Tai Wai Village (大圍村), Tai Wai New Village (大圍新村) and Tai Wai Tsuen (大圍村)

Tai Wai Village (大圍村), Tai Wai New Village (大圍新村) and Tai Wai Tsuen are actually all the same thing. "Tsuen" is the phonetic word for "village" in Cantonese which is why you see it at the end up a lot of these villages and government housing estates. So "Tai Wai Tsuen" is the exact phonetic pronunciation of "Tai Wai Village" in Cantonese. 

Virtually all of these "villages" or "tsuens" exist only in the New Territories which was only annexed to Hong Kong and Kowloon in 1898 towards the tail-end of the Ching dynasty, a time of great instability in China. The British negotiated with the Ching dynasty to have New Territories for a lease of 99 years as a buffer zone to protect Hong Kong and Kowloon against any unrest spilling over from the north. This lease ended in 1997 which was why Margaret Thatcher had tried to re-negotiate with China an extension in the 1980s, she offered Deng Xiaoping (the then leader of China) 1 billion pounds for an extension but was flatly rejected. So in 1997 New Territories in addition to Hong Kong and Kowloon were returned to Chinese sovereignty even though Hong Kong and Kowloon were ceded in perpetuity to the British. 

Unlike Hong Kong and Kowloon in the 1840s which were virtually unpopulated, New Territories in 1898 already had pockets of farmers and other inhabitants living in "villages" and "tsuens". Instead of sequestering these people's land which would have caused civil unrest the British granted these indigenous villagers special land rights that were based on customs that have been passed down the generations whereby any male descendent of the family had the right of ownership to a small parcel of land within the village on which he could build a 3-storey village house of no more than 700sq ft. This is why having male offsprings is still so important for those living in these villages in the New Territories.

Tai Wai Village is but one of these many villages that exist in the New Territories and like other villages it is contained within a semi-enclosed area and is populated by 2-3 storey village houses that are interconnected by a labyrinth of narrow lanes. Tai Wai Village has 10 lanes or streets (in chinese it is called 街) and the first street is called (第一街) and the second street (第二街) and so forth; so if your address in Tai Wai Village was 1/27 that means you live in house 27 on the 1st street. In Tai Wai village alone there are probably a few hundred village houses and we have taken the liberty to map out the village below wherey each number corresponds to the houses that reside on a particular street. 

We wish to thank May Yu from Tri-Luck Property Consultants who has taken the time to have provided us the insights into Tai Wai Village. 

Tri-Luck Property Consultants (C-013272)
No. 5 Chik Fu Street, Tai Wai, Shatin
Tel : +852 2681 2228
Fax : +852 2681 2001