Underdeveloped Tourism Destination – Island South & Lamma Island.

As known to all, Hong Kong is the leading financial center in Asia. The 1st impression come into mind when talking about HK will be the pointed BOC Tower with 2 IFC and ICC erected on 2 sides of the Victoria Harbor. In 2013, 54 million visitors [1] from around the world arrived Hong Kong and most of their destinations are filled by crowded and bustling metropolitan sceneries in downtown area. But if you have a look at the natural map and know a little bit more about HK, actually 70% [2] of the total 1,104 sq.km land are green area. If these natural green areas could be leisure or tourism destinations and further developed, how many more opportunities it could create for HK. Not until we visited Hong Kong Island South and Lamma Island, had I realized those areas has great potential to be a tourism destination.

Waterfall Bay

Waterfall Bay

Waterfall Bay was scenery near the famous public housing project - Wah Fu Estate. Actually, the waterfall is also quite famous itself. The fresh water from the waterfall is said to have given the city its name. In the old days, the ships from and to Guangzhou will always got drink water here and people used to call the place “Fragrant Harbor” and its Cantonese homophonic translation was just “Hong Kong”. The Waterfall Park can overlook beautiful scenery of the Lamma Island. There is a neglected Japanese pillbox in the bay, it is also known as a famous haunted house. When the Wah Fu Estate was open in 1970s, some kids played there but drown. Since then, the authorities closed the roads there and make it as inaccessible as it is today.

The place here is so famous and beautiful but why there are limited people visiting every day? When we arrived that day, we found its only visitors seemed to be the aged residents in Wah Fu Estate. Hong Kong is planning the Southern District to be a tourism destination but the traffic accessibility is still not satisfying in some parts, perhaps that is why the Waterfall Bay is so famous but we saw rare visitors. There should be some effort on that and further improvement is needed on the public access and infrastructure there. Moreover, to prevent any drown accident happen again, some security facilities should also be built if it intends to open to the public in the future.

Aberdeen Promenade

Boats along Aberdeen Promenade

Our next stop is the Aberdeen Promenade. It used to be a busy fishing area and most of the fishermen are from Southeast Asia. However, the fish here were getting fewer and fewer. There used to be prosperous fish market here at around 6 am every day many years ago, but fishing is no longer allowed in HK in recent year, so the fish market disappears. The Aberdeen Promenade is also one of the densest harbors in the world. You’ll find the picture below how the boats are stopped one by one. Since 1970, HK began its large scale reclamation and the promenade was then formed. There are also many recreational facilities within the park and the lots of ferries and boats are stopped along the seaside. There is a “Fisherman’s wharf” [5] plan undergoing and part of the Aberdeen Promenade park is planned as a tourism site by the government. But under the latest plan, the redevelopment scheme seemed shrinking. All in all, the Promenade is a very important linking point and transportation hub for Island south, if the leisure and tourism of this area wish to be underpinned, this Promenade should be improved to facilitate more public traffic. And as mentioned above, crucial issue of this ambition is improving the traffic of Island South !

Lamma Island

Lamma Power Station

Finally, we stepped on the ferry and starting for Lamma Island, which will be the last destination of our 3-day site visits. The Lamma Island[6] is 3^rd largest island in HK and 6,000 populations living there including lots of foreigners. When hiking along the path of the hilly island and disturbed occasionally by the giant spiders, we were sweating all over and cannot not remember how long we walked. But we all know that to enjoy the grand sights of the Lamma Winds and Power Station on the peak, we need to remain committed to it until we arrive there. When we were high enough, we caught a glimpse of the 3 giant chimney of the Lamma Power Station. It is a coal and gas-fired power station built for Hong Kong Electric, which provides power to Hong Kong Island and Lamma Island. We found that among the 3 giant chimneys, only 2 are smoking. Actually, the last one is a fake one standing there, just because of Fengshui problem.

Lamma Winds

It was still some distance before we reached the peak and when we arrived there we found the Lamma Winds was already under our feet. I felt as if we were flying together with the Winds! There is an exhibition center for the Lamma Winds, which is a showcase to the public of the sustainability the power station and the government have achieved. But per our observation, the main station power in Lamma is still dominated by coal and gas-fired originated power, so hope the sustainable energy efficiency is not just an exhibition but on a real-case basis.

The Lamma Island is all filled with green and with lots of beautiful scenery spots, just to name a few beside the Lamma Winds and Power Station above: Hung Shing Yeh Beach, Hung Shing Temple, Yung Shue Wan and Tin Hau temples and Tai Peng village etc. All the places are with exceptional natural and historical view and Lamma Island is very resourceful in terms of tourism. The only shortage of the Island should be its traffic accessibility. Until now the only method to get on board the beautiful seems the ferry, the Island is no doubt charming and attractive, but without a sound traffic accessibility, how could the leisure and tourism resources be enjoyed.

