Historically the 'Tangs' of Lung Yeuk Tau originated from Jishui in Jiangxi province. And along the lineage a princess of the Song dynasty took refuge, got married and prospered with her husband, Tang Wai-Kap of Kam Tin. Presently, the town is branched out into "Five Wais and Six Tseuns" which some of which I visited today. And this means 'walled villages' and 'villages' respectively. Some of which are shown with some architectural features which I observed. The new territories have more space, unlike deep down in the dense city of Hong Kong they have bicycle spaces. |
"Walls demonstrating the history and life of early inhabitants in the new territories"
| The 'Shek Lo'
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Many of these architectural features have been preserved from their original state, some of the end walls have been demolished to create a better fence for the community within, but as one walks through these villages one can get the idea of the walls that were once protecting the inhabitants especially from bandits and their enemies, similar to Kowloon with the dangerous surroundings back in the day. And the 'Shek lo' is one of the old structures that withstood the test of time and demolishment!
Architectural Features
There are so many differences between the old buildings - the ones which have not been knocked down and the new ones within the new territory. The facades have more tiles and interesting organization of bricks which is incredible. Most of the houses are built closer to each other. The streets feel like some streets in London in another dimension of cluster! The idea of getting them close together is to keep the streets cooled just like the hutong houses in Beijing.
The 'gated community'
No matter how tiny the compounds might be, it would still be protected with gates. I believe it is a habit from back when they put up walls in the cities for protection. So gated communities are very rampant in this area.
This reminds me of developments in Nigeria where most homes have a fence closed off with an iron gate - depending on how huge the house is, an appropriate gate is required to keep every unwanted person from the compound ( property).
This reminds me of developments in Nigeria where most homes have a fence closed off with an iron gate - depending on how huge the house is, an appropriate gate is required to keep every unwanted person from the compound ( property).
The Shrines
'TU DI GONG' - The shrine for the 'earth god'. Most of the inhabitants of these villages both now and then, worship the earth gods so in every little or big compound there are shrines everywhere. Now the shrines are found in the front of the walled villages, at the entrance. Three main factors that affected the people were bandits, drought and typhoon, so they primarily related prayers to the earth god. This particular shrine isn't necessarily at the entrance but it is embedded in the tree, which I believe is at the center of this particular walled village. Seems like the tree is of peculiar significance to the community and the god. The most important trees to every village is the camphor and fig tree. |
"We cant even earn a decent living now. But we don't want to give up"
Geographically Hong Kong has a very hilly terrain and with this, only 7 square kilometers of land are actively farmed. And of this '7 kilometers' the Sheung Shui village produces some vegetables and poultry. According to the article - picture on the left above, 1.9 percent of the vegetables Hong Kong people consume along side 60 percent of the live poultry and 7 per cent of the live pigs come from local farms.
Now, the consumption rate of food by Hong Kong population is so much more than the food they produce and this needs to be attended to because some land with just 'bushes' can be converted into farmland, or modern farming methods could be adapted for growing vegetables so that the importation of these foods could be reduced, be less expensive and the local farmers could earn a higher income.
Now, the consumption rate of food by Hong Kong population is so much more than the food they produce and this needs to be attended to because some land with just 'bushes' can be converted into farmland, or modern farming methods could be adapted for growing vegetables so that the importation of these foods could be reduced, be less expensive and the local farmers could earn a higher income.
The 'Self-Sustainable' Parks
One thing I've observed about each community space or residential area are the parks. In America, you find parks with green area - I don't mean 'mini' trees growing out from well constructed concrete walls - but playgrounds with grass. Apparently grass is so rare in Hong Kong city, its sort of like looking for oasis in a desert. And this is done because without the grass there is no mower and with no mower, no extra money or maintenance responsibility by the government.
The Landscape
Picture This!
The 'projects' of Hong Kong
Trees are marked for specific reasons (about to be knocked down), you cannot just knock them down. Ficus elastica, the rubber palm tree, is the most successful tree on the planet. The farmers typically plant up on slopes and then create holes to let water out the slope and stop erosion. There is a retaining wall of sprayed concrete on a metal mesh. The public homes of Kowloon wall city park defines the boundary of what used to be the Kowloon Walled City. 300,000 people lived in this city in 1985. All the ceramic and wood on the roof comes from Foshia in the heart of China. The buildings are height-restricted because of the nearby airport.