1.
Hong Kong Island
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Hong Kong Island is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. It has a population of 1,289,500 and its density is 16, 390/km². The island had a population of about 3,000 inhabitants scattered in a dozen fishing villages when it was occupied by the United Kingdom in the First Opium War, the Central area on the island is the historical, political and economic centre of Hong Kong. The northern coast of the forms the southern shore of the Victoria Harbour. The island is home to many of the most famous sights in Hong Kong, such as The Peak, Ocean Park, many historical sites, the mountain ranges across the island are also famous for hiking. The northern part of Hong Kong Island, together with Kowloon and Tsuen Wan New Town and their combined area is approximately 88.3 square kilometres and their combined population is approximately 3,156,500, reflecting a population density of 35, 700/km². The island is referred to locally as Hong Kong side or Island side. This style was applied to many locations but is now only heard in this form and Kowloon side. Hong Kong Island comprises the following suburbs/localities of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Island is not part of the Islands District, Hong Kong island became a colony of the British Empire when their forces defeated the Chinese in the First Opium War. The island was populated by only a few thousand people when British empire colonized it, the Second World War was a dark period for Hong Kong. In the 1930s, the British anticipated a Japanese attack on Hong Kong, as Wong Nai Chung Gap was a strategic important place of defence, large-scale defensive works were constructed there, including anti-aircraft batteries, howitzers, and machine gun nests. The Battle of Hong Kong began on 8 December 1941, British, Canadian, Indian armies and the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Forces resisted the Japanese invasion commanded by Sakai Takashi, which began eight hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, the Japanese were able to control of the Hong Kong skies on the first day of attack. The defenders retreated from the Gin Drinkers Line and consequently from Kowloon under heavy aerial bombardment, on 18 December, the Japanese had conquered North Point, reaching Wong Nai Chung Gap on the next day. However, Allied forces there were defeated by the Japanese on 23 December. As Wan Chai Gap had also fallen that day, the British had no choice. Hong Kong was surrendered on 25 December 1941, thereafter often called Black Christmas by locals. The Governor of Hong Kong, Mark Young, surrendered in person at the temporary Japanese headquarters, on the floor of the Peninsula Hotel
2.
Traditional Chinese characters
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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 commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. 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, and 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 that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and 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 half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
3.
Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
4.
Chinese dragon
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Chinese dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and Chinese folklore. The dragons have many forms such as turtles, fish, and imaginary. Chinese dragons traditionally symbolize potent and auspicious powers, particularly control over water, rainfall, typhoons, the dragon is also a symbol of power, strength, and good luck for people who are worthy of it. With this, the Emperor of China usually used the dragon as a symbol of his imperial power and strength. In Chinese daily language, excellent and outstanding people are compared to a dragon, while people with no achievements are compared with other, disesteemed creatures. A number of Chinese proverbs and idioms feature references to a dragon, historically, the dragon was associated with the Emperor of China and used a symbol to represent imperial power. The founder of Han dynasty Liu Bang claimed that he was conceived after his mother dreamt of a dragon, during the Tang dynasty, Emperors wore robes with dragon motif as an imperial symbol, and high officials might also be presented with dragon robes. In the Yuan dynasty, the two-horned five-clawed dragon was designated for use by the Son of Heaven or Emperor only, similarly during the Ming and Qin dynasty, the five-clawed dragon was strictly reserved for use by the Emperor only. The dragon in the Qing dynasty appeared on the first Chinese national flag, the dragon is sometimes used in the West as a national emblem of China. However, this usage within either the Peoples Republic of China or the Republic of China on Taiwan as the symbol of nation is not common, instead, it is generally used as the symbol of culture. In Hong Kong, the dragon was on the Coat of arms of Hong Kong during colonial time, now it is part of the design of Brand Hong Kong, a symbol used to promote Hong Kong as an international brand name. The dragon is the symbol of Chinese emperor in many dynasties, during the Qing dynasty, the Azure Dragon was featured on the first Chinese national flag, until Qing collapsed. It featured shortly again on the Twelve Symbols national emblem, which was used during the Republic of China, the ancient Chinese self-identified as the descendants of the dragon because the Chinese dragon is an imagined reptile that represents evolution from the ancestors and qi energy. Some of the earliest Dragon artifacts are the pig dragon carvings from the Hongshan culture, the coiled dragon or snake form played an important role in early Chinese culture. The character for dragon in the earliest Chinese writing has a coiled form. Ancient Chinese referred to unearthed dinosaur bones as dragon bones and documented them as such, for example, Chang Qu in 300 BC documents the discovery of dragon bones in Sichuan. The modern Chinese word for dinosaur is konglong, and villagers in central China have long unearthed fossilized dragon bones for use in traditional medicines, the binomial name for a variety of dinosaurs discovered in China, Mei long, in Chinese means sleeping dragon. From its origins as totems or the depiction of natural creatures
5.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
6.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
7.
Hakka Chinese
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Hakka is not mutually intelligible with Yue, Wu, Southern Min, Mandarin or other branches of Chinese, and itself contains a few mutually unintellegible varieties. It is most closely related to Gan and is classified as a variety of Gan. There is also a possibility that the similarities are just a result of shared areal features, Taiwan, where Hakka is the native language of a significant minority of the islands residents, is a center for the study and preservation of the language. Pronunciation differences exist between the Taiwanese Hakka dialects and Mainland Chinas Hakka dialects, even in Taiwan, two local varieties of Hakka exist. The Meixian dialect of northeast Guangdong in China has been taken as the dialect by the Peoples Republic of China. The Guangdong Provincial Education Department created a romanization of Moiyen in 1960. The name of the Hakka people who are the predominant original native speakers of the variety literally means guest families or guest people, Hak 客 means guest, and ka 家 means family. Among themselves, Hakka people variously called their language Hak-ka-fa 客家話, Hak-fa, 客話, Tu-gong-dung-fa 土廣東話, literally Native Guangdong language, and Ngai-fa 我話, My/our language. The forebears of the Hakka came from present-day Central Plains provinces of Henan and Shaanxi, the presence of many archaic features occur in modern Hakka, including final consonants -p -t -k, as are found in other modern southern Chinese varieties, but which have been lost in Mandarin. Due to the migration of its speakers, Hakka may have influenced by other language areas through which the Hakka-speaking forebears migrated. For instance, common vocabulary is found in Hakka, Min, in recent times, many She people have become Hakka speakers. A regular pattern of change can generally be detected in Hakka, as in most Chinese varieties. Some examples, Characters such as 武 or 屋, are pronounced roughly mwio and uk in Early Middle Chinese, have an initial v phoneme in Hakka, being vu and vuk in Hakka respectively. Like in Mandarin, labiodentalisation process also changed mj- to a sound in Hakka before grave vowels. Middle Chinese initial phonemes /ɲ/ of the characters 人 and 日, among others, for comparison, in Mandarin, /ɲ/ became r-, while in Cantonese, it merged with initial /j/. The initial consonant phoneme exhibited by the character 話 is pronounced f or v in Hakka, the initial consonant of 學 hɔk usually corresponds with an h approximant in Hakka and a voiceless alveo-palatal fricative in Mandarin. Hakka has as many regional dialects as there are counties with Hakka speakers as the majority, some of these Hakka dialects are not mutually intelligible with each other. Surrounding Meixian are the counties of Pingyuan, Dabu, Jiaoling, Xingning, Wuhua, each is said to have its own special phonological points of interest
8.
Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
9.
Hong Kong
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Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia. Macau lies across the delta to the west, and the Chinese province of Guangdong borders the territory to the north. With a total area of 1,106 square kilometres. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during World War II until British control resumed in 1945, under the principle of one country, two systems, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative, in addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of appropriate fields. Hong Kong is one of the worlds most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the worlds most competitive and freest economic entity. As the worlds 8th largest trading entity, its legal tender, Hong Kongs tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by its independent judiciary system. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and it has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the worlds longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring areas of Mainland China. Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island, before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour, literally means Little Hong Kong)—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was a point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time, fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbours fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour, the name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric. As of 1997, its name is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. This is the title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law. Hong Kong has carried many nicknames, the most famous among those is the Pearl of the Orient, which reflected the impressive nightscape of the citys light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour
10.
Kowloon Peninsula
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The Kowloon Peninsula is a peninsula that forms the southern part of the main landmass in the territory of Hong Kong. The Kowloon Peninsula and the area of New Kowloon are collectively known as Kowloon, geographically, the term Kowloon Peninsula may also refer to the area south of the mountain ranges of Beacon Hill, Lion Rock, Tates Cairn, Kowloon Peak, etc. The peninsula covers five of the eighteen districts of Hong Kong, Kowloon Bay is located at the northeast of the peninsula. The main rock type of the consists of a medium grained monzogranite with some fine granite outcrops. Early maps and photographs show flat, low-lying land behind the beach of Tsim Sha Tsui Bay with an area, Kowloon Hill. The peninsula has been expanded through land reclamation from the sea. In the south and west most of the reclamation was carried out before 1904, Reclamation in several other small areas along the main Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront was completed by 1982. The West Kowloon Reclamation was formed as part of the Airport Core Programme, before the actual Kowloon boundaries were established, the Kowloon Peninsula served as one of the first destinations for escape during Chinas dynastic times. In 1287, the last emperor of the Song Dynasty, Emperor Bing was fleeing from the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, taking refuge in a cave in the Kowloon peninsula, the inscription wrote Sung Wong Toi or Song Emperors Pavilion. In the 17th century, after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Kowloon Peninsula had a population of 800 when it was ceded to the British empire in 1860. In 1898 a resolution was passed by the Colonial Hong Kong Legislative Council to preserve the land where some of the caves stand, boundary Street Islands and peninsulas of Hong Kong Kowloon List of buildings, sites and areas in Hong Kong New Kowloon
11.
New Kowloon
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New Kowloon is an area in Kowloon, Hong Kong, bounded in the south by Boundary Street, and in the north by the ranges of the Lion Rock, Beacon Hill, Tates Cairn and Kowloon Peak. It covers the present-day Kwun Tong District and Wong Tai Sin District, historically, the territory south of Boundary Street was ceded by Qing dynasty China to Great Britain in 1860 under the Convention of Peking. The area of New Kowloon was defined by law in 1937 to increase land available for urban development, for example, a postal address in Kwun Tong will identify Kowloon as its regional destination, even though it is technically in New Kowloon. In modern-day conversations, the term New Kowloon is now heard in Hong Kong. New Kowloon is no longer regarded as part of the New Territories, nevertheless, the legal definitions of Kowloon, New Kowloon and New Territories remain unchanged - New Kowloon has remained legally part of the New Territories instead of Kowloon. On July 1,1997, the territories on both sides of Boundary Street were transferred to the China, along with the rest of Hong Kong, the designation New Kowloon still has some legal implications, however. History of Hong Kong Kowloon New Territories Definition of New Kowloon in the Laws of Hong Kong as defined in 1937, Cap 1 SCHED5, Hong Kong Laws
12.
Lei Yue Mun
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Lei Yue Mun is a short channel in Hong Kong, between Junk Bay and Victoria Harbour, separating Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. The channel is an important passage in the South China Sea and it is the east gate of Victoria Harbour. The lands around the channel are also called Lei Yue Mun, on Kowloon side, it is famous for its seafood market and restaurants in the fishing villages. On the Hong Kong Island side, it has former military defence facilities, the temple was built in 1753 and completely reconstructed in 1953. A Hip Tin Temple adjacent to the Tin Hau Temple was added after 1953 for the worship of Kwan Tai, Bus, Kowloon Motor Bus operates bus no. 14X between Sam Ka Tsuen and China Ferry Terminal, minibus, Red minibus service is available between Kwun Tong and Lei Yue Mun
13.
Mei Foo Sun Chuen
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Mei Foo Sun Chuen or simply Mei Foo is a large private housing estate in Lai Chi Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is considered to be one of the worlds largest privately financed residential condominium project, the redevelopment was carried out by Mei Foo Investments Limited, a subsidiary company of Mobil Oil Limited. Mei Foo Sun Chuen was conceived to meet the needs of Hong Kongs middle-income families. At the time, a flat in Mei Foo cost around HK$40,000, the residential complexes of Mei Foo were considered grand for the standards at the time they were built, every flat offers a balcony, at least two rooms and one bathroom. The apartment sizes vary from 600 to 1,800 square feet, every apartment complex has a 24-hour uniformed, unarmed security force. Entry to a residential block requires a code, which changes periodically. The private secondary schools in particular were notable for poor students However, as education policy change. The once largest owners corporation with legal status in Hong Kong, the founder of the corporation, Yiu Chi-Wai, served as the Chairman of the Management Committee from 1997 to 2000. The other seven stages owners corporations were formed during the period. Mei Foo is on the crossroad between Kowloon and Tsuen Wan and it is also considered part of the west border of urban Kowloon. Kwai Chung Road and Lai Chi Kok Bridge are the roads in the area. A major bus terminus is located under the Kwai Chung Road underpass, serving as a terminus for multiple bus routes. The MTR rapid transit railway services Mei Foo Station is connected to the Tsuen Wan Line, completed in 1982, alternate forms of public transport like minibuses and taxis also service the estate. In 2009, the new Route 8 tunnels opened near Mei Foo, number of route in Mei Foo Bus Terminus, Kowloon Motor Bus Route No.102, 2A,6, 6C, 38A, 46X,86, 98C Night bus, Kowloon Motor Bus Route No. N122, N260, N269, N241 DBS Bank Safe Deposit Box Destruction Incident The Lai Chi Kok Park is a public area near the estate. The indoor sports centre has squash courts, basketball courts, ballet studios, the swimming facility is quite large. It contains 3 training pools,2 main pools, two pools, and a diving pool. The Mei Foo skatepark is the largest skatepark in Hong Kong and it contains two half pipes and several quarter pipes, single rails and fun boxes
14.
Stonecutters Island
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Stonecutters Island is a former island in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong. Following land reclamation, it is now attached to the Kowloon Peninsula, the island once boasted at least three mating pairs of sulphur-crested cockatoos as well as many snakes, banded kraits, brown cobras and bamboo snakes were all common denizens as late as the 1980s. Black kites often hovered overhead, looking for prey and carrion amongst the many tamarind, ficus benjamina, the island was ceded by the Qing dynasty to Great Britain along with Kowloon in 1860 through the Convention of Peking. It was initially used for quarrying by the British, hence the English name for the island, a Royal Navy Radio Interception and Direction-finding Station was established on the island in 1935. From 1935 to 1939 the base was the main radio interception unit for the Far East Combined Bureau, after World War Two the island became host to British Army units including 415 Maritime Unit RCT and the Ammunition Sub-Depot RAOC. British Royal Army Ordnance Corps soldiers oversaw all commercial explosive issues post 1968 until the colony was transferred to China in 1997, before then, it was the training and HQ depot of the Hong Kong Military Service Corps. The island was policed by Indian Sikhs, because traditionally they neither smoke nor drink alcohol, the Army Department Police, as they were known, saw continuous service on the island during the British era. They enjoyed field hockey, and they were seen playing bare-footed on the field. During the early 1980s the ADP boasted two Indian national hockey players and it was common to see their blue pagris drying in the sun outside their barracks. The Royal Navy continued to provide a service connecting islanders with HMS Tamar on Hong Kong. Additional boats were provided by 415 Maritime Unit RCT and crewed by Local Employed Personnel, there was also a commercial interest on the island, Jardine Matheson along with DuPont erected an explosives factory to cater for the ever-growing need for commercial blasting explosives. The factory manufactured several tonnes of water gel and other commercial explosives per week, limited stocks of Chinese, British and other commercial explosives were stored in the islands Victorian explosive storage tunnels. During the 70s and 80s, the island was also the operating base of a Royal Navy Hovercraft unit deployed to assist the Hong Kong government with anti-illegal immigration operations. The Royal Navy unit was under the control of Cmdr Chris Stafford, some buildings or military facilities within the Ngong Shuen Chau Barracks are now graded historic buildings. Stonecutters Island was captured by the Japanese Imperial Army on 11 December 1941, merchant ships in the islands docks were scuttled, and demolitions were carried out at Kowloon Naval Yard and on the island. During World War II, radio installations on the island were used by the Japanese for military purposes, the Japanese used the unique isolation of the island to house a snake farm. The snakes were milked of their venom to provide antidotes for their soldiers bitten on active duty in the Pacific theatre. Following the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong to the Peoples Republic of China on 1 July 1997, Stonecutters Island is the site of a large sewage treatment facility known as Stonecutters Island Sewage Treatment Works
15.
Tate's Cairn
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Tates Cairn is a mountain peak in Hong Kong,583 metres in height. It is one of the peaks of the Kowloon Ridge and falls within Ma On Shan Country Park, built in 1991 at a cost of HK$2 billion, Tates Cairn Tunnel is a 3.9 kilometres -long twin-tube vehicular tunnel running north-south beneath the peak. The Stage 4 to 5 transition of the MacLehose Trail is located beneath the cairn
16.
Lion Rock
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Lion Rock, or less formally Lion Rock Hill, is a mountain in Hong Kong. It is located between Kowloon Tong of Kowloon and Tai Wai of the New Territories, and is 495 metres high, the peak consists of granite covered sparsely by shrubs. Lion Rock is noted for its shape, its resemblance to a lion is most striking from the Choi Hung. A trail winds its way up the hillside to the top. The trail can be followed across the profile of the lion, the rock provides a view of the city and Hong Kong Island in the distance. The entire mountain is located within Lion Rock Country Park in Hung Mui Kuk, Tai Wai and is passable by vehicles by Lion Rock Tunnel. Lion Rock is near another famous rock structure, the Amah Rock, a road in Kowloon City is named Lion Rock Road. After World War II and communists victory in the China Civil War, many people who fled to Hong Kong from Mainland China lived in squatters in Kowloon, where the Lion Rock is clearly visible. The lives of the era, during which Hong Kong was rebuilt from poverty, was depicted by the RTHK TV series Below the Lion Rock, the series featured some of the early work of now famous film directors such as Ann Hui. Its theme song Beneath the Lion Rock, sung by Roman Tam, is considered to indicate the spirit of the Hong Kong people. The name of the series and its eponymous theme song has since been connected to the Lion Rock Spirit, the second version of the government-sponsored Brand Hong Kong contains a siloutte of the Lion Rock. According to the brand, the Lion Rock represents the Hong Kong peoples can-do spirit, a banner writing “我要真普選” was hung up near the head of the Lion on 23 October 2014 to show supports towards 2014 Hong Kong protests. The banner was removed by the government on 24 October 2014, the Lion Rock Institute is a public policy think tank advocating free market solutions for Hong Kongs policy challenges. Gavin Young wrote the history of Cathay Pacific Airways in a book entitled Beyond Lion Rock, the reggae band Culture has a song entitled Lion Rock. List of mountains, peaks and hills in Hong Kong HK Government Lion Rock Country Park
17.
Victoria Harbour
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Victoria Harbour is a natural landform harbour situated between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon in Hong Kong. The harbours deep, sheltered waters and strategic location on the South China Sea were instrumental in Hong Kongs establishment as a British colony, throughout its history, the harbour has seen numerous reclamation projects undertaken on both shores, many of which have caused controversy in recent years. Environmental concerns have been expressed about the effects of these expansions, in terms of water quality and it has also been proposed that benefits of land reclamation may be less than the effects of decreased harbour width, affecting the number of vessels passing through the harbour. Nonetheless Victoria Harbour still retains its role as a port for thousands of international vessels each year. Long famous for its views, the harbour is a major tourist attraction of Hong Kong. Lying in the middle of the dense urban region, the harbour is the site of annual fireworks displays. During the Taiping Rebellion, armed rebels paraded the streets of Hong Kong, on 21 December 1854, the Hong Kong police arrested several armed rebels who were about to attack Kowloon City. On 23 January 1855, a fleet of Taiping war boats was on the verge of a battle against Chinese imperial war boats defending the harbour. The Chinese defenders were ordered away by the British colonial authorities and these incidents caused rising tension that would eventually lead to the Arrow War. The harbour was originally called Hong Kong Harbour, but was renamed as Victoria Harbour. The subject of pollution came to the fore in the 1970s with the growth of the manufacturing sector. The water club races were stopped in 1973 due to pollution in the harbour, studies also showed excessive nitrogen input from discharges of the Pearl River Delta into the harbour for decades. After completion of the Central and Wan Chai Reclamation Feasibility Study in 1989 and it consists of three district development cells separated by parks, namely, Central, Tamar and Exhibition. The latest proposed reclamation, extending along the waterfront from Sheung Wan to Causeway Bay, faced public opposition, I believe an insightful and visionary chief executive would support our stance and work with us to protect the harbour. Reclamation work also led to the demolition of Queens Pier and Edinburgh Place Ferry Pier, structures of historic significance, Victoria Harbour covers an area of about 41.88 km2 as of 2004. The eastern boundary is considered to be the line formed between the westernmost extremity of Siu Chau Wan and A Kung Ngam. Among the best places to view the harbour are the Peak Tower atop Victoria Peak, rides on the Star Ferry, particularly the route between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui, are another popular way to view the harbour and cityscape. As the natural centre of the territory, the harbour has played host to major public shows
18.
