In 1949, lay Buddhists Yeh Kung Cho and Wong Kit Wan pursued to establish a Buddhist college and invited Venerable Tanxu, the 44th lineage holder of the Tiantai Sect, to establish Hong Kong’s first monastic college, Wah Nam Buddhist Academy, at the Wang Fat Ching She. This institution was founded to train monks for the propagation of the Dharma. 

To advance the mission of teaching and spreading Buddhism, Venerable Tanxu served as both the academy’s president and principal lecturer. He invited Venerable Dingxi and Venerable Leguo, who had previously propagated the Dharma in Northeast China and were collectively known as the “Three Elders of the Northeast” to teach. Adopting the educational model of the Qingdao Zhanshan Temple (Zhanshan Si) Buddhist Academy, Venerable Tanxu structured the curriculum in three-year cycles. Monastic students were required to study Buddhist scriptures, the Treatise on Cold Damage (Shang Han Lun), secular knowledge, and various rituals. In their spare time, they worked the fields, produced goods, and sold woven socks to achieve self-sufficiency. 

Although Wah Nam Buddhist Academy ceased operations in 1951, the monks it trained became leading figures in Hong Kong’s Buddhist community, exerting a profound influence on the development of Buddhism in the region. Over the past eighty years, Wang Fat Ching She, under the Tung Lin Kok Yuen’s legacy, has remained a vital center for promoting Dharma activities.