a flight of fancy

The other day, I decided to walk past one of the two completed apartment blocks that will eventually form part of the Fanling North NDA (New Development Area). Apart from these blocks, this whole patch is now a no-go area, which means that in order to reach Fanling from our village, we have to take a considerable detour. However, the path that I followed on this occasion doesn’t lead anywhere useful. I just wondered whether I might see something interesting. And I did.

After passing the larger of the two completed blocks, I was surprised to discover a sequence of six images mounted on the barrier that runs alongside the path and is there to prevent access to the construction site. This is the first image (from left to right):

My first thought was that this is an ‘artist’s impression’ of what the site will look like when construction has been completed, even though it is obviously the work of a child. However, although the idea of the river as an amenity is appealing, there is no trace of the so-called ‘bypass’ currently under construction.

The next image does show what might be intended to represent the bypass, and we have seen tortoises in the river:

Nevertheless, it is also clearly not a reflection of future reality.

And neither is this, although children can certainly have a whale of a time:

The next image appears to be the most fanciful, although it does include some important clues as to what this artwork is all about:

In the background is a shopping mall—all housing estates have such a facility, although there is as yet no sign of one in the development thus far—and the blue flash near the bottom of the picture identifies the subject of this image as Hung Shui Kiu, part of the Ha Tsuen New Development Area. I suspect that this is a fictitious entity, although I don’t think that the original name of this area, Ma Shi Po (‘horseshit area’), is likely to be preserved when the development has been completed.

Incidentally, the four tent-like structures in the foreground of the image are labelled ‘Fish’, ‘Vegan’. ‘Cakes’ and ‘Organic soap’. And the ‘25th’ in the bottom right-hand corner of the image is a reference to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the handover from British rule in 1997, which appears to have been widely celebrated in Hong Kong. These images were apparently the winners in some kind of art competition in schools to mark the occasion.

An ornamental boating lake is unlikely to have been part of the plan in the development here:

The final image, of a child contemplating the setting sun, is probably the most realistic as a vision of the future:

My final photo should help to explain why all the above images are slightly skewed: the path is so narrow that I struggled to capture the entire image in a single photo at such close range:

The road in the photo is Ma Sik Road, which is a dual carriageway that in my opinion makes the new bypass currently under construction completely unnecessary.

You can also see the paintings featured above and the larger of the two new blocks in the photo. The new blocks also hint at an unanswered mystery: why are the new buildings only 20 storeys high. All the housing estates on the other side of Ma Sik Road—Green Code, Bel-Air Monte, Regentville and Union Plaza—are 40 storeys high. There are two estates downstream—Noble Hill and Hillcrest—that are only 15 storeys high, but they are quite clearly upmarket estates, while the others that I’ve mentioned are obviously more downmarket. Given that the rationale behind the NDAs is to tackle Hong Kong’s chronic housing shortage, why are the new blocks being built here not much higher?

a message to my readers

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will probably have noticed that I haven’t posted any new material since the beginning of last month. The problem started in the middle of last month. I’d just been for a short bike ride (35km), and when I got home, I found a note in my letterbox to inform me that someone had tried to deliver a parcel, realized that I wasn’t in and left it with a neighbour across the street.

When I went across the street to retrieve this parcel, I found that it was too heavy for me to lift. I could raise it just clear of the ground, but there was no way that I could have carried it across the street. However, the neighbour had a child’s push-chair, but when I tried to lift it onto this conveyance, I felt a slight pull in my lower back.

You probably think that I should have sought the assistance of a younger—and stronger—neighbour, because I have a long history of lower back problems, which started in 1968. I was working in Libya, on oil rigs in the desert, and I was driving a Land Rover across what appeared to be a gently undulating plain of firm sand at about 50mph when suddenly I was airborne. As I touched down, I felt a sharp stab of pain in my back. I did need some treatment by the rig’s medic, but I recovered quite quickly, and because my lifestyle has always involved a lot of physical exercise, adverse back episodes have been quite rare and easily dealt with, apart from one in 1983 when I was hospitalized on traction for two weeks after an incident when I was working at the Outward Bound School in Hong Kong. The school had just been hit by a severe squall that had caused the school’s pontoon jetty to break free from its moorings, and effecting a suitable temporary repair involved doing things that my back didn’t like. The problem was that I couldn’t just stop, which probably explains the eventual severe outcome. Incidentally, although I quickly returned to full fitness after the hospital stay, I was refused a new contract and kicked out when my existing contract expired on the grounds of ‘doubts’ about my fitness.