Kowloon Walled City
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Kowloon Walled City was a largely-ungoverned densely-populated settlement in Kowloon City in Hong Kong. Originally a Chinese military fort, the Walled City became an enclave after the New Territories were leased to Britain by China in 1898 and its population increased dramatically following the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. By 1987, the Walled City contained 33,000 residents within its 2. 6-hectare borders, from the 1950s to the 1970s, it was controlled by local triads and had high rates of prostitution, gambling and drug abuse. In January 1987, the Hong Kong government announced plans to demolish the Walled City, after an arduous eviction process, demolition began in March 1993 and was completed in April 1994. Kowloon Walled City Park opened in December 1995 and occupies the area of the former Walled City, some historical artefacts from the Walled City, including its yamen building and remnants of its South Gate, have been preserved there. The history of the Walled City can be traced back to the Song Dynasty, little took place for hundreds of years afterward, although 30 guards were stationed there in 1668. A small coastal fort was established around 1810, in 1842, during Qing Emperor Daoguangs reign, Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanjing. As a result, the Qing authorities felt it necessary to improve the fort in order to rule the area, the improvements, including the formidable defensive wall, were completed in 1847. The Walled City was captured by rebels during the Taiping Rebellion in 1854 before being retaken a few weeks later, the present Walled Citys Dapeng Association House forms the remnants of what was previously Lai Enjues garrison. China was allowed to continue to keep officials there as long as they did not interfere with the defence of British Hong Kong, the following year, the Governor, Sir Henry Blake, suspected that the Viceroy of Canton was using troops to aid resistance to the new arrangements. On 16 May 1899, British forces attacked the Walled City, only to find the Viceroys soldiers gone, the Qing dynasty ended its rule in 1912, leaving the Walled City to the British. Though the British claimed ownership of the Walled City, they did little with it over the few decades. The Protestant church established an old home in the old yamen as well as a school. Aside from such institutions, however, the Walled City became a curiosity for British colonials. In 1933, the Hong Kong authorities announced plans to demolish most of the decaying Walled Citys buildings, by 1940 only the yamen, the school and one house remained. During its World War II occupation of Hong Kong, Japan demolished the Citys wall, after Japans surrender in 1945, China announced its intent to reclaim its rights to the Walled City. Refugees from mainland China because of the Chinese Civil War post 1945 poured in to take advantage of British protection, after a failed attempt to drive them out in 1948, the British adopted a hands-off policy in most matters concerning the Walled City. In January 1950, a fire broke out that destroyed over 2,500 huts, the disaster highlighted the need for proper fire prevention in the largely wooden-built squatter areas, complicated by the lack of political ties with the colonial and Chinese governments
19.
Temple Hill (Hong Kong)
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Temple Hill, also known as Tsz Wan Shan, is a hill between New Kowloon and the New Territories, Hong Kong. Beneath its south side is the area of Tsz Wan Shan. Its north are villages the New Territories, between the hill and Unicorn Ridge is Sha Tin Pass. List of mountains, peaks and hills in Hong Kong
20.
Beacon Hill, Hong Kong
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Beacon Hill is a large hill in the northern part of the Kowloon peninsula in Hong Kong. It is the 65th-highest hill of Hong Kong and is 457m tall, Beacon Hill is located within the Lion Rock Country Park. The tower and its relevant equipment on the top of Beacon Hill is not open to the public and is a facility controlled and maintained by the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department. Qing military garrisons were created and stationed throughout most of Kowloons coastal areas to enforce the Qing governments decree in locations which became referred to as beacons. Geography of Hong Kong List of mountains, peaks and hills in Hong Kong Beacon Hill School, Hong Kong
21.
Emperor Bing of Song
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Zhao Bing, also known as Emperor Bing of Song, was the 18th and last emperor of the Song dynasty in China. He was also the ninth and last emperor of the Southern Song dynasty and he reigned for about 313 days from 1278 to 1279 until his death. Zhao Bing was the son of Zhao Qi. His mother was Lady Yu, a concubine of Emperor Duzong who held the rank of xiurong and he was a younger half-brother of his predecessors, Zhao Xian and Zhao Shi. He was enfeoffed as the Prince of Xin in 1274 and his title was later changed to Prince of Guang. On 4 February 1276, the Song capital, Linan, was conquered by forces of the Mongol Empire led by the general Bayan and they arrived in Jinhua, where Zhao Shi was appointed as Grand Marshal and Zhao Bing was appointed as Vice Grand Marshal. Zhao Bings title was changed to Prince of Wei. On 14 June 1276, a seven-year-old Zhao Shi was enthroned in Fuzhou as the new emperor, the Mongol general Bayan was bent on eliminating the threat posed by Song remnants, so he led his troops in pursuit and attacked southern China. After Emperor Duanzong died of illness in 1278, the Song forces morale started to dwindle, Lu Xiufu brought Zhao Bing to Meiwei, Gangzhou, which is in present-day Mui Wo, Lantau Island, Hong Kong. There, Zhao Bing was enthroned as the new emperor under the era name Xiangxing and they moved to Yamen to evade the Mongols. The Mongols sent the general Zhang Hongfan to lead troops to attack Zhao Bing, the Song forces, led by Zhang Shijie, put up fierce resistance against the Mongols in a naval battle but were eventually all wiped out by the enemy. On 19 March 1279, after realising all was lost, Lu Xiufu carried the seven-year-old Emperor Zhao Bing to a cliff, Zhao Bings death marked the end of the Song dynasty. Zhao Bings tomb is located in present-day Chiwan, Nanshan District, Shenzhen
22.
