Located on the western edge of Hong Kong Island, Pok Fu Lam Village (薄扶林村) is one of the oldest villages in Hong Kong, dating back to as far back as the 1600s. It is said to be one of the last fully functioning villages in the heart of the urban metropolis and I paid a visit last weekend, camera in hand…
According to a local legend in Hong Kong, in 1880 the small fishing village of Tai Hang (大坑) was devastated by a powerful typhoon. Around the same time, a large serpent entered the village and was killed by some of the residents. Shortly afterwards, plague and cholera broke out, leading to the deaths of many villagers.
Living in Hong Kong you quickly discover there’s a large divide, both physical and social, between Hong Kong island and the Kowloon peninsula. While the island has all the trappings and excesses of absolute wealth (largely generated by the financial sector) the story is often very different in much of Kowloon.
When film director Mamoru Oshii was looking for a model of the city of the future for his seminal 1995 animated film adaptation of Ghost in the Shell (based on the manga by Masamune Shirow), he turned to the cityscape of Hong Kong for his inspiration.
Ankle deep in stagnant water the rancid air magnified the sense of claustrophobia I felt as me and 5 other Indian-Jones wannabes trudged through the 70-year-old tunnels the Japanese Imperial Navy forced locals to dig during WWII (1941-45) on Lamma Island (南丫島) in Hong Kong.
A friend of mine has an apartment in Hong Kong with an amazing rooftop terrace which looks out over the Wan Chai (灣仔) district. Having first seen it during the day I had to come back in the evening to take some pictures of the skyline.
Last Saturday evening thousands of people gathered at Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to remember those who died in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests which tragically ended in a state-sponsored massacre. The event, which occurs annually on June 4th, is the only such commemoration on Chinese soil.
A few weeks ago before my life turned überbusy I visited the tiny island of Peng Chau (坪洲) located off the north-eastern coast of Lantau Island in Hong Kong for a bit of R&R. Around 6,300 people live on the island which, only being around 1 km², can easily be explored in a couple of hours.
If you were asked to move house twice and start a new job during the course of one month you’d probably think it was a madness, but that’s exactly what I’ve done over what was among the four busiest weeks of my life. Now that it’s almost over I can begin to settle down and reflect on a fairly busy beginning to 2011.
Whilst walking down Hollywood Road yesterday I noticed that the old decommissioned Central Police Station compound was playing host to a free art exhibition providing a unique opportunity to take a look inside one of Hong Kong’s oldest colonial relics.