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When it was established, the colony on the island of Tai-kam was described as being one hundred miles from Canton, in the South China Sea and two miles from the shore of Chik-kai County, Sunning, where Sun Yat-Sen’s house could be seen on the shores.

Dr Wu Ting-fang purchased it from the owners, who were fishermen. He planned that it accommodate leprosy-affected people in the Sz Yap and Canton regions, and he presented it to Rev and Mrs John Lake, “for the noble task of ameliorating the sufferings of people with leprosy in the thickly populated Sz Yap and Canton Delta regions.” The General of the Nationalist Armies, Chiang Kai-Shek, provided Mr Lake with government gunboats to make his way to Tai-kam through the troubled district.

“In nature’s sunny moods the wealth of colour here furnishes a living canvas, fit for the brush of a Parrish to capture. A kingfisher may be seen skimming lightly by, dipping his feet into the deep blue waters, while the pulsating red of flowering plants on the hills above, and the yellows and purples of irises below, quiver, like the rippled sea beyond, in the faint morning breeze.”

It was also a haven for pirates. The committee planned village units to house two hundred each. Every group was to have its own chapel, hospital, and cottages.  It was designed to fit the idea of village life and village government and to care for the physical and spiritual welfare of the people