The City of Sadness.

Gazing through the moon gate.

Today I went to Tin Shui Wai to explore two really quite beautiful parks. Tin Shui Wai, a new town in the North Western New Territories, has a bit of a bad reputation and even used to be referred to as 'The City of Sadness'.

Right up until the early 1990's the area that is now known as Tin Shui Wai was, like a lot of the Northern New Territories, an area of fishponds. Hong Kong is constantly short of affordable housing, so it was decided to reclaim the land here and build public housing on it. The new housing provided homes for around 270,000 people. Tin Shui Wai literally translates into English as 'Sky Water Walled Village'.

So what went wrong with 'Sky Water Walled Village'? Well, the housing provided was very small and cramped. Most areas of Hong Kong have some areas of public housing mixed in with private housing. Here was almost exclusively public housing, meaning the people were generally poorer than in many other areas. Many of the people offered housing here were from rural areas of Mainland China. This was a very different lifestyle to the one they had known before and many people had problems adapting to their new environment. There was a high rate of unemployment here and at one time it was far from everywhere else. It isn't any more as there has been so much building in nearby areas. There was a lack of services and a lack of transport. Crime, especially youth crime, quickly became a problem. Several popular Hong Kong films, such as: 'The Way We Were' and 'Besieged City,' were set here and depicted the hardships and problems of life in this area. All of this contributed to 'The City of Sadness' image.

However, things are gradually getting better. Transport links are greatly improved and services are considerably better than they used to be. The Northern New Territories are close to the border with Mainland China and this area is set to be majorly developed in the near future. Whether this is good or bad and how it will affect people here remains to be seen. I would imagine it will bring in more jobs and people won't have to commute so far to get to them.

I have been to this area several times and I have always rather liked it, but then I am only going to the pleasant bits such as the Ping Shan Heritage Trail, Wetlands Park, or climbing Kai Shan Hill. I don't live here, so my impression probably isn't entirely accurate.

On my visit today I noticed a lot of aspects that were very reminiscent of Mainland China: such as people taking their birds for a walk in their cages, elderly people singing in the park, elderly people playing croquet, lots of people doing tai chi or taking part in outdoor exercise sessions. These are all things I find quite interesting and that we encountered in parks in Beijing years ago.

Taking pet birds for a walk.

Doing tai chi.

Today I went to two parks, starting with the larger one - Tin Shui Wai Park. I walked there from the MTR by exiting through exit D onto Tin Fuk Road. I crossed the road on a bridge and then went right. I walked to Tin Shing Road then headed left. It is around a fifteen minute walk. It is also possible to get here by LRT, light rail transit.

Tin Shui Wai Park Sign.

Map of Tin Shui Wai Park.

Tin Shui Wai Park.

When I arrived at the park, I was almost deafened by all the groups of people who were either singing or practising musical instruments. They were all quite close to each other, but all playing different tunes. The noise was just one big mess. No idea how they could concentrate. I remember my friend Agnes who lives in Tuen Mun, describing the park there as really noisy. I've only been there once and it was actually very peaceful, except for a dramatic thunderstorm. I think there was a clampdown on people being allowed to play music there. Maybe all the noisy people moved here!!!

On a more positive note Tin Shui Wai Park had beautiful, well tended gardens, filled with lots of colourful flowers.

Siam tulips.

Pink rain lily.

Glory bower.

Impatience.

Beautiful flowers.

It also had quite a lot of sports facilities, such as: a sports ground, tennis courts, a jogging track and a croquet lawn.

Sports ground.

Playing croquet.

There were also lots of statues, dotted around the park, both traditional ones and very modern ones.

Statue Looking the worse for wear.

Statue of a girl.

Flying towards the rainbows.

Walking couple.

There was a palm tree garden, a fountain plaza and a large artificial lake. It's pleasant to stroll around this and there are shady areas to sit in.

Palm trees.

Fountain plaza.

Lake.

Lake.

Lake.

Seating area.

The lake had some colourful water-lilies and lotus blossoms covering part of it. I spent quite a bit of time here taking photos.

Lotus blossoms.

Lotus blossoms.

Water-lilies.

Water-lilies.

Water-lilies.

Turtle.

I didn't investigate them, but there were also supposed to be play areas for children.

Between this park and the second park there was an area named Ginza. This is a large public square with two shopping centres. I didn't go inside, but I could see there were several restaurants in there. The outside of the shopping centres had lots of mirrors which showed multiple reflections of everything in Ginza Square

Ginza Square.

Ginza Square.

Ginza Square.

From Ginza Square I went down into a subway and emerged at Dragon Park. This was really the park I had come to see, as I had seen some pictures of it online and liked the look of it.

Dragon Park was created in 2007. It's a traditional Chinese Jiangnan style park. This is a style of Chinese garden, usually centred around a water feature. It usually has pavilions, walkways, small hills and bridges. It's like a huge landscape is being depicted on a much smaller scale, so the ponds, stand for lakes, mounds for hills, sharp pointy rocks for mountains. There are several such parks in Hong Kong and many more in Mainland China.

Dragon Park.

Dragon Park information board.

Dragon Park is a long thin park separated into three areas by roads. Fortunately, these roads aren't too busy.

I think the first area I went into was actually phase three of the park. This was the plainest of the three areas. It had an interesting sculpture and some fairly modern landscape features.

Sculpture.

Landscape feature.

The middle area of the park is beautiful. It has a large pond surrounded by wooden walkways. There are paintings decorating the walls of the walkways. There is an area for doing tai chi.

Entrance to part two of the park.

Rock

Courtyard.

Through the gate.

Through the gate.

The pond.

The pond and walkways.

The pond and walkways.

The pond.

Rock feature in the pond

Fish in the pond.

Artwork decorating the walkways.

Artwork decorating the walkways.

Frog statue.

Bonsai.

Bonsai.

The third section I went to, which I think was phase one, had a mound with a pavilion on top. Behind it there were tall narrow rocks sticking up. I think these represent mountains. There was a water feature and a play area for children here, too.

Dragon pillar at the entrance to the third part I visited.

Through the moon gate.

Park walls.

Water feature.

Pavilion on the mound.

These rocks represent mountains.

Dragon rock.

I had intended to head back to the MTR, but I passed a bus stop with buses going to the airport, so I took one of these to Tung Chung instead. This was a much cheaper and faster, way to get home, though the bus was rather full. I got almost the last seat.

In Tung Chung I did some shopping. I found honey hoops for Peter. He likes these for breakfast but all the Wellcomes seem to have sold out of them. Amazingly the Wellcomes here had ten boxes of honey hoops. I bought him three. Hopefully that will keep him happy for a while.