Park Island, Ma Wan, Hong Kong

Below are some new photos of the old Chinese village on Ma Wan. To get there, head towards the Noah's Arc main entrance. Near the man-made "nature park", you will see a path. This leads down to the village, so follow that down.  I already did a previous post about the Ma Wan old village here: http://parkislandhongkong.blogspot.com/2011/03/old-village-on-ma-wan.html Below are some photos of the old village on Ma Wan I took on a recent hike, this time with a better camera. This Ma Wan village house must have looked nice in its prime! Banana trees on Ma Wan  Ma Wan Old Village Are you wondering what on earth that strange white building in the backround is? That is the new Solar Tower being built on Ma Wan. It will apparently be used as Hong Kong's leading astronomy observation center. I presume they chose Ma Wan for the cleaner air and less light pollution, but I would think that no-where in Hong Kong is really ideal for astronomic observation. ...

I came across an interesting article about the history of Ma Wan by Phillip Jones in a book called "Hong Kong Discovery". His article called "The Road to Salvation" contains historical photos of the island, and notes that for most of the last 200 years Ma Wan was an isolated community, basically sustained by farming and fishing. He talks about a visit by the British in 1794, the occasional visit by pirates, and how there was a Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs checkpoint set up on Ma Wan in 1897. He writes about the Chan family, who are still influential land owners on the island, the changes faced by the fishing and shrimp industries in the 1950s and 1960s and HK made its change to it modern economy, and also about the history and changes brought about by the Lantau Link, and the rapid development that occurred once Ma Wan became "connected" to the rest of Hong Kong. Interestingly the article itself is now part of history - I think it was probably wri...