The parcel incident that I described above also seemed quite trivial. I expected my back to be okay within a few days, but a few days later, I woke up to a slight feeling of numbness in my right leg. This also didn’t seem significant, and I continued with my routine of long walks in the morning and evening as usual. I seemed to be able to ‘walk off’ the numbness in my leg.

Unfortunately, this numbness has slowly changed to pain, which means that I haven’t been able to do any cycling since the ride I referred to earlier. I haven’t even been out of the house for more than three weeks, apart from a visit to the local health centre for a detailed assessment of my condition, because I can’t place any weight on the affected leg without triggering excruciating pain. And I can’t sit in front of a computer for any length of time either (it has taken me almost two weeks to finish writing this short note). I don’t expect to produce any more posts for quite a while, although I do have a few posts in the pipeline, including a hold-over from last year that will answer the question of where you would take someone who had one day to ‘see’ the Lake District; a detailed description of a bike ride that Paula and I did south of Penrith at the beginning of July (with videos); and the usual selection of photos that I post every year after my stay in my home town.

We’ll be heading back to Hong Kong at the beginning of October, and I’m optimistic that I will have fully recovered by then (I am making progress).

ma shi po: a recent history

When we moved to San Wai, a village about a mile east of Fanling, in 2008, it didn’t take us long to discover the area between Ma Sik Road, which at that time marked the northern boundary of Fanling, and the Ng Tung River. It wasn’t densely populated by Hong Kong standards, but there was a substantial population, mostly living in tin shacks, and the area was extensively cultivated:

The third photo shows a typical dwelling in the area at the time.

There was once a stone device for milling rice outside a house that, as I noted years later, hosted several meetings, I assume to discuss the many adverse things that were starting to happen in the neighbourhood—and, presumably, what to do about it. On this basis, I conjecture that the house was the home of the local tai fu (headman). The following photo, taken in October 2008, also shows the path that runs past the house:

This grinding machine disappeared many years ago, probably taken by someone as a souvenir as events progressed.

I think that we can be forgiven for regarding the area as a kind of bucolic idyll, but what we didn’t know at the time was that the area was scheduled for ‘development’. What follows is a series of hyperlinks to posts that I’ve published over the past 14 years that document the significant changes that have taken place during this period.

I first wrote about this area, which was known as Ma Shi Po (‘horseshit area’) at the start of 2010:

Hong Kong Country

This account also includes photos of the local river and images of the Wah Shan Military Road and the nearby hillside. In November 2010, I returned to Koon Garden, of which I’d photographed only the entrance gate. It had been abandoned, and I wanted to take a look inside:

Return to Koon Garden

This is a view of the entrance to Koon Garden that also shows the house, which wasn’t visible in the photo that I used in Hong Kong Country:

Things first began to take an unwelcome turn in 2011, when major property developer Henderson Land planted a large number of ‘keep off’ signs. This post focuses on the signs erected by protesters:

Turf Wars

Several of the huts in this area have had artwork painted on the external walls, including this one:

The Cat Man’s Hut

In the summer of 2017, a statue of the cat farmer appeared next to the site of the cat man’s hut while I was in the UK, and I included a photo in Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes. This photo was taken in March 2019, shortly after the cat had been given a new straw hat:

I wonder what happened to it.

