IT'S the town that couldn't wait.
Kat Ring Wai celebrated the return of Hong Kong to China on Sunday, nine days early. "We went to the restaurant and had performances and dancing and a big banquet with honey and chicken and pork," said a 76 year old shopkeeper, grinning.
Everyone got a community gift - not just the men as is the custom on big occasions - of a celebratory key ring to which was attached a wafer of gold encased in plastic.
The woman left her stool and hobbled across the stone shop floor in bare feet to fetch her key ring from beside the bed. On the gold was inscribed the year 1997 and the words ".9999 per cent gold".
"We are very happy, very proud that we will be part of China again," she said. "Everybody will have peace. No more arguments."
I heard similar sentiments from young and old in the narrow lanes of the little 15th century walled town, where everyone is called Tang and where no one will give a stranger their first name.
Along with five other villages, Kat Hing Wai is the ancestral home of the Tang clan, who were highranking public servants in imperial 19th century China. Unlike the rest of Hong Kong, which was seized in 1841, this was part of China until less than a century ago. It is located in the New Territories, which was added by the British in 1898 on a 99 year lease.
The 100,000 Chinese who lived in the 794 square kilometres of rugged hills were outraged at suddenly finding themselves British rather than Chinese. This helps explain why their descendants today are so enthusiastic to display their Chinese patriotism.
For several weeks the red Chinese Communist flag with its five stars has been flying on top of bright red roadside posters saying in big characters, "Congratulations on Unification with China."
The story of the town gates explains the depth of resentment against the British.
The entrance to Kat Ring Wai is through a narrow doorway leading into a brick walled guardhouse, where old women with rheumy eyes sit in wicker hats fringed with black cotton, extracting a few coins from tourists as the price of admission and taking photographs.
The door has a pair of narrow antique gates, two metres high, formed by intertwined circles of cast iron.
The gates were closed against a British surveying commission in 1898; villagers pelted the intruders with rotten eggs. The inhabitants were later obliged to apologise, but this was not enough.
In 1899 sappers from the Hong Kong Regiment demolished the walls on either side of the gates here and at the village of Tai Hong Wai. The Tang clan was forced to offer the gates as evidence of their submission.
The then Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Henry Blake, grabbed the booty and transported a pair of the gates to his stately home, Myrtle Grove in Youghal, Co Cork. He took one from each village, the other two of the pair having been damaged.
A quarter of a century later the villagers petitioned Lady Blake for the gates' return. They were ceremoniously delivered back to Kat Hing Wai by Governor Sir Reginald Stubbs, who disliked Blake and for whom the Tangs have fonder memories.
"The village was not strong enough to fight against the British and stop them taking the gates away," said a 76 year old village elder. "The family elders petitioned to have them back to regain face. Governor Stubbs' relatives still come to visit us and look at them."
Today the gates are hung at Kat Ring Wai, and fulfil again their four century old function of protection. They are closed at midnight to keep the village secure in the New Territories, where the population is now 2.9 million and the countryside is littered with mildewed Spanish style villas and used car lots.
Back on Hong Kong Island, local historian Arthur Hacker told me that in an ironic twist to the story, the hybrid orchid which is to become Hong Kong's new symbol, and which adorns the emblems flying alongside the Chinese flag outside the villages, is actually the Bauhinia Blakeana and "is named after this arch colonial Irish vandal".
There was good reason, I discovered, for the early celebration of the return to Chinese sovereignty in Kat Hing Wai and other New Territories villages.
Many of the Tang clan are wealthy and influential citizens of Hong Kong. They are expected to attend the celebrations in each village and in Hong Kong.
The village parties were held early so the important Tangs could represent the clan in the main ceremonies on Monday.