References:

[1] HK Tourism Performance in 2013 (http://www.tourism.gov.hk/english/statistics/statistics_perform.html)

 Waterfall Bay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_Bay,_Hong_Kong)

[2] Green Coverage in HK (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF)

[3] Waterfall Bay (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%80%91%E5%B8%83%E7%81%A3)

[4] Aberdeen Promenade (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E4%BB%94%E6%B5%B7%E6%BF%B1%E5%85%AC%E5%9C%92)

[5] Fisherman’s Wharf Plan (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E4%BB%94%E6%BC%81%E4%BA%BA%E7%A2%BC%E9%A0%AD)

[6] Lamma Island (http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/see-do/great-outdoors/outlying-islands/lamma-island/index.jsp)

Diversified Living Scenarios – Pok Fu Lam

Pok Fu Lam is located at the western end of the Southern District. The place is famous for its beautifully sceneries of the green mountains, open seaview, the medical (Queen Mary Hospital) and education (The University of Hong Kong). It is also renowned as a residential area in Hong Kong Island with a much diversified living scenarios, as the area has one of the oldest villages – Pok Fu Lam village; one of the largest private developments in HK – Chi Fu Fa Yuen; It is also a reputable luxurious residential area.

Pok Fu Lam Village (Original)

Pok Fu Lam Village

As we all know, the Hong Kong Island is a high-dense and well developed area with high level of internationalization and modernization. The Pok Fu Lam village[1] is actually one of the rare traditional living clusters in Hong Kong Island. Some of the historians and heritage consultants even recognize the Pok Fu Lam Village to be the “Last Village on Hong Kong Island”.

The houses in the villages are quite old-fashioned and I am just wondering how the villagers could live there. But after a more detailed observation, I found some the engineering designs are quite wise. For instance, to keep away from hot, the villagers built 2 roofs on the top, so that the higher roof could radiate hot and the hot reaching the lower roof was reduced significantly. So even without air-conditioning, the villagers can also keep themselves cool inside the houses.

Albeit the village is old and space inside is quite limited, there are still open space for villagers there to relax, just resembling public housing estates. Obviously, the rest space is too narrow. There some other vacant land within the village, but the efficiency is quite low as they are fenced and the ownership was back to the government. Drainage system inside the villages[2] is not systematic and just arranged along the outlines of the houses. But of course, in an old village like Pok Fu Lam, it is impossible to design a regular drainage system with orderliness layout. As a result, it always meets troubles in rainy days. We experienced a heavy rain yesterday and happened to find somewhere of the system was just being fixed because of flood.

Influence of Pok Fu Lam Master Plan: The history of the Pok Fu Lam village can date back to 1973 and some of the original architecture and facilities still existed within the village. However, the government’s master plan on Pok Fu Lam and the internal demand of improving villagers’ living quality is threatening the existence of the old village. Therefore, the authorities should develop the old area in an appropriate approach to conserve the heritage.

Diversified Residential Scenario: A way walking down the Pok Fu Lam road, you will find various brand new luxurious buildings, with the old Fok Fu Lam village inside and blocks of private development – Chi Fu Fa Yuen ahead, what a diversified scene, which is just a showcase of different classes in Hong Kong Island within the same area.  

Chi Fu Fa Yuen (Mid-end)

The Chi Fu Fa Yuen[3] is one the largest private development in Southern District of HK. It was developed by Hong Kong Land Limited in 1978 with 20 blocks of high-rise residential buildings in total. The location of the Chi Fu Fa Yuen was originally the Pasture of Pok Fu Lam.

Chi Fu Fa Yuen

Chi Fu Fa Yuen is quite renowned in the real estate development history of Hong Kong. It is one of the oldest private developments in HK. As we all know that HK was witnessing the fastest population growth in the 1970s and in Hong Kong Island, this problem was even tougher. Most of the people at the time could not afford private housing and the public housing was still not enough to accommodate so much population. Chi Fu Fa Yuan was actually an “affordable” private housing and was developed in a very large scale. In this way, it contributed a lot to the social stability at that time albeit Hong Kong Land bear some development risk itself as the land area was so large.

Chi Fu Fa Yuen also has other features, which are also significant:

• There are no walls around the entire development to increase public accessibility;
• There is a bus terminal inside the community which enhances the accessibility further.

There are also commercial ancillaries and landscape and recreational facilities inside, all in all, a rare “cost-efficient private residential project".

The Chi Fu Fa Yuen is very successful in the real estate development history of HK. Facing the shortage of housing history and problems in HK in 1970s, it was a role model to solve the problem in an innovative way by “affordable private development”. Though the developer – the Hong Kong Land were bearing development risk (so large scale) and under the pressure of economical returns, they still make that happen and was on doubt a milestone in HK’s housing history.

Jessville (Luxurious)

Jessville under Development

Since the Pok Fu Lam is so famous for high-end residential, we pay a special visit to a development project there – Jessville[4]. The Jessville has a very long history. It was built in 1929 by the father-in-law of Sir Yang Ti-liang. Facing threat of demolition, Jessville was declared a "Proposed monument" in 2007. The declaration was withdrawn and the building was listed down as a Grade III historic building in 2008. The conservation plan was also approved by authorities. The new development could resume with Jessville protected.