Boundary Street
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Boundary Street is a three-lane one-way street in Kowloon, Hong Kong. After the lease, the boundary was renamed from Boundary Line to Old Frontier Line, the boundary was highlighted by a long line of high bamboo fences, which effectively blocked smuggling between Chinese Kowloon and British Kowloon at that time. The barrier became obsolete when the New Territories joined the colony, although the street marks the historical boundary, the road did not come to exist until 1934, more than 30 years after the lease of boundary north. The road was built to accelerate the development of Kowloon Tong, in modern-day conversations, however, New Kowloon is often not regarded as part of the New Territories, but as part of the Kowloon urban area. Administratively its portion west of the East Rail Line forms part of the boundary between Yau Tsim Mong District and Sham Shui Po District. On 1 July 1997, sovereignty of the territories on both sides of Boundary Street was transferred from the United Kingdom to the Peoples Republic of China, along with the rest of Hong Kong
23.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
24.
Convention of Peking
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In China, they are regarded as among the unequal treaties. The original copy of the Convention is kept in the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, on 18 October 1860, at the culmination of the Second Opium War, the British and French troops entered the Forbidden City in Beijing. Although Russia had not been a belligerent, Prince Gong also signed a treaty with Nikolay Ignatyev, the original plan was to burn down the Forbidden City as punishment for the mistreatment of Anglo-French prisoners by Qing officials. Because doing so would jeopardize the treaty signing, the plan shifted to burning the Old Summer Palace, the treaties with France and Britain were signed in the Ministry of Rites building immediately south of the Forbidden City on 24 October 1860. In the Convention, the Xianfeng Emperor ratified the Treaty of Tientsin, the area known as Kowloon was originally leased in March 1860. The Convention of Peking ended the lease, and ceded the land formally to the British on 24 October 1860, the treaty also ceded parts of Outer Manchuria to the Russian Empire. It granted Russia the right to the Ussuri krai, a part of the modern day Primorye, see Treaty of Aigun, Treaty of Nerchinsk and Sino-Russian border conflicts. In China, the treaty is labelled an unequal treaty, however, the parts of Outer Manchuria ceded to Russia were never returned and remain as a part of Russia today
25.
New Territories
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New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86. 2% of Hong Kongs territory, historically, it is the region described in The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory. In modern times New Kowloon is almost always considered part of Kowloon, hence, the New Territories now comprises only the mainland north of the Kowloon Ranges and south of the Sham Chun River, as well as the Outlying Islands. It comprises an area of 952 km2, nevertheless, New Kowloon has remained statutorily part of the New Territories instead of Kowloon. The New Territories were leased from Qing China to the United Kingdom in 1898 for 99 years in the Second Convention of Peking. Upon the expiration of the lease, sovereignty was transferred to the Peoples Republic of China in 1997, together with the Qing ceded territories of Hong Kong Island, in 2011, the Population of the New Territories was recorded at 3,691,093. With a population density of 3,801 per square kilometer, Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain in 1842 and Kowloon south of Boundary Street and Stonecutters Island in 1860. The colony of Hong Kong attracted a number of Chinese. Its population increased rapidly and the city became overcrowded, the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1894 became a concern to the Hong Kong Government. There was a need to expand the colony to accommodate its growing population, the Qing Dynastys defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War had shown that it was incapable of defending itself. Victoria City and Victoria Harbour were vulnerable to any hostile forces launching attacks from the hills of Kowloon, alarmed by the encroachment of other European powers in China, Britain also feared for the security of Hong Kong. Using the most favoured nation clause that it had negotiated with Peking, in July, it secured Weihaiwei in Shandong in the north as a base for operations against the Germans in Qingdao and the Russians in Port Arthur. Chinese officials stayed in the cities of Kowloon City and Weihaiwei. The extension of Kowloon was called the New Territories, the additional land was estimated to be 365 square miles or 12 times the size of the existing Colonial Hong Kong at the time. Although the Convention was signed on the 9 June 1898 and became effective on 1 July, during this period, there was no Hong Kong Governor and Wilsone Black acted as administrator. Steward Lockhart, the Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, was sent back from England to make a survey of New Territories before formal transfer, the survey found that the new frontier at Sham Chun River suggested by Wilsone Black was far from ideal. It excluded the town of Shenzhen, and the boundary would divide the town, there was no mountain range as a natural border. Lockhard suggested moving the frontier to the line of hills north of Shenzhen and this suggestion was not received favourably and the Chinese official suggested the frontier be moved to the hill much further south of the Sham Chun River
26.
Song dynasty
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The Song dynasty was an era of Chinese history that began in 960 and continued until 1279. It succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, coincided with the Liao and Western Xia dynasties and it was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money nationally and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first known use of gunpowder, as well as the first discernment of true north using a compass, the Song dynasty is divided into two distinct periods, Northern and Southern. During the Northern Song, the Song capital was in the city of Bianjing. The Southern Song refers to the period after the Song lost control of its half to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. During this time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze, the Southern Song dynasty considerably bolstered its naval strength to defend its waters and land borders and to conduct maritime missions abroad. To repel the Jin, and later the Mongols, the Song developed revolutionary new military technology augmented by the use of gunpowder, in 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and his younger brother Kublai Khan was proclaimed the new Great Khan, though his claim was only partially recognized by the Mongols in the west. In 1271, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the Emperor of China, after two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khans armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279. The Mongol invasion led to a reunification under the Yuan dynasty, the population of China doubled in size during the 10th and 11th centuries. The Northern Song census recorded a population of roughly 50 million, much like the Han and this data is found in the Standard Histories. However, it is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of some 100 million people and this dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China. The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and the emergence of a national economy led to the withdrawal of the central government from direct involvement in economic affairs. The lower gentry assumed a role in grassroots administration and local affairs. Appointed officials in county and provincial centers relied upon the gentry for their services, sponsorship. Social life during the Song was vibrant, citizens gathered to view and trade precious artworks, the populace intermingled at public festivals and private clubs, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the expansion of woodblock printing. Technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished over the course of the Song, although the institution of the civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty, it became much more prominent in the Song period
27.
Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation
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On 2 December 2007, the MTR Corporation Limited, another railway operator in Hong Kong, took over the operation of the KCR network under a 50-year service concession agreement, which can be extended. Under the service concession, KCRC retains ownership of the KCR network with the MTR Corporation Limited making annual payments to KCRC for the right to operate the network, from 1910 to 1982, the KCR network was operated as a department of the Hong Kong Government. The Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation was created in December 1982 after the government decided to corporatise its railway department, until 2007, the KCR owned and operated a network of heavy rail, light rail and feeder bus routes within Kowloon and the New Territories. It was also a developer by utilising its property development rights atop and around railway stations. In December 2007, it ceased operations, with its business becoming primarily that of earning revenue from being the holder of railway assets. While it continues to own the network, the network is operated by the MTR Corporation under a 50-year service concession. The events leading to the present day KCR go back one hundred years. During the 19th century, the colonial powers competed with each other to establish. Hong Kong held a position in protecting British trading interests in South China. It took a further 30 years before the idea of building a railway from Hong Kong to China was again given serious consideration, and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. These concessions included the right to construct and operate a railway from Kowloon to Canton that would link to the Peking-Hankow-Canton line. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the Hong Kong Government under the leadership of the governor, Sir Henry Blake. The arrangements were ratified by the Hong Kong Governments passage of the Railway Loans Ordinance in 1905. It took until 1907, however, for the agreement for the Chinese Section to be concluded. It was a question of preserving the predominance of Hong Kong and it was a question of seeing that the final outlet of the main trunk railway should be at Kowloon, and at no other place. Following a detailed survey in 1905, the route was proposed. The initial estimate for the project was HK$5,053,274, the most difficult part of the project was the construction of the Beacon Hill Tunnel, which ended up costing about one quarter of the whole project. This decision, although it might have seemed unnecessarily costly at the time, the railway was formally opened on Saturday,1 October 1910, but without a terminus, this event being officially recorded by way of a notice in the following Fridays Hong Kong Government Gazette
28.
