Kowloon's three beautiful Chinese gardens
Apart from markets and shopping malls,
Kowloon Peninsula's has three beautiful Chinese gardens, which have different
scenery, historical background and landscaping style.
(1)Nan Lian Garden
In the past, the area was the largest slum
area in Hong Kong.
In 2000, Hong Kong
Government resettled the people and built a traditional Tang Dynasty-style Nan
Lian Garden.
Through the traditional
Chinese landscaping and gardening methods, the developer integrates the rocks,
trees and water harmoniously to create an urban oasis, which is surrounded by
the high-rise buildings.
The Chi Lin
Nunnery is next to the man-made heaven.
You
can say hello to the Buddha and see the traditional but new Chinese wooden
architecture there.
(2)Kowloon Walled City Park
The Kowloon Walled City Park is pretty and even
got the international award in 1993.
But
you can go there to trace its special historical background.
At first, the site was a Chinese Army walled stronghold
against the British imperialists and Kowloon's city center, with a big bazaar.
The complicated reasons made it the abandoned
historical orphan, which was not under Britain's, China's or Hong Kong's rule.
Japan demolished its thick wall during WWII to use the bricks to lengthen the Kai Tak Airport runway.
Its haphazard development became uncontrollable after the war.
It became infamous: slum with the highest
population density and the hodgepodge of refugees, gangsters, crimes etc.
Today the old Chinese Army Headquarter building (Yamen) is still kept as the management office of the beautiful Jiangnan (South of Yangtze
River) style garden.
(3)Ling Nan Garden
Ling Nan Garden is the South China style
garden, which is different from the above-mentioned two gardens.
As South China is hot and wet, the garden
has the long and wide covered corridor as the shade.
South China was the first place to keep contact
with the Westerners.
So garden's
decoration has lots of Western elements.
Water makes up 20% of the garden.
This shows the site's history.
It was the coast for the citizens to have the
romantic paddle boat ride and Exxon Mobil's oil depot.
The Mei Foo (Exxon Mobil's Chinese name) Sun
Chuen is next to the Ling Nan Garden.
With
99 blocks, it was once the biggest private housing development in the
world.
The Ling Nan Garden is the "private" backyard garden of Mei Foo's residents and makes Mei Foo, which is now
50-year-old, still the expensive 'blue chip' private housing estate in Hong
Kong.
