bougainvillea boogie #3

In addition to photographing flowers for my recent autumn flowers collections, I’ve also been trying to record the many examples of bougainvillea that I come across when cycling around the New Territories. Unfortunately, there have been almost no examples in the last couple of months to match the spectacular displays that I’ve seen in recent years. Instead, the solid mass of colour that I associate with this common tropical plant has been distinctly patchy, broken up by large areas of green.

However, when I checked the folder in which I keep my photos of bougainvillea, I was surprised to discover that I’d been accumulating photos over the past couple of years with the intention of posting them once I’d amassed enough. So here they are.

The first photo was probably taken in one of the villages south of Sha Tau Kok Road that make up the area known as Lung Yeuk Tau:

The next photo was taken in a public park adjoining a private housing estate just north of the floating restaurant in Shatin and shows what is probably the most spectacular bougainvillea display that I’ve seen anywhere:

The next three photos were taken on the same day as the previous image, but I cannot now recognize the locations:

I included a photo of the next specimen in Bougainvillea Boogie, but if you compare, this is a more impressive display:

And this is an example just around the corner to the left of the previous location:

Both the previous photos were taken along an unnamed road that forms part of ‘the final frontier’ bike ride, east of Fanling.

The next two photos were taken of quasi-industrial yards in the same general area:

The next two photos are of the same plant, taken from different angles—something that is usually impossible. I don’t recognize the location:

The next two photos are also of the same plant taken from different angles. The second photo reveals a third example of bougainvillea on the opposite side of the road:

In between taking the two previous photos, I took this one, which is of no help to me in remembering the location:

The next photo is also of a quasi-industrial yard, although exactly where this was taken has also been forgotten:

The same comment applies to the next photo, which was taken on the same day as the previous one:

The remaining photos were taken in the last couple of months, this one in the village of Chau Tau, northwest of Fanling:

Judging by other photos taken on the same day, the next photo was taken somewhere northeast of Fanling, but even if I look at the uncropped photo, I’m struggling to identify the exact location:

Both the next two photos were taken in the village of Heung Tuen Wai, which is located northeast of Fanling and was in the frontier closed area until 2016:

I wrote about this interesting village in Disappearing World #3.

The final photo was taken on a narrow path that I walk or cycle along regularly close to the walled village of Tung Kok Wai. I’m not sure why I haven’t included it in previous bougainvillea reports, because I must have photographed this bougainvillea before:

By the way, in case you didn’t realize, what you’re seeing in these photos are not flowers! Bougainvillea Boogie explains this apparent conundrum, and in case you think that bougainvillea is always some shade of red, Bougainvillea Boogie #2 provides quite a few examples in other colours.

hidden history #5

When we moved to our present house, in a village east of Fanling, in 2008, it didn’t take me long to notice ‘something’ near the top a hill to the northeast that was visible from our balcony. I took this photo in November 2008:

At the time, I merely assumed that it was a more than usually elaborate grave. After all, there are probably thousands of graves on the hillsides of the New Territories, like these two, located only a little further west on the same ridge:

A few years later, after it appeared to have been repainted and stood out more clearly, I decided to look at this feature through binoculars and thought that it appeared to be a British Army regimental crest. One of these days, I thought, we should go up and take a closer look. However, there were other things that took priority, notably cycling, and it wasn’t until last Saturday—it was too cold for cycling—that we finally got around to taking that closer look.

We already knew that there was a military road running along the ridge, because we’d walked along the western section several times when we first moved here. I even tried cycling along it a few years ago, starting at the western end, but I gave up after the first three hills (Military Madness), for reasons that will be obvious when you look at these photos, which I took on Saturday:

Obviously, this is just an impression, but the maximum gradients are probably close to 40 percent. You feel as though you can reach out and touch the road in front of you as you walk up some of these hills.

Following our roller-coaster walk, the final approach to our objective was merely gentle undulations:

Unfortunately, it proved to be impossible to photograph the entire feature from the narrow angles that were available. These are two shots taken by Paula, first from the bottom:

…and then from the top:

Almost all of what you can see in the valley in the second picture is what was known as Gallipoli Lines in British Army days but is now occupied by the PLA, our noisy neighbours.

This is the best I could manage, a shot from the left-hand side:

The entire feature is a 7–8-metre square, turned through 45 degrees so that opposite corners are at the top and bottom. It does look like a badge or crest of some kind, and the two dragons suggest a Welsh regiment. However, when I googled the first two words of the motto at the bottom—I couldn’t have seen the rest unless I’d scrambled up the right-hand side—I learned that it is in fact the motto of the Royal Hong Kong Regiment, which was disbanded in 1995 in the run-up to the handover of Britain’s former colony to China two years later. I guess that the site is still being maintained by former members of the regiment, and I wonder what the reaction of the PLA would be to being overlooked by the badge of an outfit that once considered itself nulli secundus in oriente (‘second to none in the orient’)!

Having ventured much further east than we’d ever done previously, we thought that we might as well continue east and see where it returns to street level. I’d already guessed that it was at a steep incline leading off a road that we follow on the ‘final frontier’ bike ride. And I was right!

As is the case when accessing this road from the west, there is a long and I imagine comparably painful climb to start with:

I had hoped that we might come across some kind of plaque or tablet that provided information as to when this road was built, and for what purpose, but we couldn’t find anything. However, there is a gate:

There isn’t a gate of any kind at the western end of this road, and I can’t imagine that this one has been closed for decades.

other posts in this series
Hidden History.
Hidden History #2.
Hidden History #3.
Hidden History #4.
Hidden History #6

celebration

Because of construction work being carried out along our local river, we’ve been taking an alternative route whenever we go cycling out west. That alternative involves following dedicated cycle tracks through Fanling and Sheung Shui, and whenever we’ve cycled along Jockey Club Road recently, I couldn’t help but notice that a village arch was being constructed spanning the road leading to Fanling Wai.

