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looked down its nose at these contests, since contestants would pass a hat round, and Ngau Chi Wan thought this was "just like begging". The Hakka villages certainly sang Mountain Songs themselves (Ngau Chi Wan was quite well known for them), but they did not hold formal contests. Sha Po also competed in these contests, as well as Nga Tsin Wai. Mountain Songs were always composed "in the head": it was felt to be rather improper to write them down, as spoiling the spontaneity of the form. Because of this, women were as good at singing these songs as men - probably better (certainly better, according to the villagers). Women who were particularly good at singing Mountain Songs improved their marriageability, as they had demonstrated their intelligence and self-confidence, which were qualities admired by the villagers in this period. Probably some of the Wais and Chois who married into Nga Tsin Wai were drawn to their husband's families' attention by their skill at singing these songs.
Recent History of the Area
The prosperity of Nga Tsin Wai, which was so marked in 1902, slowly dissipated thereafter. From 1912 onwards the village has suffered one disaster after another, until it faded from the early 1940s into today's seedy and run-down condition.
The first disaster came in and after 1912, with the opening of the first phase of the new motor road around the New Territories. Both the road and the Railway (opened in 1910) ran along the western side of the Kowloon Peninsula, far away from Kowloon City. Within a year or two the Railway took almost all the traffic from the eastern New Territories away from Kowloon City. Villagers stopped carrying their goods over the mountain passes to Kowloon City, but instead carried them by rail to Yaumatei. The Sha Tin villagers had always traditionally shopped at Kowloon City; now they often went to Yaumatei. The shops in Kowloon City lost half their business: the Market went into a major depression. At the same time, the vegetable buyers for the City found that it was easier and cheaper to buy vegetables by the truckload from Yuen Long than by the sampan-load from Kowloon City. In Yuen Long there were many large farms which could sell in bulk: in the Nga Tsin Wai area the farmers were all small-scale, the buyers from the City had to buy from intermediate wholesalers in the Kowloon City Market, which raised the costs when compared with buying in Yuen Long. If in