Kowloon Wharf
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The Wharf Limited, or Wharf in short, is a company founded in 1886 in Hong Kong. As its name suggests, the original business was in running wharfage and dockside warehousing. The company adopted its current name in 1986, major holder is Wheelock & Co. Even today, the company is still the owner of the Star Ferry, the Five Flag Poles, a set of flag poles flying flags of the company, are a short walk from the Star Ferrys Tsim Sha Tsui pier and form a local landmark and meeting point. In a more modern vein, the company owns two major flagship properties in the Harbour City and Times Square shopping centres in Hong Kong. Other holdings in Hong Kong include i-CABLE, Cable TV and Wharf T&T, Wharf Holdings also owns operations and residential developments in Singapore through its Wheelock Properties subsidiary. Such properties include Wheelock Place and the former Seaview Hotel, on 26 July 2016, it was announced that Wharf Holdings is investing RMB150 million to form WWE & Company, a social mobile shopping platform technology company
29.
Kai Tak Airport
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Kai Tak Airport was the international airport of Hong Kong from 1925 until 1998. It is often known as Hong Kong International Airport, Kai Tak, or simply Kai Tak, the History Channel program Most Extreme Airports ranked it as the 6th most dangerous airport in the world. The airport was home to Hong Kongs international carrier Cathay Pacific, as well as regional carrier Dragonair, the airport was also home to the former RAF Kai Tak. Kai Tak was located on the west side of Kowloon Bay in Kowloon, the area is surrounded by rugged mountains. Less than 10 km to the north and northeast is a range of hills reaching an elevation of 2,000 ft, to the east of the runway, the hills are less than 5 km away. Immediately to the south of the airport is Victoria Harbour, when Kai Tak closed, there was only one runway in use, numbered 13/31 and oriented southeast/northwest. The runway was made by reclaiming land from the harbour and was extended several times after its initial construction, the runway was 3,390 m long when the airport closed. At the northern end of the runway, buildings rose up to six stories just across the road, the other three sides of the runway were surrounded by Victoria Harbour. The people watching television in the nearby apartments seemed an unsettling arms length away, the story of Kai Tak started in 1912 when two businessmen Ho Kai and Au Tak formed the Kai Tak Investment Company to reclaim land in Kowloon for development. The land was acquired by the government for use as an airfield after the plan failed. In 1924, Harry Abbott opened The Abbott School of Aviation on that piece of land, in 1928, a concrete slipway was built for seaplanes that used the adjoining Kowloon Bay. The first control tower and hangar at Kai Tak were built in 1935, in 1936, the first domestic airline in Hong Kong was established. Hong Kong fell into the hands of the Japanese in 1941 during World War II, in 1942, the Japanese army expanded Kai Tak, using many Allied prisoner-of-war labourers, building two concrete runways, 13/31 and 07/25. Numerous POW diary entries exist recalling the work and long hours working on building Kai Tak. During the process, the wall of the Kowloon Walled City and the 45-metre tall Sung Wong Toi. A2001 Environmental Study recommended that a new memorial be erected for the Sung Wong Toi rock and other remnants of the Kowloon area before Kai Tak. From September 1945 to August 1946, the airport was a Royal Navy shore base, HMS Nabcatcher, on 1 April 1947, a Royal Navy air station, HMS Flycatcher, was commissioned there. A plan to modify Kai Tak into an airport was released in 1954
30.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
31.
Slum
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A slum is a heavily populated urban informal settlement characterized by substandard housing and squalor. While slums differ in size and other characteristics, most lack reliable sanitation services, supply of water, reliable electricity, law enforcement. Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings that because of poor-quality construction or provision of services have deteriorated into slums, Slums were common in the 18th to early 20th centuries in the United States and Europe. More recently slums have been found in urban regions of developing and undeveloped parts of the world. According to UN-Habitat, around 33% of the population in the developing world in 2012, or about 863 million people. Among individual countries, the proportion of residents living in slum areas in 2009 was highest in the Central African Republic. Between 1990 and 2010 the percentage of people living in slums dropped, the worlds largest slum city is in Mexico City. Slums form and grow in different parts of the world for many different reasons. Some causes include rapid rural-to-urban migration, economic stagnation and depression, high unemployment, poverty, informal economy, poor planning, politics, natural disasters and social conflicts. It is thought that slum is a British slang word from the East End of London meaning room, Slums were common in the United States and Europe before the early 20th century. Slums are now associated with Victorian Britain, particularly in industrial English towns, lowland Scottish towns. Engels described these British neighborhoods as cattle-sheds for human beings and these were generally still inhabited until the 1940s, when the government started slum clearance and built new council houses. There are still many left of former slum housing in the UK. By the 1920s it had become a slang expression in England, meaning either various taverns and eating houses, loose talk or gypsy language. In Life in London Pierce Egan used the word in the context of the slums of Holy Lane or St Giles. A footnote defined slum to mean low, unfrequent parts of the town, charles Dickens used the word slum in a similar way in 1840, writing I mean to take a great, London, back-slum kind walk tonight. Slum began to be used to describe bad housing soon after and was used as alternative expression for rookeries and this passage was widely quoted in the national press, leading to the popularisation of the word slum to describe bad housing. In France as in most industrialised European capitals, slums were widespread in Paris and other areas in the 19th century
32.
