客

The Hakka Afternoon

客家 · 寶安 · 深圳
a pilgrimage for Jordan “Shaka” Tyler Ham — great-great-grandson of 吳尾福

On 18 October 2026 you went to Cuiheng looking for your ancestors, and that same day the records said something unexpected: your mother's Chinese line is Hakka — 客家 — and Hawaiʻi's Hakka came from 寶安 Bao On, 惠州 Waichow, 博羅 Poklo and 東莞 Tung Kun.

寶安 is Shenzhen. The city you flew into for a hackathon may be the county your great-great-grandfather left. This page is what to do about that on any free half-day you get.

Where this came from. Violet's sister Elaine's obituary: “Elaine was proud of her Hakka heritage and was active in the Tsung Tsin Association.” The association's own historian names those four counties as the homeland of Hawaiʻi's Hakka. An inquiry went to their Old Membership Book — which records each member's family village in China — on 18 Oct 2026. If a village name comes back, this page gets a new first entry.

Confidence: that the Ng line is Hakka — high (the family's own published words). That the village lies in those counties — medium: it is the base rate for Hawaiʻi Hakka, not yet a record about your family.

① The short one — your own district 2–3 HOURS · NANSHAN

Both of these are within 25 minutes of your hostel. Together they are a complete pilgrimage: the county town your ancestors belonged to, and the temple they prayed at before they sailed.

南頭古城 — Nantou Ancient City FREE · OPEN ALL DAY

This is the seat of 新安縣 Xin'an county — the county that was later renamed 寶安 Bao'an, and whose territory covered everything that is now Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Founded in AD 331; the county yamen stood here. If your family were Bao'an people, this was their county town — where taxes were paid, disputes judged, permits stamped before a man could leave for 檀香山.

Address	深圳市南山區南頭古城（南山大道與深南大道交匯）
Getting there	Metro Line 1, two stops from your door: 高新園 → 桃園 (or 大新), then ~10 min walk. Also Line 12 中山公園 / 南頭古城. DiDi ~12 min, ¥18–25.
Hours	The old town streets: free, open all day (~08:30–18:00 for the restored buildings). 南頭古城博物館: Tue–Sun 09:30–17:00, closed Mondays, free — bring your passport.
Don't miss	The rebuilt 新安縣衙 (county magistrate's hall) · 東莞會館 — the guild hall of Dongguan people, one of your four candidate counties · 信國公文氏祠, the Wen clan shrine.

赤灣天后宮 — Chiwan Tin Hau Temple FREE · CLOSED MONDAYS

Mazu, 媽祖, the sea goddess — the one every southern Chinese family prayed to before a crossing. Chiwan was the departure gate of the Pearl River Delta; Zheng He stopped here before sailing west in the 1400s. Founded in the Song dynasty, rebuilt through Ming and Qing, and in its day the most important Tin Hau temple on this coast.

This is the bookend. Your people sailed out of this estuary toward Honolulu — and the Chinese who made it built her a shrine there too: Lum Sai Ho Tong in Honolulu Chinatown keeps a Tin Hau altar upstairs to this day. Same goddess, both ends of the ocean.

Address	深圳市南山區赤灣六路9號（赤灣天后宮 · 天后博物館）
Getting there	Metro Line 1 → 世界之窗, change to Line 2 to the end, 赤灣站 exit B/C, ~20 min walk uphill. Or DiDi straight there, ~25 min, ¥45–65.
Hours	Tue–Sun 09:00–16:00 (no entry after 15:00) · closed Mondays · lunar 1st & 15th 08:00–15:00 · free. Booking via WeChat 公眾號「南山博物館」→ 參觀預約 → 天后博物館 takes two minutes and removes all doubt.
While you're there	左炮台 — the old coastal battery — and 小南山 rise right behind. Ten minutes, big view of the water they left by.

② The big one — a real Hakka walled village HALF DAY · LONGGANG

鶴湖新居 — Hok Wu San Kui FREE · CLOSED MONDAYS

This is what home looked like. A Hakka 圍屋 — a fortified clan compound — 25,000 m², built by the Luo family from 興寧, Hakka heartland, with the main structure finished in 1817. Moon pond, threshing floor, concentric defensive rings, hundreds of rooms around ancestral halls. It is now the 龍崗客家民俗博物館, the Longgang Hakka Folk Custom Museum, and the largest Hakka enclosed house in Shenzhen.

Walk the ancestral hall at the centre. That is the architecture of the family that produced 吳尾福 — and the kind of building he would have grown up inside before the ship.

