Hall at San Tin is "temporarily closed from 21 March 2026 to 21 June 2027". Almost every hall closes over the first two or three days of Chinese New Year, which the holiday calendar guide sets in context.

Poon choi, officially

Poon choi's heritage status is real, but it describes a clan ritual rather than a restaurant dish. The heritage office's Representative List, first announced on 14 August 2017, includes "Sek Pun (Basin Feast)", one of ten items recommended from the 480 on the first inventory. The entry reads: "It is a tradition that the Punti (local) walled villages of the New Territories would hold basin feasts or sek pun for occasions such as clan's ancestor worship, jiao festivals, weddings, lantern lighting ceremonies on the birth of baby boys and consecration ceremonies for ancestral halls. As a symbol of unity, the basin feast is served to clansmen gathering round the table."

The entry adds that the feast "does not only bring clansmen together, but also serves a social recognition of the clansmen's identities". The inventory records specific occasions: the Sheung Shui Liu lineage after grave rituals on the 9th and 10th days of the ninth lunar month, the Fanling Pang lineage "in the ancestral hall" after ninth-month rituals, and the Hung Shing Festival at Hung Leng. At I Shing Temple in Wang Chau, the left chamber "was once used as a kitchen to prepare the basin meals during the Jiao Festival", which is held there once every eight years.

The heritage entry describes no layers or ingredients. The only official description found is the tourism board's: "Layers of slow-cooked meats, seafood, pig's skin, bean curd and radish are steeped in a fragrant fermented red bean curd gravy and served bubbling in a large metal basin", usually at weddings and Lunar New Year "but can now be enjoyed year round".

Only one restaurant is named by any official source. The tourism board describes Ping Shan Traditional Poon Choi as having "more than a century of history" and being "run by the Tang family for four generations", and mentions a "nine-dish banquet, a refined version of poon choi presented in separate bowls". Its pages give no address, prices, minimum party size or advance-order terms, so ask directly when you book. No official source lists other restaurants, and the food hygiene department's licence register cannot be searched by dish. The wider Yuen Long and Tuen Mun area is covered in the Tuen Mun and Yuen Long guide.

The centre adds that poon choi should be reheated "until its core temperature reaches 75°C or above, or to a complete boil", that reheating time grows with size, and that it is best eaten "in one go" with communal chopsticks and spoons. The incidents it cites are real: ten people were affected by Salmonella from a takeaway poon choi bought at a licensed Hung Hom eatery about two weeks before the 2021 Lunar New Year, and in December 2025 the Centre for Health Protection investigated two linked clusters of eight people who had eaten takeaway scallop fried rice and poon choi.

What this guide does not cover

No poon choi price, minimum order or booking condition is given, because no official source publishes one, including the tourism board's page for the one restaurant it names. No other restaurant is named. No annual count of poon choi food-poisoning outbreaks was found; only individual incidents are recorded.

The year Kat Hing Wai's iron gates were returned is left out because no official source states it, and the grouping "Five Great Clans" is not used because no official source uses it. Whether Kat Hing Wai or Tsang Tai Uk accept visitors on particular days, or ask for a donation, is not stated anywhere official.

The text of the New Territories Ordinance and Legislative Council papers on the Small House Policy could not be read, so the policy is described from the Lands Department's summary. Several tourism board pages on walled villages returned access errors. The tourism board's claims that Kat Hing Wai is home to Hakka people and that Tsui Sing Lau dates from 1486 conflict with the advisory board and heritage office, whose versions are used here.