Such archways are relatively uncommon, although I’ve noticed that four new ones have been built in the areas where I cycle in the past few years. However, each of these has been erected at the entrances to villages whose lands have been traversed by a new elevated highway that originates in Shenzhen, and I conjecture that their construction has been by way of compensation for that intrusion.

And there has been no such intrusion in the vicinity of Fanling Wai, so I did wonder why an archway was being built here. Yesterday, I decided to take a closer look—and some photos. Unfortunately, it was almost impossible to take many good shots, because the sky was completely devoid of clouds, meaning that many of the things that I wanted to photograph were in the shade and therefore came out as little more than silhouettes.

I came back again this morning, this time with Paula, because I wanted to find out, if possible, why what appeared to be a major celebration was taking place. I would never have noticed, but my wife picked up an expensively produced and lavishly illustrated free booklet that provided a detailed account of the presence of the Pang clan in the area over the past 70 years. It will take some time to translate everything in the booklet, but in the meantime, here are a few photos that provide a sense of how elaborate the celebrations have been here.

This is a view of the new arch from the inside:

…and this is a closer view of the arch, which has a wider span than any other village arch I’ve seen, although that is merely because it spans a wider road than in other cases:

Note the two dragons facing each other on the roof ridge, with a pearl between them. There are also two dragons facing each other on the bas-relief on the crossbeam. Note too the fish, which are a symbol of longevity in Chinese culture. The flared-up corners of the tiled roofs are also dragon heads, which is unusual.

Referring back to the first photo above, you may have noticed that I included a strange figure on the right housed in his own shelter. This is a better view:

…and this is a close-up:

Paraphrasing the inscription: “I may be ugly, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t have positive qualities, such as kind-heartedness and generosity.” I actually thought, when I first saw it, that this was a representation of some deity or other.

This is a view looking away from the arch towards the wai (‘walled enclosure’):

…while this a view of the same row of celebratory ‘posters’ from the opposite direction:

Each of these features two chengyu (‘four-character idioms’) expressing various forms of blessing.

These are two views from the same position as that for the previous photo, looking to the left:

This is a general view of the scene at the end of the ‘street’ shown in the previous two photos:

…while this is a closer look at the structure on the left, which appears to be a kind of temporary theatre:

…and this is a closer look to the right:

There is what appears to be a temporary temple directly opposite the theatre, but I couldn’t get a decent photo because of the position of the sun. The Tang clan’s permanent temple is actually located on the other side of Jockey Club Road:

You can see the singularly unusual door gods guarding this temple in More Door Gods #2, where you can also see the door gods guarding the Pang Ancestral Hall. This is a view of the hall’s dong chung, which prevents the entry of evil spirits. If I were an evil spirit, I wouldn’t want to take on this splendidly painted dragon:

Incidentally, this ancestral hall is rarely open, but it was this morning. I’d been inside before, but Paula hadn’t, so we went in for a closer look. Like the temple, the friezes and other painted surfaces have been renewed recently.

Finally, here are two views looking along the front of the wai:

The temporary structure in the first photo, which obscures the entrance to the wai, houses a fortune teller!

When I walked past here yesterday, I didn’t realize that there was anything written on this long red strip—black on red doesn’t show up too well—but it seems that the names of every member of the Pang clan, past and present, are recorded here.

Incidentally, in case you hadn’t guessed, red is the lucky colour in Chinese culture.

oriental garden

You’ve probably guessed that I like to attach names to individual cycling segments that I ride through regularly. Of course, these names are not arbitrary. Thus, ‘serendipity’ was given its name because I discovered it entirely by accident—a large truck was blocking my usual route between two roads—while ‘swiss roll’ was so named because in order to reach it, it’s necessary to pass, briefly, through an upmarket housing estate in which all the streets are named after cities in Switzerland.

In the case of ‘oriental garden’, an alleyway that connects Kam Hang Road and an unnamed road that runs parallel to the expressway that connects the towns of the New Territories, there is a sign indicating that it leads to Tung Yuen, which is Cantonese for ‘east garden’. The unnamed road is a dead end, which all but guarantees that there will be no traffic, so we’ve cycled through it frequently since I discovered it a few years ago.

Although there are a lot of twists and turns, this convenient connection doesn’t have any difficult corners or steep ramps to negotiate. It’s just a useful ride-through that allows us to avoid the traffic on Kam Hang Road, and of course it’s more fun. I did discover an alternative start with a ramp that Paula found particularly difficult, but that alley, which joined the route we now follow about halfway along, has since been deliberately blocked beyond the ramp and is no longer feasible.

However, ‘oriental garden’ does have one unusual hazard. Cats! Lots of them. The problem is that cats have an over-developed sense of danger, so even when they would be perfectly safe if only they were to stay where they were, they panic. Unlike dogs, which are often so laid back that they can’t be bothered to get up, even if you pass within 40–50cm of where they’re lying, cats are likely to rush off in a totally unpredictable and potentially dangerous direction. I haven’t killed one yet, but that is probably because my bike has disc brakes.

Anyway, there follow a few video stills to provide some idea of what this alleyway is like. This is the start:

These are some shots of the alley itself:

I haven’t included any images of the twists and turns, because Paula isn’t in shot at any point.

And this is the exit:

You will get a better idea of what this alley is like to cycle through if you watch the video, which lasts just 80 seconds: