In search of Tin Chun Kindergarten – A trilogy — by Dr. Miriam Lau, Division of Arts and Languages

Keywords: Public schools, village schools, kindergarten, history of Hong Kong education, travel notes

Accepted: June 18, 2026; Online first: June 24, 2026; Published: July 13, 2026 (TBC)

Summer 2025

On a very hot summer day in August, I went to the Public Records Office in Kwun Tong to dig up a school registration card roll that I have been finding for years. For readers who have read my previous articles in Punctum¹ , I have been exhausting all possible efforts to find historical records of a kindergarten in Ping Che (坪輋) that my late grandmother, Ms. Ho Woon Yin (何煥賢), was the principal of. Tin Chun Kindergarten (天真幼稚園) was instrumental in nurturing village children in the New Territories in the 1970s, and a lot of its graduates articulated into Ping Yeung Public School (坪洋公立學校), which my late grandfather had been the principal of for 17 years. I know this kindergarten existed according to the oral histories of my family and from several alumni I have spoken to, but it just did not seem to exist in official, published documentation. Not until my photographer friend, Hong (Lau Wing-hong)², one day told me that he had found something related to Tin Chun in the Public Records Office’s online catalogue. Excitedly, I immediately reserved to view this record and rush to the office at the earliest possible time. There were many school registration cards in the lantern slides from A to Z, and I could feel my heart beating faster when the cards got closer to the letter P – Philippines International School, Ping Shan Kindergarten… and finally, Ping Che Tin Chun Kindergarten (Photo 1). In this precious registration card, it can be seen that the kindergarten was registered on 16th January 1975 during the British colonial period, which aligns well with what an alumnus recalled:

In the 1970s, Principal Kwan envisioned the problem of insufficient student enrolment in Ping Yeung Public School, as lots of young people in the village started to emigrate overseas. Therefore, the principal’s wife (師母) ran Tin Chun Kindergarten, and most of its graduates articulated into Ping Yeung for primary schooling.³

In addition, there was new, valuable information about Tin Chun gathered from this registration card. First, it was a private, co-educational and whole-day kindergarten. Second, its school fees gradually increased from $180 / year (payable in 12 instalments) in 1975 to $516 / year when the kindergarten decided to cease operation on 2nd December 1993. Second, there were 40 students permitted in 1975. Third, it was located at: D.D.77, Lot 1004, Kung Shing Yuen, Ping Che, Ta Ku Ling Village, K.T.

Another precious school record that I discovered at the Public Records Office was a handwritten letter by my grandfather in his capacity as a school principal to support the establishment of a Ping Ying Alumni Association on 14th June 1976 (Photo 2), one year after Tin Chun Kindergarten was officially registered. Around two decades after my grandparents’ passing, it is extremely comforting to realize that not only does their presence continue to stay in my heart, but also are their footsteps safely kept in the historical records of Hong Kong.

Autumn 2025

Thanks to my grandfather, who supported the establishment of the alumni association five decades ago, I took the opportunity to post the following question on a private social media forum for “Alumni of Ping Yeung”.

Are there any alumni of Tin Chun Kindergarten here?
If yes, please PM me. I’d like to ask you some questions.
Thank you so much!

Although my post accumulated 9 likes and 15 messages as of mid-2026, none of them offered substantial information about the kindergarten, but replies like: “it was really a long time ago, I can’t remember”; “No, I don’t have any photos left”; “Let me help you ask my sister, and I’ll let you know once she replies…” (and went missing) The most invaluable reply was from a legislative council member, Hon. Chan Yuet-ming (陳月明), who responded:

I don’t have a lot of memories of the school campus. But my most memorable memory of the school was Ms. Ho (何老師) who often wore qipao and spoke to us in a very patient and gentle manner. And there was also our school bus driver Uncle Man (萬叔叔), he is now 78 years old and is our Ping Che Village Head.

However, there were no further leads as to how I could find Uncle Man, so another few months went by with a lot of questions about Tin Chun in my head.