Refugee
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A refugee, generally speaking, is a displaced person who has been forced to cross national boundaries and who cannot return home safely. Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status by the state or the UNHCR if they formally make a claim for asylum. The lead international agency coordinating refugee protection is the United Nations Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations have a second Office for refugees, which is the UNRWA. This however is solely responsible for supporting Palestinian refugees and it refers to shelter or protection from danger or distress, from Latin fugere, to flee, and refugium, a taking refuge, place to flee back to. In Western history, the term was first applied to French Huguenots, after the Edict of Fontainebleau, who again migrated from France after the Edict of Nantes revocation. The word meant one seeking asylum, until around 1914, when it evolved to mean one fleeing home and this legal concept of a refugee was expanded by the Conventions 1967 Protocol. European Unions minimum standards definition of refugee, underlined by Art, in UN parlance, the concept of refugee also includes descendants of refugees but only in the case of two specific groups, viz. Palestinian refugees and Sahrawi refugees. The UN does not consider refugee status to be hereditary for any other group, the UNHCR also protects people in refugee-like situations. It gives credence to the notion that personal individualized ‘fear of being persecuted’ is the reason for needing support. War, upheaval, famine and pestilence do not in the conventional definition make for refugee status. It does not matter that civilian deaths as a proportion of deaths in war escalated to 10% in World War I and it only matters that persons fear the persecution of their state. Furthermore, not all reasons for seeking asylum in another country satisfy the definition of refugee according to article 1A of the 1951 Refugee Convention, fleeing droughts and hunger, fleeing economic hardship, natural disasters and not even war or terror satisfied the definition of 1951. The idea that a person who sought sanctuary in a place could not be harmed without inviting divine retribution was familiar to the ancient Greeks. However, the right to asylum in a church or other holy place was first codified in law by King Æthelberht of Kent in about AD600. Similar laws were implemented throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, the related concept of political exile also has a long history, Ovid was sent to Tomis, Voltaire was sent to England. By the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, nations recognized each others sovereignty, the term refugee is sometimes applied to people who might fit the definition outlined by the 1951 Convention, were it to be applied retroactively. The repeated waves of pogroms that swept Eastern Europe in the 19th, beginning in the 19th century, Muslim people emigrated to Turkey from Europe. The Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 caused 800,000 people to leave their homes, various groups of people were officially designated refugees beginning in World War I
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Public housing in Hong Kong
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Public housing in Hong Kong is a set of mass housing programmes through which the Government of Hong Kong provides affordable housing for lower-income residents. It is a component of housing in Hong Kong, with nearly half of the population now residing in some form of public housing. The public housing policy dates to 1954, after a fire in Shek Kip Mei destroyed thousands of shanty homes end of 1953, Public housing is mainly built by the Hong Kong Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society. Many public housing estates are built in the new towns of the New Territories and they are found in every district of Hong Kong except in Wan Chai District. The vast majority of housing is providing in high-rise buildings. On 25 December 1953, a fire in Shek Kip Mei destroyed the makeshift homes of refugees from Mainland China. Some scholars have argued that the government has been overstating the role of the fire in the history of housing in Hong Kong. For example, Faure argues that Grantham was concerned with introducing subsidised housing as early as 1949, the Shek Kip Mei Estate, ready for occupation in 1954, was the first tangible manifestation of this policy. In those early days, housing units were more than small cubicles. However, they were in reality occupied by more than one family. Facilities and sanitation were rudimentary and communal, rents were pitched at between HK$10 and 14, without caps on income. That year, the Resettlement Department was formed, as was the first Housing Authority, out of the Urban Council, the Shek Kip Mei estate has now been extensively redeveloped. In 1963, due to the escalation of squatter numbers, squatters eligibility for public housing was frozen. The Housing Board was set up with the role of coordinating between agencies responsible for domestic housing, all blocks were 16-floor high, and lifts from the ground floor could reach the 8th and the 13th floors. In 1973, the Government of Hong Kong announced a plan for the public provision of housing, to provide everyone in Hong Kong with permanent. The objective was to provide 1.8 million people with satisfactory accommodation, the Government saw as its responsibility to provide accessible housing for the poor – defined as those whose monthly household income was between HK$2,100 and HK$3,150. In 1975, the Government officially opened the Oi Man Estate and this represented an innovation in that the commercial premises would serve the local estate, while paying a rent determined by public tender. Unlike the generations of housing estates which preceded it, there would be designated market stalls, street vendors would be no longer be tolerated
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West Kowloon
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West Kowloon is a part of Kowloon, Hong Kong situated within the Yau Tsim Mong District. It is bounded by Canton Road to the east, Victoria Harbour to the west and the south, further to the north, the area extends to Tai Kok Tsui to the west of the West Kowloon Expressway. Olympic and Kowloon stations are within the area and it is principally a stretch of reclaimed land, which was subsequently developed in the late 20th century. It has been zoned for mixed commercial, residential and leisure development, residential projects which have been realised in the sector include The Waterfront, Sorrento, the tallest residential building in Hong Kong, The Harbourside, and The Arch, The Cullinan. The above all sit atop Kowloon MTR station, a station on the Tung Chung line, the shopping-mall Elements started operating on 1 October 2007
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Shipyard
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A shipyard is a place where ships are repaired and built. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships, dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance and basing activities than shipyards, which are sometimes associated more with initial construction. The terms are used interchangeably, in part because the evolution of dockyards and shipyards has often caused them to change or merge roles. The shipbuilding industry tends to be fragmented in Europe than in Asia. In European countries there are a number of small companies. The publicly owned shipyards in the US are Naval facilities providing basing, support, Shipyards are constructed nearby the sea or tidal rivers to allow easy access for their ships. Sir Alfred Yarrow established his yard by the Thames in Londons Docklands in the late 19th century before moving it northwards to the banks of the Clyde at Scotstoun. Other famous UK shipyards include the Harland and Wolff yard in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where Titanic was built, and the naval dockyard at Chatham, England on the Medway in north Kent. The site of a large shipyard will contain many specialised cranes, dry docks, slipways, dust-free warehouses, painting facilities, after a ships useful life is over, it makes its final voyage to a shipbreaking yard, often on a beach in South Asia. Historically shipbreaking was carried on in drydock in developed countries, but high wages, the worlds earliest known dockyards were built in the Harappan port city of Lothal circa 2600 BC in Gujarat, India. Lothal engineers accorded high priority to the creation of a dockyard, the dock was built on the eastern flank of the town, and is regarded by archaeologists as an engineering feat of the highest order. It was located away from the current of the river to avoid silting. The name of the ancient Greek city of Naupactus means shipyard, Naupactus reputation in this field extends to the time of legend, where it is depicted as the place where the Heraclidae built a fleet to invade the Peloponnesus. During its time of operation it was changed, rebuilt and modified. It is currently a maritime museum, ships were the first items to be manufactured in a factory, several hundred years before the Industrial Revolution, in the Venice Arsenal, Venice, Italy. The Arsenal apparently mass-produced nearly one every day using pre-manufactured parts. Chantiers de lAtlantique – established in 1861 Nantes-Indret, France – Establish in 1771 it built ships for the American Revolution including the Deane, jean Street Shipyard 1843–present – The oldest continually operated shipyard in the U. S. Located on the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida, Gloucester Marine Railways 1859–present – Oldest working shipyard in New England
