the domain of the tiger

In January this year, I walked downstream along our local river to check out the most spectacular example of a firecracker vine that I’d ever seen, in the village of Fu Tei Au. It didn’t disappoint, but I also discovered an impressive mural with a new year theme and the record, on a stone tablet, of a catastrophic flood that had occurred in 1972, before the river was canalized.

I wanted to show Paula what I’d found, so a few days later we visited the area, and it was Paula who spotted the sign that pointed up a narrow alleyway to a ‘seven colours ancient well’. I wrote about all this in An Educational Excursion.

A few weeks later, we just happened to be walking along Fu Tei Au Road when I noticed some admittedly corny artwork on a building on the south side of the road:

A very short distance further on, this is what we saw:

It appeared to be some kind of museum that reflects the history of the village, but we were unable to go in to take a closer look:

Presumably it was closed because of pandemic restrictions.

However, last month I thought that it might be worth checking to see whether it was now open. And it was:

This photo was taken from inside the gate, and you can see more artwork to the left of the building adorned by the ‘tiger’. Incidentally, ‘Fu Tei’ means ‘domain of the tiger’, and the name relates to a tiger that was killed in the area in 1915 (the last tiger in Hong Kong wasn’t killed until the mid-1920s). Hence the ‘tiger’ painting on the building.

In my earlier report, I expressed surprise that the collection of houses in the vicinity of the ‘colourful well’ were designated a village, because there were no houses built under the terms of the so-called small house policy introduced by the British administration in 1972. However, this village was established by refugees from the Chinese civil war, which ended in 1949, and the small house policy applied only to villagers who could trace their ancestry to a male in their village before 1898, when the British took over the New Territories. I also cited the absence of a public toilet, but I’ve since discovered that the Fu Tei Au Public Toilet is located on the north side of the junction between Fu Tei Au Road and Man Kam To Road. In fact, the entire area circumscribed by Fu Tei Au Road, Man Kam To Road and the Ng Tung River appears to be part of Fu Tei Au.

The ’tiger building’ houses a small museum that details the history of the domain of the tiger, and among other things I learned, the Lo Wu Brick Company obtained leases to parts of this area in 1921, and its workers dug the ‘colourful well’ to ensure a supply of potable water. The well was lined with concrete made from locally sourced, brightly coloured gravel, hence the name, although no sign of this colour now exists, which is why, in my earlier report, I’d conjectured that the colour was due to sunlight being refracted by water vapour.

What follows are some of the highlights of the museum, starting with these photographs:

Clockwise from the top left, the titles read ‘Pond of Flower Field’; ‘Habitat of Egrets’; ‘Habitat of Fireflies’; and ‘Ng Tung River’.

These photos reflect the cultural life of the village:

And these models are of features of interest:

The ‘stilt house’ can still be seen, but I don’t think the ‘ponds house’ exists now.

However, it is the artwork on the various huts that I found especially interesting. I didn’t write up an account of this fascinating location after our earlier visit, because I neglected to take a photo of the hut in the next photo, first because there were other visitors, and I couldn’t get a clear shot, then, when we were leaving, I convinced myself that I’d already taken a photo of it. We went back yesterday, and I took this photo:

I included a photo of the miniature brick-arch bridge in An Educational Excursion, and the ponds on each side are still filled with water hyacinths, although you would be extremely lucky to see them flowering. The bird depicted on the right is a red-crowned crane, although I’ve never seen this species in this area. There are egrets flying overhead.

There are more birds on the wall of the building to the right:

Incidentally, the ornaments hanging down are soft-drink cans that have been slit vertically multiple times. I saw the same decorations when I first visited ghost alley.

This is the building to the left:

This is actually a bathroom. Yes! It does have a bath in addition to a toilet bowl. I know because I had to use it yesterday. I don’t think that any of the butterfly images represent any of the more than 200 species that have been recorded in Hong Kong.

And this is the left-hand side of the first building:

The brickwork continues around the corner:

…and this is the fourth side of the building:

…while this is the side of the ‘butterfly bathroom’:

If you walk through the gap seen in the last photo and look left, this is what you will see:

This is also a bathroom (I know because I had to close the door in order to take the photo).

And this is the view straight ahead:

To the right of the building in the previous photo is a building comparable in size to the ‘tiger building’, and it is adorned with perhaps the most detailed artwork here:

The flowers are lotus, and there are kingfishers on the left.

The inscription relates that when wind and rain come at the right time, the harvest is optimized. The mountain in the background is Peach Blossom Mountain (peaches are a symbol of longevity in Chinese culture).

Directly opposite the artwork in the previous two photos is a canvas suspended high above the ground:

This is a general view of the open area that I’ve just walked through:

Meanwhile, there is more artwork on the large building around the corner to the right:

…and a large well:

The inscription advises you to know the source of your water. I don’t know whether this is a real well or yet another piece of artwork.

The building to the right of the one with the first artwork I featured above has a small room (on the right) filled with artefacts from a bygone age:

Exhibits include a sit-up-and-beg bicycle, a treadle-operated sewing machine, a cathode ray tube television and, on the far wall, a range of primitive farming implements:

It was only when I looked at the photos that I realized that each exhibit had a label, presumably explaining what each exhibit represents.

This painting is on the opposite wall to that with the tiger (above):

The child on the right is praying for peace, happiness and prosperity. His prayer appears to have been answered.

As you enter this site, there is a line of wooden pallets on the left with artwork painted on them. While I’d been walking around, Paula had engaged in a long conversation with a young man from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (ChineseU) who was working on the site. She learned that although the artwork on the buildings was done using commercial paints, that on the pallets had been done using traditional pigments, so they have faded quite badly. I’ve therefore included just one photo of this work:

In fact, I believe that all the artwork here was done by ChineseU students, and during the course of her conversation, Paula learned that architecture students from the university had planned to develop an ‘eco-park’ in the area, but funding for the project will end in February next year, and so, presumably will the project.

As we were leaving, I noticed this confrontation between a pig and a rooster from the road:

It wasn’t there when we visited last month.

Finally, here are two maps of the area. I photographed the first in the ‘tiger building’, and the second is a more conventional map:

The red circle indicates the approximate location of the ‘colourful well’, while the blue circle shows the location of this fascinating site. I can’t say that it’s unique, but it’s certainly unusual.