Address	深圳市龍崗區龍崗街道龍園路（羅瑞合北街1號）
Hours	10:00–17:00, last entry 16:30, closed Mondays. Free — registration by ID, so carry your passport.
Getting there	Metro: Line 1 高新園 → 老街, change to Line 3 → 南聯站, ~10 min walk. About 1h20 door to door, ¥8. DiDi: 50–70 min, ¥100–130. (Check the live route in the 深圳地鐵 app or Amap — the city builds new lines faster than guides get updated.)
Pair it with	甘坑客家小鎮 — a restored Hakka village street, free, open all hours, Metro Line 10 甘坑站 exit B. Touristy but pretty, and good food. It's on the same side of the city.

If you ever get a whole day

大萬世居 — Pingshan, built 1791 by the Zeng clan (who came, like the Luo, from 興寧): one of the biggest and best-preserved square Hakka walled villages in the country. Free, Tue–Sun ~09:00–17:30, closed Mondays. 坪山區大萬路33號.
觀瀾版畫村 — a Hakka village in Longhua turned into a printmakers' colony. Old houses, working studios, free.
深圳博物館 · 古代深圳 — Futian, free, closed Mondays. The "Ancient Shenzhen" gallery is the fastest way to understand Xin'an county, the salt and pearl trades, and the Hakka migrations — a good rainy-afternoon substitute.

③ Which day MOST MUSEUMS CLOSE MONDAYS

Day	What fits
Mon 19 Oct you play at 19:00	Everything indoors is shut. But 南頭古城's streets are open all day and it's 12 minutes away — go in the afternoon, walk the county town, be back by 17:30 to tune up. 甘坑 also works (open-air) if you want a longer wander.
Tue 20 Oct Woocon 1 at 15:00	The best window. 09:00 赤灣天后宮 → 11:30 南頭古城 + its museum → back by 14:00. Temple and county seat in one morning, both in your own district.
Wed 21 – Fri 23	Hackathon. Nothing. Build the robot.
Sat 24 Oct	Maker Festival — if an afternoon opens up, that's the 鶴湖新居 window.
Sun 25 Oct flight 23:55	The full pilgrimage day. Check out, leave your bag at the hostel, 10:00 鶴湖新居 → 14:00 甘坑 → back by 18:00 → shower, eat, airport by 21:00. Everything is open on a Sunday.

④ Taxi cards

Nantou Ancient City

南頭古城
深圳市南山區南山大道與深南大道交匯

Nantou Ancient City, Nanshan District — seat of old Xin'an county

Chiwan Tin Hau Temple

天后博物館（赤灣天后宮）
深圳市南山區赤灣六路9號

Chiwan Tin Hau Temple / Tianhou Museum, Shekou side

Hok Wu San Kui — the walled village

鶴湖新居（龍崗客家民俗博物館）
深圳市龍崗區龍崗街道羅瑞合北街1號

Longgang Hakka Folk Custom Museum

Dawan Shiju

大萬世居
深圳市坪山區大萬路33號

Dawan Shiju Hakka walled village, Pingshan

Home

鱘魚向海青年旅舍（科技園深圳大學店）
深圳市南山區高新南四道23號現代大廈R1-A棟7樓

Sturgeon Youth Hostel 7F, High-tech Park

⑤ What to say

我是客家人的後代。 Wǒ shì Kèjiā rén de hòudài — “I am a descendant of Hakka people.”
我的祖先姓吳，從廣東去了檀香山。
Wǒ de zǔxiān xìng Wú, cóng Guǎngdōng qùle Tánxiāngshān — “My ancestors' surname was Ng. They went from Guangdong to Honolulu.”
請問這裡有客家族譜或僑批資料嗎？
Qǐngwèn zhèlǐ yǒu Kèjiā zúpǔ huò qiáopī zīliào ma? — “Do you have Hakka genealogies or emigrant remittance-letter archives?” Ask this at every desk. Hakka clan halls keep 族譜, and a 族譜 is where a village name lives.
檀香山 — Tánxiāngshān, “Sandalwood Mountain”. The old Chinese name for Honolulu. Use it instead of 夏威夷 and watch faces change.

⑥ The honoring, wherever you end up

At the temple: three sticks of incense, bought at the gate. Hold them at your forehead, bow three times, plant them. You don't have to believe anything. You're saying we got across.
In the walled village: stand in the ancestral hall at the centre. Three slow bows — 三鞠躬.
The names, out loud — they are the point of all of it:
吳尾福 · 吳程鳳嬌 · Violet Shi Moi Ng Chang · Yau Chang · Verna Kam Nyuk Martin · Susan · Jordan
Play something. You have never once needed permission for this.
Close it: 謝謝祖先 — and mahalo nui loa. Both tongues. They knew both.

Open threads this page is waiting on: the Tsung Tsin Association's reply with a village name · 吳尾福's 1962 Hawaiʻi death certificate (normally names his father and his birthplace) · Yau Chang's parents, still unidentified · the 程 Ching line of Kōloa, Kauaʻi, entirely unexplored. When any of them lands, this page grows.