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Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
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Second Sino-Japanese War
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The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from July 7,1937 to September 9,1945. The First Sino-Japanese War was fought from 1894 to 1895, China fought Japan, with some economic help from Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged into the conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. Many scholars consider the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to have been the beginning of World War II, the Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy to expand its influence politically and militarily in order to access to raw material reserves, food. The period after World War One brought about increasing stress on the Japanese polity, leftists sought universal suffrage and greater rights for workers. Increasing textile production from Chinese mills was adversely affecting Japanese production, the Depression brought about a large slowdown in exports. All of this contributed to militant nationalism, culminating in the rise to power of a militarist fascist faction and this faction was led at its height by the Imperial Rule Assistance Associations Hideki Tojo cabinet under the edict from Emperor Shōwa. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements, the last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, which is traditionally seen as the beginning of total war between the two countries. Since 2017 the Chinese Government has regarded the invasion of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army in 1931, initially the Japanese scored major victories, such as the Battle of Shanghai, and by the end of 1937 captured the Chinese capital of Nanjing. After failing to stop the Japanese in Wuhan, the Chinese central government was relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior, by 1939, after Chinese victories in Changsha and Guangxi, and with Japans lines of communications stretched deep into the Chinese interior, the war reached a stalemate. The Japanese were also unable to defeat the Chinese communist forces in Shaanxi, on December 7,1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day the United States declared war on Japan. The United States began to aid China via airlift matériel over the Himalayas after the Allied defeat in Burma that closed the Burma Road, in 1944 Japan launched the invasion, Operation Ichi-Go, that conquered Henan and Changsha. However, this failed to bring about the surrender of Chinese forces, in 1945, the Chinese Expeditionary Force resumed its advance in Burma and completed the Ledo Road linking India to China. At the same time, China launched large counteroffensives in South China and retook the west Hunan, the remaining Japanese occupation forces formally surrendered on September 9,1945 with the following International Military Tribunal for the Far East convened on April 29,1946. China was recognized as one of the Big Four of Allies during the war, in the Chinese language, the war is most commonly known as the War of Resistance Against Japan, and also known as the Eight Years War of Resistance, simply War of Resistance. It is also referred to as part of the Global Anti-Fascist War, which is how World War 2 is perceived by the Communist Party of China, in Japan, nowadays, the name Japan–China War is most commonly used because of its perceived objectivity. In Japan today, it is written as 日中戦争 in shinjitai, the word incident was used by Japan, as neither country had made a formal declaration of war
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Cantonese people
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The Cantonese people are Han Chinese people originating from or residing in the provinces of Guangdong and eastern Guangxi, in mainland China. The term Cantonese people is often synonymous with the Punti people and they are also referred to as Hoa in Vietnam, Kongfu in Malaysia and Konghu in Indonesia. The Cantonese people were responsible for establishing the Cantonese languages usage in Hong Kong during the early migration to the colonial era. There are currently around 9 million Cantonese speakers overseas, Taishanese people may also be considered as Cantonese, but speak Taishanese, a different variant of Yue Chinese. There have been a number of influential Cantonese figures throughout history, such as Yuan Chonghuan, Bruce Lee, Ching Shih, Lee Shau-kee, Ho Ching, until the 19th century, Cantonese history was largely the history of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. What is now Guangdong, and later Guangxi, was first brought under Qin influence by a general named Zhao Tuo, the Nanyue kingdom went on to become the strongest Baiyue state in China, with many neighboring kingdoms declaring their allegiance to Nanyue rule. The greatly expanded Nanyue kingdom included the territories of modern-day Guangdong, Guangxi and Northern Vietnam, the native peoples of Liangguang remained under Baiyue control until the Han dynasty in 111 BC, following the Han–Nanyue War. However, it was not until subsequent dynasties such as the Jin Dynasty, Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty that major waves of Han Chinese began to migrate into Guangdong and Guangxi. Waves of migration and subsequent intermarriage meant that existing populations of both provinces were displaced, but some groups like the Zhuangs still remained. The Cantonese often call themselves people of Tang, during the 4th-12th centuries, Han Chinese people from North Chinas Yellow River valley migrated and settled in the South of China. There have been migrations of Han people into Southeastern and Southern China throughout history. The origin of the Cantonese people is said to be Northern Chinese peoples that migrated to Guangdong. During Wang Mangs reign in the Han dynasty, there were influxes of Han Chinese migrants into Guangdong and Guangxi, western coast of Hainan, Annam and eastern Yunnan. During the early 1800s, conflict occurred between Cantonese and Portuguese pirates in the form of the Ningpo massacre after the defeat of Portuguese pirates. The First and Second Opium Wars led to the loss of Chinas control over Hong Kong and Kowloon, Macau also became a Portuguese settlement. Between 1855 and 1867, the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars caused further discord in Guangdong, the third plague pandemic of 1855 broke out in Yunnan and spread to Guangxi then Guangdong, killing thousands and spreading via water traffic to nearby Hong Kong. The turmoil of the 19th century, followed by the upheaval of the early 20th century. Up until the half of the 20th century, the majority of overseas Chinese emigrated from two provinces of China, Guangdong and Fujian
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Indonesians in Hong Kong
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Indonesians in Hong Kong, numbering 102,100, form the second-largest ethnic minority group in the territory, behind Filipinos. Most Indonesians coming to Hong Kong today are those who arrive under limited-term contracts for employment as domestic helpers. Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong comprise 2. 4% of all overseas Indonesian workers, in 2006, it was estimated that 102,100 Indonesians worked in Hong Kong, of whom between 80 and 90% are estimated to be women. This represents a growth of almost 250% from the 41,000 recorded six years earlier, while during the same period, some newspaper reports attributed this to the fact that Filipinas were harder to manage, and additionally to the better training of Indonesian domestic helpers. The Employment agencies in Indonesia also work together with agencies in Hong Kong to extract higher fees from Indonesians after they start working in Hong Kong, part of this extra fee is the money that agencies pay to women in Indonesia to start the migration process. The fees owed by the workers for training and housing are non-negotiable, Indonesian domestic helpers in Hong Kong are represented by two unions, the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union and Coalition of Indonesian Migrant Workers Organisations. According to organisations representing migrant workers, police intimidation of migrant workers is also a problem, underpayment of wages and employer abuse is also a problem, Indonesian workers are widely paid as little as HK$1800 to HK$2000 per month. The camps in which the women migrants are made to stay for the duration of their training also double as a system of incarceration. The living conditions in the centers are very poor, women are made to sleep on the floor packed tightly against each other, and only one bucket of water is afforded per person for bathing. There is little medical care for the problems that result from these conditions. Even the trip home to the migration center often involves being sexually abused by the training center recruiter. In 2009, there were 220,000 Muslims in Hong Kong, within their communities, services are provided to Indonesian Muslims and other Muslims mainly by NGOs. Most of these NGOs have courses in Arabic and the Quran so that children and newly Muslim people can learn the religion practices, there are seven Islamic schools in Hong Kong, run mainly by Islamic NGOs, for example the Chinese Muslim Cultural and Fraternal Association. Some of them have membership schemes and provide services like library, retails, some of the people also gather in the Mosques during religious celebrations. If they seem to interact within their own local communities, it is because their social values. Demographics of Indonesia Indonesians in Hong Kong
Media related to Kowloon at Wikimedia Commons