Ng Chiu Ying’s father and brothers owned four ancestral houses, three of them were located in the middle section of 3rd Lane, while the fourth was at the village edge. Ng Chiu Ying’s father moved out of the village as soon as he could afford to improve his living standard while his third and fourth brothers stayed behind. Each man occupied one ancestral house while the remaining two units were leased out. The village houses in Nga Tsin Wai were cramped and small, with only an area of about 100-200 square feet. The villagers cooked outside their homes on kerosene stoves. There was no standard toilet inside these houses back then. Indeed, so poor was sanitation that the discharged sewage meant the village literally stank. In the old days, villagers used to fetch their water from the wells. When Ng Chiu Ying returned to the village to visit relatives as a kid, water pipes had already been connected to their homes. The houses of Ng Chiu Ying’s third and fourth uncles each covered an area of over 100 square feet. Both units had a cockloft with a ladder for climbing up and down to increase the living space. The two houses also had radio and TV and a lower floor that accommodated a bed, stools plus a folding table and connected the toilet and kitchen.