Winter (January) 2026

It was New Year’s Day. Gratefully, my photographer friends, Hong and Joey, helped me and my family take photos around Ping Yeung Public School. We also searched for the mysterious location of Tin Chun Kindergarten with the only clue from the above school registration card: D.D.77, Lot 1004. From Geoinfo Map, Lot 1004 no longer existed, possibly due to reassignment of lot numbers. But we received information from an alumnus that the kindergarten was close to Lot no. 1612 in D.D.77, as others are mainly squatter areas now. With this lot number, Hong identified the location of the kindergarten on Geoinfo Map⁴ (Photo 3). It matches the information recollected from a former teacher of Ping Yeung, Mr. Robert Yeung, who said:

If you have time, go to a store (士多) at the Ping Che Road junction and go inside to have a cup of tea. Ask the shop owner, and you will definitely know. The kindergarten should be diagonally opposite that store.

With all the possible clues gathered, we arrived at the following destination (Photo 4). In front of us was a tall, grey metal fence, overgrown green bushes, and paved an asphalt path border the right side of the fence under an overcast sky. There was no passerby at all, probably due to New Year’s Day.

Spring 2026

This March, an alumnus from Ping Yeung who returned from England invited me and a small group of alumni to a poon choi feast. After a hearty meal, we toured around Ping Yeung and with two other alumni, Stephen and Lillian, trying to validate whether the location of Tin Chun, as shown in Photo 4, is the correct site. While we walked towards Lot no. 1612 in D.D.77, there came a middle-aged man opposite the metal fence and towards a single-storey building. Lillian plucked up the courage to chase after him and asked, “Had this been a kindergarten before?” He nodded with an affirmative “yes”. And she asked him again, “Would you mind showing us inside?” He responded “sure”. After months and years of searching, it was so amazing to hear such a pleasant and straightforward answer. It turned out that the original site of Tin Chun Kindergarten is now built a Taoist temple (Photo 5), which was established since 2020. The man that we were speaking to is in fact a Taoist priest, Mr. Raymond Lam. In a very gentle manner, he showed us through the open steel gate, where there was a simple single-story building with a courtyard (Photo 6). Mr. Lam even kindly rang the former owner of the premises, who in the phone conversation confirmed that here used to be a kindergarten, and that the structure of this site has not changed much since then. It aligns well with the way village schools were often structured, which was one of their four main features pointed out by Lee Chi-kin et al. (李子建等): “most of the school buildings are single-storey, either with pyramidal roofs or in a bungalow style.”⁵

As we are about to leave this memorable site, a large, thick-trunked tree bade us farewell at the entrance where we came from. With golden beams filtering through the canopy as the sun is setting, I couldn’t help wondering, “was this tree watching Tin Chun Kindergarten nurturing kids in the 1970s?” What are the forgotten stories about my grandmother, the kindergarten, and its students from the perspective of this tree? Well, perhaps this would be the title of my next children’s book – “Voices from an Old Tree”.

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the Public Records Office, Government Records Service in Hong Kong for giving me the permission to use the images from “Schools Registration Cards Roll 2” (Ref no: HKRS2348-2-2) and from “Ping Yeung Public School Alumni Association” (Ref no: HKRS590-2-75). I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to Lau Wing-hong, Joey Tsoi, Stephen Yip, Lillian Chow, Chan Yuet-ming and Robert Yeung.

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[1] See Miriam Lau’s “Treading the Footsteps of My Beloved Grandparents in Their Paths of Cultivating Education in the New Territories of Hong Kong,” The Punctum, vol. 3, 17 June 2025. Also see Miriam Lau’s “A Personal Memoir of Ping Yeung Public School,” The Punctum, vol. 2, 1 May 2024.
[2] Lau Wing-hong runs a Facebook page on street photography called “康港留影”. For more details, see https://www.facebook.com/lauwinghongpics
[3] See Miriam Lau’s “Treading the Footsteps of My Beloved Grandparents in Their Paths of Cultivating Education in the New Territories of Hong Kong,” The Punctum, vol. 3, 17 June 2025
[4] Geoinfo Map, https://www.map.gov.hk/gm/map/, 2026.
[5] The remaining three features of “village schools” are respectively: (1) they were run by private organizations with rural affairs background, (2) there were no more than 12 classes per school, and (3) their histories could be traced back to pre-war private schools, which had rapidly expanded during the 1950s and 1960s (26-27, my trans.).  李子建等：《林蔭下教育 : 新界和離島學校的故事》，香港：中華書局，2022。