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to Leng Shan in Fanling from Dongguan in 1190.5 In 1220, they were then driven out and moved to Fan Ling Lau, as their residence was appropriated by neighbouring Tangs. In the Ming Dynasty, due to population pressure, some Pangs moved to what is now called Fanling Wai and built forty-two houses and the village walls. Fanling Wai is composed of a walled village and its extensions which are referred to by the Pangs as Wai Noi Tsuen, Nam Bin Tsuen, and Pak Bin Tsuen. The houses in the past were built one-storey high of clay bricks with tiled roofs. Wooden ancestral tablets were placed at the center of the house for worship. Nowadays, due to population growth, nearly two hundred village houses stand in a row in the village. They have been built and rebuilt into two- or three-storey cement houses since the 1980s, and they contain paper-made ancestral tablets for veneration. The Pangs call this type of house zu wu (literally means the ancestor's house) and point out that they should be passed down the male descent line, usually from fathers to sons, for maintaining the Pangs' lineage community.

Outside the walled settlement, there are many village houses with dark-red tiled roofs, white walls, and a balcony. Villagers call it the Spanish style. These houses were mainly built in the 1980s, under the 1972 Small House Policy. The policy allows every New Territories male villager, whose ancestor had settled there before the British Government took over the lease in 1898, to apply for building a house in his village. The house is allowed to be built of no more than 25 feet in height (three storeys) and 700 square feet covered area. Since this type of village house is built by male inhabitants (nan ding), villagers colloquially call these houses ding wu (male's house).

From the 1980s onwards, the Pangs have rented out their available village houses for profit when the demand for rural housing increases substantially. After the Second World War and the unstable political period in China in 1949, a huge influx of immigrants from China to Hong Kong, together with the subsequently increased birth rate, exacerbated the housing problem in Hong Kong's urban area. In order to relieve the over-crowded living conditions, the government has not only provided low-cost public housing but also commenced the development of satellite towns (nowadays called new towns) in the New Territories. Housing is nevertheless still in substantial demand because of its inadequate supply. In the 1980s, the private housing

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