By 2015, previously cultivated areas that had been fenced off by Henderson Land had become completely overgrown:

A Blot on the Landscape

The following year, artwork began to appear on footpaths and nearby buildings:

Art Promenade

The frogs were painted on a section of path that remains accessible, but there is now no trace of their existence. The next photo is a view of the left-hand hut, which I described in Art Promenade but did not provide a photo. The hut on the right had yet to be decorated when I took this photo in October 2011:

Painting of the right-hand hut did not get underway until December 2016:

A short distance to the left of these two huts, there was a large hut that had already been decorated when we moved into the area, although the following two photos were taken at the same time as the two previous photos:

This building extends away from the main path. And this is a closer view of the hen on the right, next to the path:

More protests erupted in October 2016, and this is an account (with photos):

Turf Wars Update

In April 2017, large numbers of terracotta figurines appeared next to the main footpath in what was clearly an organized display. They were meant to represent the people and traditions of the area, but like everything else here, they have now been bulldozed into the dirt (I did rescue a few before this happened):

Terracotta? Ah! Me

Although most of the land under cultivation when we moved to the area was fenced off more than a decade ago, some land was still being farmed in March 2020. Why? I’ve no idea:

A Farming Mystery

I wrote several posts towards the end of last year that described recently abandoned houses in Ma Shi Po. This is a particularly poignant example:

More Abandoned Houses

So what does the area look like now? I gained access to the area on a Sunday in October 2021, when no work was being done, and took the following photo:

Farewell Ma Shi Po!

crossing on red

When you cross a road via a light-controlled crossing, do you follow the signals? Or do you cross when you deem it safe to do so, regardless of the state of the lights governing the crossing? What follows is an account of my reasons for taking the second option. I should start by pointing out that here I’m discussing the crossings associated with light-controlled road junctions. Isolated light-controlled pedestrian crossings follow a different operating logic: the traffic is stopped only when someone presses a button at the roadside; and if the crossing hasn’t been used for several minutes, the traffic is stopped immediately.

However, the crossings associated with light-controlled junctions operate differently, and most are not pedestrian friendly. The exceptions are the junctions that have a universal pedestrian phase, where all crossings are green simultaneously. There is a sequence of three such junctions along Ma Sik Road, a dual carriageway that used to mark the northeast boundary of Fanling. There is one small problem: unless someone presses one of the buttons, the pedestrian phase doesn’t kick in. A surprising number of people don’t know this: I often see small groups of people waiting to cross the road at these junctions, but nobody has pressed the button.

Anyway, here is a closer look at some of the junctions/crossings that I have to negotiate regularly, either on foot or on my bike. The first junction I will discuss is one that I never used to go anywhere near, but with the construction work associated with the Fanling North New Development Area (NDA), I now have no other option. It is the junction between Sha Tau Kok Road, which is the main road here, and Ma Sik Road. The first two photos illustrate the problem at this junction:

Notice that the pedestrian lights in the first photo on both parts of the crossing are red. This is because a lot of traffic on the main road turns right here, and a lot of traffic off Ma Sik Road turns left (I must have taken this photo early on a Sunday, given the lack of traffic in the photo).

In the second photo, the pedestrian light is green for the second half of the crossing, yet it’s red for the first half. This means that traffic is still turning left here, while traffic in the right-hand lane of the main road has the green light to continue to turn right. This is the only time in the entire cycle when the exit road from a junction is green for pedestrians, but by the time you get the green light for the first half of the crossing, the second half has turned red again, and you will have to wait several minutes before it turns green again, hence my comment about such crossings being pedestrian unfriendly.

Crossing is easier when coming in the opposite direction. In the next photo, the second half of the crossing is green, but the first half is red. However, the only direction from which traffic may come is the left-hand lane in the second photo above, and in this case, a quick glance over the right shoulder shows that the lane is empty, so I cross:

Incidentally, this is quite a complex junction, so to illustrate the general principle of crossing when it’s safe to do so, regardless of whether the little man is red or green, I will discuss two T-junctions on Fan Leng Lau Road, which we have to negotiate whenever we cycle ‘out west’.

Although the next photo shows a red light for the first half of the crossing, I can see just from the photo that it’s safe to cross: the traffic light is red for traffic on the main road travelling in the same direction, while there is absolutely no sign of traffic coming in the opposite direction:

This is the same crossing from the opposite direction:

It isn’t possible to judge from the photo whether it’s safe to cross the second half, but there’s certainly no traffic coming in the opposite direction.