The case was controversial because the government lower grade the historic building, which was not a sustainable attitude the authority should hold. Actually, these development controversies often happen in HK and there are always queues from the public. The Jessville is not the only case. But on a strategic planning point of view, the Jessville is a successful case as it fulfilled development potential on economic logic with the history and heritage preserved.

References:

[1] Pok Fu Lam Village Official Website (http://www.pokfulamvillage.org/)

[2] Pok Fu Lam Village Studio (http://pokfulamvillage.com/)

[3] Chi Fu Fa Yuen (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BD%AE%E5%AF%8C%E8%8A%B1%E5%9C%92#.E5.B0.8D.E5.A4.96.E4.BA.A4.E9.80.9A)

[4] Jessville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessville)

Trail of Culture and Heritage

Fanling Wai

Pang Ancestral Hall in Fanling Pak Wai

A lot of immigrants and refugees from other parts of China crossed borders and settled down in North New Territories to escape from wars, floods or typhoon. Generally, they immigrated in groups of families with the clustered there with the same family name. This is how the Clan Culture emerged.The Fanling Wai [1] is where the Pang Clan settled. Since the population grew and so many people lived there, the Fanling Wai enlarged to 3 parts, which are Pak Wai, Chuang Wai and Nam Wai. As the group has the same Ancestor, they built a Hall to memorize their ancestor. Every year the all the families will gather in the Ancestral Hall for the ceremonial event. They also built schools and study halls for Clan’s long term prosperity.

Walled Villages in Fanling Wai

Among all the Fanling Wais, the most famous one is the Fanling Chung Wai. Actually, the recognizable pictures Pond, Cannons and Watchtower often appear when people introduce about the walled villages in Fanling. I you observe carefully, you’ll find the pond in front of the walls is actually man-made, you may wonder what’s it used for? For collecting drinking water or just for fun? Actually, it one feature of traditional Chinese architecture, they all comply with “Fengshui[2]” rules. In general, according to Fengshui, the best location for housing should be with waters in the front and mountains at the back. There are mountains at back but there is no water at the front of the gate, so they put a pond just there.

At both the entrance gate and the cornered walls, there are 3 circles painted white, and they are all Fengshui reasons. Fengshui, is an issue almost every architect should consider when designing the location and landscape in China. With a good Fengshui, the residents can have a safe and peaceful life while the villagers can obtain harvest in autumn. Therefore, we should bear in mind that for every future design or planning for architecture in China and Hong Kong, we should still take Fengshui into consideration after the thorough design. It’ s not in the scientific logic/manner but it is a tradition deeply rooted in the Chinese Architecture Culture and you should be considerable on that no matter you believe in it or not as long as your works are located in Chinese regions.

Leung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail

San Wai (Kun Lung Wai)

The 1^st ones are Tsung Kyan Church and Shek Lo along the trail; they are Grade II and Grade III historic buildings respectively. We also paid a visit inside the Shek Lo, which resembled some of the scenes we often seen in detective movies. It was built in around 1920s and the site in front of it seems being developing into a conservation site at the moment but unfortunately, the Shek Lo seemed poorly protected.Then we arrived at Ma Wat Wai and Lo Wai – walled villages. Their entrance towers and walls are all declared monuments. The walls of Lo Wai still existed well; it used to be a good protection when during wars. There all also wells in inside and gun hole on the wall, villagers could stay inside for many days to protect themselves under the adamant walls.

Later, we arrived at out last destination of the Lung Yuek Tau Heritage Trail – San Wai (Kun Lung Wai).As seen from the above photo; the Gate Tower Wall is well protected and maintained its origins. But when you go inside, you find a mix picture. Some new 3-storey houses have been built inside unregularly, with old ones combined internally. The villagers seem have to build new houses to live in a “modern world”, the old houses will be dilapidated sooner or later.

Conservation: As an intersection of mainland and local HK with a diversified culture and history, the Fanling and Sheung Shui area should be a good exhibition of Historical Heritages. However, to catch up the trend of HK’s internationalization and under the pressure of fast-paced economic growth, HK lost lots of heritages in the past decades. The government seemed indifferent on the historical sites and turned them down to accommodate modern development and skyscrapers. But till now, they realized they are running at an amazing speed but on a confusing direction with all these historical sites unpreserved. They are actually starting their heritage preservation trial in recent years.Fortunately, though in tandem with the aggressive urban development, and in north part of the New Territories, there are still some old heritages undamaged. So we had a chance today to see what they were like and learn more about the culture and history.

New Blocks Accompanied by Heritages 

Combination: We found that the architectures there are actually a combination of ancient and modern. This seems a compromised way that how these heritages could survive in the fast-pace urbanization and internationalization. However, it is just a temporary shelter for these heritages, there must be some better solutions to protect them and simultaneously, accommodate modernization and urbanization.

References:

[1] Fanling Wai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanling_Wai)

[2] Feng Shui (http://fengshui.about.com/od/thebasics/qt/fengshui.htm)

[3] Leung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail (http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/see-do/culture-heritage/historical-sites/chinese/lung-yeuk-tau-heritage-trail.jsp)

[4] Heritage Trails (http://www.amo.gov.hk/en/trails_lung.php)