Ship Street, Hong Kong
Ship Street is a street in Wan Chai, Hong Kong. It starts from Johnston Road, crosses Queen's Road East and goes uphill southward and reaches Kennedy Road. Part of the street is much of the century old buildings are abandoned. Locals refer to these buildings as the "Ghost House"; the story of Ship Street began in 1910s. It was near the pier in Johnston Road and thus the roads and streets in surrounding are named after navigation and the ports in China; the original stone steps of the Ship Street are well-preserved among the rapid development of Hong Kong. Before the completion of Hopewell Centre in 1980s, the street was the preferred access among the students of surrounding schools like St. Francis' Canossian College and Tung Chi College; the street is a venue for several films. Hopewell long planned a hotel project, Mega Tower Hotel at the east of the street but received opposition from the surrounding residents and environmental groups, it is because the project would involve demolition of the historical building of the famous haunted house, Nam Koo Terrace and felling of various climbing fig trees.
The lower part between Johnston Road and Queen's Road East is designated to become a pedestrianised street after the completion of a major Urban Renewal Authority project. The hotel project has been modified. In the modified planning, Nam Koo Terrace would be preserved in the project. List of streets and roads in Hong Kong
Hong Kong Tramways
Hong Kong Tramways is a 3 ft 6 in narrow-gauge heritage tram system in Hong Kong. Owned and operated by RATP Dev Transdev Asia, the tramway runs on Hong Kong Island between Kennedy Town and Shau Kei Wan, with a branch circulating through Happy Valley. Hong Kong's tram system is one of the earliest forms of public transport in the metropolis, having opened in 1904 under British rule, it has used electric trams since its inauguration, has never used horse or steam power. In addition to being used by commuters, the system is popular with tourists, is one of the most environmentally friendly ways of travelling in the city, it owns the world's largest operational double-decker tram fleet, is a rare example of a tram system that uses them exclusively. HKT is the cheapest mode of public transport on the island. 1881: Tramway system proposed for Hong Kong. 1882: The government published the Professional Tramways Ordinance. However the focus was on the Peak Tram, of more interest to the colonial government and business interests, who resided on the Peak.
As a result, there was little interest in developing the tram network along Hong Kong Island, so the policy was deferred. 1883-1888: There was an increase in the population between 1883 and 1888, from 173,475 to 215,800. The government hoped the tram system would give quick access to all areas of Victoria and reduce dependence on the chair coolies. 1901: The government started to revise the policy. Tramway system proposal accepted by Hong Kong Government. 1902: Hong Kong Tramway Electric Company, Limited founded. Name changed to Electric Traction Company of Hong Kong, Limited. 1903: Construction of a single-track system began from Kennedy Town to Causeway Bay. The tramcars were all single-deck, measured 8.8 metres long by 1.9 metres wide. 10 tramcars were designed for first class passengers and the others were for third class passengers. First-class compartments were enclosed in the centre and had two long benches on both sides, with both the front and back ends open. Seating capacity was 32 passengers.
The third-class tramcars were open-sided, with six sets of benches running crossways back-to-back, seating 48 passengers. Fares for first and third class were five cents respectively; the trams were going to be divided into three classes, but subsequently only first and third class were chosen for ease of operation. 1910: Company name changed to The Hong Kong Tramway Company, Limited. 1912: First double-decker tramcar introduced in 1912 due to strong passenger demand. The tramcar had an open-balcony design, fitted with garden-type seats; the first class occupied the upper one-third of the lower deck. Ten new tramcars constructed. 1922: Electricity contracted and supplied by Hong Kong Electric Company. Company name changed to Limited. 1925: Enclosed double-decker trams replaced open-balcony trams. 1932: North Point Depot came into service. 1934: Refuge islands began to be introduced at some busy tram stops to increase passenger safety. 1941: Japanese occupation begins. Limited service was provided. One single-decker tram was used for freight transport.
1945: After three years and eight months of Japanese occupation, all 109 tramcars remained, but only 15 were operational. By October 1945, 40 tramcars were back in service. 1949: Single-track system replaced by double-track system in August. 1950: HKT undertook an extensive redesign and started building its own trams. Tram bodies adopted a "modern" design. 1954: North Point Depot closed and Russell Street Depot expanded and renamed Sharp Street East Depot. 1964: Three locally made trams added, including the first single-deck trailer. 1965: 10 single-deck trailers introduced. Trailers were designed to serve first class passengers only. Seating capacity was 36 passengers. 1966: 22 single-deck trailers deployed during 1966–67. Trailers were withdrawn from service by 1982 due to frequent derailments and being uneconomical to run. 1967: Last trailer built by HKT. 1972: Class distinction abolished and flat fare introduced. 1974: HKT acquired by The Wharf, Limited 1976: Coin fareboxes installed at each tram front entrance, rotating turnstiles fitted at each tram rear exit.