Here are two views of the second junction:

The first photo shows a green light for the first half of the crossing, which only ever happens when the second half shows a red light. However, if you cross in a leisurely manner, the second half will probably have turned green by the time you’ve negotiated the central refuge.

The second photo shows a need for more urgency in crossing. The green taxi is clearly going straight on, but the white car is probably turning right, although because it’s still almost stationary, you can still cross. Just don’t hang about! You can dawdle across the second half, because next in the cycle is the traffic travelling in the same direction.

To illustrate the kind of absurdity produced by a system in which the only time the exit from a junction is green is when the entry to the junction that corresponds with that exit is red, I will conclude with two photos of a crossing on Sha Tau Kok Road that we have to negotiate whenever we are on our way home after a bike ride. You can’t describe this junction as a crossroads; it’s just two minor roads that happen to join the main road at the same point and are governed by the same set of traffic lights:

In the first photo, the first half of the crossing is red (a minibus has just pulled out into the main road), although the second half is green. However, by the time the light for the first part of the crossing has turned green, the light for the second part has turned red again, and you will have to wait several minutes before the green man reappears. And here’s the ludicrous part: almost the only traffic that turns into this side road is coming from Fanling, and it’s subject to a discrete phase in the traffic light sequence so is easy to look out for. I’ve never seen a vehicle turn left here or cross over the main road from the other side road, although if I want to cross the main road here on a bike, I ignore the pedestrian crossing and wait on the side road for the traffic light to turn green. I may not obey the signals when crossing a road on foot or on my bike, but if I’m actually cycling on a road, I always follow any traffic lights, which a lot of cyclists ignore, both in Hong Kong and in the UK.

I should conclude this analysis by pointing out that it’s actually a legal requirement that cyclists get off and push their bikes on all road crossings, but hardly anyone does, and I think it’s safer to ride across, especially if you wait for the green man on all designated crossings, which, as I’ve just been explaining, I don’t do. However, I don’t take silly risks either.

then and now #2

There are many reasons why I like Hong Kong, why I keep coming back year after year, but one of the most compelling has always been that it keeps changing. When I came here to work in 1974, once you moved away from the main entertainment and upmarket residential districts, Hong Kong was unmistakably a third-world city, but three decades later, I wouldn’t have hesitated to describe it as a twenty-first century city, an exclusive category the members of which you can count on the fingers of one hand.

Of course, not all the changes I’ve seen over the past 47 years have been good ones, and this post documents three changes that I would have preferred not to see.

I featured a large area of star-shaped yellow flowers in Starburst last November:

I didn’t use this photo in my earlier post, but I was horrified to learn, when I cycled this way a couple of weeks ago, that this is what it looks like now:

This is a view from the opposite direction that shows the full extent of the clearance:

I don’t know why this entire area of flowers has been cleared, but I would guess that new houses will appear here in the coming months.

The ‘frontier road’ was in the so-called closed area until 2013, when it was opened up to casual visitors like me. Near the western end, there used to be a lotus pond where I often stopped to take a photo or two:

This photo was taken in January 2019, and here are two close-up photos that I took on separate occasions a month earlier:

However, this is what the pond looked like three months ago:

Aargh! This is just one, albeit particularly egregious, example of the environmental devastation that is being wrought in this area as a result of the construction of a new science park that is a joint venture between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. And while stands of star-shaped yellow flowers are relatively common—I included photos from several locations in my November post—lotus ponds are a distinct rarity (I know of just one other lotus pond, and the last time I passed that way, I learned that the area was slated for ‘development’, so the lotus pond there may no longer exist either).

Finally, this is a view from our balcony that I took in 2009, shortly after moving to our present residence:

The mountain is Lung Shan (‘Dragon Mountain’), although it is marked on Ordnance Survey maps as ‘Cloudy Hill’. However, I take a dim view of what I contemptuously refer to as ‘gweilo toponyms’. I saw the resident dragon once (photo at foot of page).

