Men in rural Hong Kong enjoy a lucrative birthright

Special rights: Liu standing in the courtyard of ‘Liu Man She Tong’, an 18th century ancestral hall belonging to his clan. — AFP

HONG KONG: Sitting in the spacious courtyard of an 18th-century ancestral hall belonging to his clan, William Liu defiantly rejects a lucrative birthright that his special status as one of Hong Kong’s male indigenous villagers affords him.

Liu hails from the rural northern part of Hong Kong known as the “New Territories” which were leased by Britain from China in 1898.