Conductors were no longer needed and most of them retrained to become motormen. 1986: Tram refurbishment began. 1989: Sharp Street East Depot closed and depot functions split between Whitty Street Depot and Sai Wan Ho Depot. 1992: Two HKT-built double-decker tramcars exported to the Wirral Tramway in Birkenhead, UK. Point automation system deployed, manual point operation abolished. 2000: Coloured destination blinds began. HKT launches new "Millennium" trams designed and manufactured by its own engineering team on 24 October. 2001: Octopus electronic smart card payment system introduced on trams. 2004: HKT celebrates 100 years of service. 2007: Route maps reinstalled at each tram stop. New tram driving panels introduced on 7 November. 2008: Air conditioning installed on antique-style tramcar No. 128. 2009: 50% stake and operating rights obtained by Veolia Transport RATP Asia, followed by full ownership in 2010. 2011: HKT launches seventh-generation trams on 28 November 2011. It has a combination of a traditional tram body exterior.
2014: HKT celebrates 110 years of service. 2015: Following the opening of the West Island Line of the MTR, daily tramway ridership drops 10% to 180,000. 2016: HKT gives real-time estimated time of a
Wan Chai Road
Wan Chai Road is a main road in Wan Chai, on the north side of Hong Kong Island. Wan Chai Road is a L-shape road, constructed in 1851 along Morrison Hill from the foot of Hospital Hill to the beach at Observation Point; the road offers access, via Cross Lane, to the area's largest. In the 1930 and 1940s, Hong Kong funeral services used to gather in Wan Chai Road and Tin Lok Lane as the area is closed to the cemeteries in Happy Valley; the first funeral parlour in Hong Kong, named Hong Kong Funeral Home, was founded on 216 Wan Chai Road in the early 1930s, opposite a cemetery carving workshop. The coffin showroom was on Tin Lok Lane. On 5 September 1966, Hong Kong Funeral Home moved to Quarry Bay, the old parlour of Wan Chai Road still in service until its dismantling in 1967; this road and its junction with Johnston Road was a Pit Stop in the eleventh leg of the reality TV show The Amazing Race 30. Johnston Road Morrison Hill Road Land reclamation in Hong Kong Map of Wan Chai Road
Simplified Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one of the two standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language; the government of the People's Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s to encourage literacy. They are used in the People's Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong and the Republic of China. While traditional characters can still be read and understood by many mainland Chinese and the Chinese community in Malaysia and Singapore, these groups retain their use of simplified characters. Overseas Chinese communities tend to use traditional characters. Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name colloquially; the latter refers to simplifications of character "structure" or "body", character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, more complicated forms.
On the other hand, the official name refers to the modern systematically simplified character set, which includes not only structural simplification but substantial reduction in the total number of standardized Chinese characters. Simplified character forms were created by reducing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of Chinese characters; some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms. Some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the same pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character the simplest amongst all variants in form. Many characters were left untouched by simplification, are thus identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies; some simplified characters are dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters in those where a component is replaced by a simple symbol.
This has led some opponents of simplification to complain that the'overall process' of character simplification is arbitrary. Proponents counter that the system of simplification is internally consistent. Proponents have emphasized a some particular simplified characters as innovative and useful improvements, although many of these have existed for centuries as longstanding and widespread variants. A second round of simplifications was promulgated in 1977, but was retracted in 1986 for a variety of reasons due to the confusion caused and the unpopularity of the second round simplifications. However, the Chinese government never dropped its goal of further simplification in the future. In August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters; the new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was implemented for use by the State Council of the People's Republic of China on June 5, 2013. Although most of the simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the works moderated by the government of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s and 60s, character simplification predates the PRC's formation in 1949.
Cursive written text always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print are attested as early as the Qin dynasty. One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lufei Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China. Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and therefore proposed that a reform be initiated, it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or abolished. Lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, "If Chinese characters are not destroyed China will die". Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the economic problems in China during that time. In the 1930s and 1940s, discussions on character simplification took place within the Kuomintang government, a large number of Chinese intellectuals and writers maintained that character simplification would help boost literacy in China.
In 1935, 324 simplified characters collected by Qian Xuantong were introduced as the table of first batch of simplified characters, but they were suspended in 1936. The PRC issued its first round of official character simplifications in two documents, the first in 1956 and the second in 1964. Within the PRC, further character simplification became associated with the leftists of the Cultural Revolution, culminating with the second-round simplified characters, which were promulgated in 1977. In part due to the shock and unease felt in the wake of the Cultural Revolution and Mao's death, the second-round of simplifications was poorly received. In 1986 the authorities retracted the second round completely. In the same year, the authorities promulgated a final list of simplifications, identical to the 1964 list except for six changes (including the restoration of three characters, simplified in the First Round: 叠, 覆, 像.