And this is a view slightly to the left that shows Pat Sin Leng (‘Eight Immortals Ridge’)—try identifying the eight summits—that I took two years later:

However, as I’ve already pointed out, things are always changing in Hong Kong. This is a recent shot of approximately the same view:

Judging by the architectural style, this will be public housing (the Hong Kong equivalent of council houses). I can no longer see the Pat Sin range, and I don’t expect to see the dragon again, but I do still have a decent view if I look in the other direction:

see also
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

an unwelcome development

There are five ways out of our village. Two are single-track roads (with passing places); one is a footpath that eventually reaches the same place as one of the roads; and one is the footpath we follow if walking into Fanling. The fifth route is the Drainage Services Department (DSD) access road that runs alongside the Ng Tung River:

Although the signs are explicit—‘No Entry’—it didn’t take us long to notice that nobody appeared to pay any attention to them, and we found that a stroll along the river was a pleasant experience, because although the DSD access road is not accessible to motor vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists could simply pass through the conveniently provided gap.

Other branches of government were clearly aware that this road was a popular leisure resource for locals:

I wrote in 2011 (Owt Fresh?) about the solar-powered streetlights that had been installed by North District Board while I’d been away in the UK for the summer, and prior to that, the Home Affairs Department had built covered seating at strategic intervals along the river, presumably after consulting the DSD. Although the DSD continued to maintain its ‘keep out’ stance (I took the above photo last winter), this prohibition has now been relaxed. ‘No Entry’ is no longer inscribed on the signs at the access point.

Unfortunately, back in October signs appeared warning people that access would be prohibited from 1st November. The signs referred to a ‘Fanling east bypass’, which struck me as both unnecessary and unwelcome. The eastern boundary of Fanling is currently defined by Ma Sik Road, a four-lane dual carriageway that carries a lot of traffic but is never congested, but between this road and the river, there is a wide area of land that was extensively cultivated when we moved here in 2008.

However, in 2011, a local property developer began fencing off the area (Turf Wars), and construction of what I imagine will eventually be a high-rise private residential estate began a couple of years ago. I suspect that the existence of this estate is the main reason behind the plan to construct a ‘bypass’ even further east.

We had been using this DSD access road regularly whenever we wanted to cycle out west, but there are alternatives. However, these involve following cycle tracks through the urban area, which I would prefer not to have to do, because they involve crossing roads at light-controlled junctions, where legally I’m required to get off and push, although I never do so. In any case, the prohibition on the DSD access road hasn’t been rigorously enforced, although some sections have been temporarily blocked off. These can be avoided by paths that only locals like myself know about, but as you can see below, the level of destruction that is envisaged here is truly horrifying, and access for cyclists, and pedestrians, will be impossible.

A few days ago, I noticed that all the trees along the river had been tagged either ‘retain’ or ‘fell’:

…and I couldn’t believe the extent of the planned destruction, which has already started:

These trees are all slated for ‘demolition’:

There are two footbridges across the river, and I’d initially assumed that the planned tree clearance applied only to the section downstream from the first bridge, but that was because the tagging process hadn’t been completed. Every tree between that first bridge and our village is also doomed:

…including two trees that are around 15 metres high:

This implies that the proposed bypass will eventually reach our village, from which, as I pointed out above, the only exits for motor vehicles are single-track roads. But there are other ‘obstacles’ in the way of clearance, and I do wonder whether they will go too. This is an example of the covered seating that I referred to above:

…while this is a pavilion and seating area, outside the DSD road, that was already there when we moved into the area:

This is a view of the final section of the road before it joins the road linking our village with the nearby village of Siu Hang:

The two eucalyptus trees in the photo are also about 15 metres tall.

The building in the previous photo is a public toilet that was opened just a couple of years ago:

Is that also slated for destruction?

Incidentally, there aren’t many trees on the river side of the DSD road, but the one in this photo has also been tagged ‘fell’, even though it has a trunk almost a metre in diameter, and it doesn’t appear to interfere with any planned new road hereabouts (I featured the red flowers that you can see in Autumn Flowers #3):

Hong Kong is always changing, but from my perspective this is one change too far!