Traditional Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most the characters in the standardized character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong and Macau, in the Kangxi Dictionary; the modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han Dynasty, have been more or less stable since the 5th century. The retronym "traditional Chinese" is used to contrast traditional characters with Simplified Chinese characters, a standardized character set introduced by the government of the People's Republic of China on Mainland China in the 1950s. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau. In contrast, Simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China and Malaysia in official publications. However, several countries – such as Australia, the US and Canada – are increasing their number of printed materials in Simplified Chinese, to better accommodate citizens from mainland China.
The debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. A large number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both character sets. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of China, there is no prohibition against the use of traditional characters. Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China in handwriting and used for inscriptions and religious text, they are retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear. Nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. In Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, simplified Chinese characters in Hong Kong and Macau has appeared to accommodate Mainland Chinese tourists and immigrants; this has led to concerns by many residents to protect their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters.
The use of simplified characters in official documents is prohibited by the government of Taiwan. Simplified characters are understood to a certain extent by any educated Taiwanese, learning to read them takes little effort; some stroke simplifications that have been incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, the semi-simplified name 台灣 is acceptable to write in official documents. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification. While major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, United Daily News still use traditional characters. On the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores.
In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub, used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan. This is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters. Overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the latter half of the 19th century, before the standardization of simplified characters. Therefore, United States public notices and signage in Chinese are in Traditional Chinese. Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world; the government of Taiwan calls traditional Chinese characters standard characters or orthodox characters. However, the same term is used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard and traditional characters from variant and idiomatic characters. In contrast, users of traditional characters outside Taiwan, such as those in Hong Kong and overseas Chinese communities, users of simplified Chinese characters, call them complex characters.
An informal name sometimes used by users of simplified characters is "old characters". Users of traditional characters sometimes refer them as "Full Chinese characters" to distinguish them from simplified Chinese characters; some traditional character users argue that traditional characters are the original form of the Chinese characters and cannot be called "complex". Simplified characters cannot be "standard" because they are not used in all Chinese-speaking regions. Conversely, supporters of simplified Chinese characters object to the description of traditional characters as "standard," since they view the new simplified characters as the contemporary standard used by the vast majority of Chinese speakers, they point out that traditional characters are not traditional as many Chinese characters have been made more elaborate over time. Some people refer to traditional characters as "proper characters" and modernized characters as "simplified-stroke characters" (sim
Queensway (Hong Kong)
Queensway is a major road in the Admiralty area of Central, Hong Kong. It was a section of Queen's Road East, to its east, part of the continuum of Queen's Road that by the years after World War II had come to be known separately as Queen's Road West, Queen's Road Central, Queen's Road East. At its western end it splits into Queen's Road Central and Des Voeux Road Central while at its eastern end it merges into Hennessy Road, at the junction with Queen's Road East. Queensway was formally separated and given its own name when the extensive military and naval sites that dominated this area were resumed by the Government for development, around the 1960s, its Chinese name can be translated as Golden Bell Road, a reference to a notable bell once located in the adjacent Admiralty Dock, does not include'Queen'. The road is one of only a handful in the territory to have a name consisting of a single word. Other examples are Glenealy and Broadway; because of this, influenced by the suffix 道 in its Chinese name, the thoroughfare is sometimes mistakenly called Queensway Road.
Despite being only about 600 metres long, the road includes a number of significant locations. Along the "hill" side of the road are, from west to east: Cheung Kong Centre. On the "waterfront" side of the road from west to east: Chater Garden, site of Hong Kong's former main cricket ground; until the 1980s, both sides of the road were British military sites. To its south were Wellington Barracks, Murray Barracks and Victoria Barracks, while to the north lay the Admiralty Dock. Flagstaff House was the residence of the Commander British Forces of Hong Kong between 1842 and 1978; these were replaced as Central district expanded. The road was not as straight as at present. Two close bends in the midsection formed an S-shape, known as the death bend of Queensway as it was the site of frequent traffic accidents between vehicles and trams. Straightening of the road was planned from as early as 1968 and carried out in 1974 with the official completion taking place on 12 January 1975. Present-day Queensway is much wider.
Its carriageways are separated by the lines of the famous Hong Kong trams. At no point along its length are pedestrians allowed to cross the road at ground level. Instead, there are a number of footbridges, which provide access to the tramway stop islands. Although it is a major road, Queensway is part of the route taken by marches and protests including the annual July 1 marches; as part of the 2014 Hong Kong protests in Admiralty, protesters have occupied all traffic lanes of Queensway beginning 26 September 2014. The protesters have set up barricades to block vehicle access; the Hong Kong police have removed these barricades, the road was re-opened to traffic in the afternoon of 14 October 2014. List of streets and roads in Hong Kong Murray House, in Stanley, located along the road, before being moved. Google Maps of Queensway
