標題: 香港旅遊景點介紹---九龍寨城公園(Kowloon Walled City Park) [打印本頁] 作者: twintwin 時間: 2010-1-2 19:38 標題: 香港旅遊景點介紹---九龍寨城公園(Kowloon Walled City Park)
Few areas of Hong Kong have a richer historical background than the Kowloon Walled City Park, originally the site of a walled fort.
A senior mandarin commanded the garrison with his own administrative headquarters in an official "Yamen". While not particularly distinctive to look at, being a rectangular structure with a typical tiled roof, a Yamen represented the power of the Emperor as passed down to the Mandarin in charge, and so was both highly respected and feared by those who passed it.
After Hong Kong Island was ceded to Great Britain in 1842, the fort's role was to police the Chinese side of Hong Kong Harbour. But the British seized on a minor skirmish between the two sides to demand the garrison's withdrawal on pain of a naval bombardment. Having already suffered enough from British guns, the Chinese had the good sense to abandon the fort although, by Treaty, the site remained theirs.
Squatters soon moved in and for about 100 years it remained a quiet rural hamlet huddled behind its protective walls. However, during the Japanese occupation of 1942-45 the walls were torn down and the stone used to enlarge the nearby airfield at Kai Tak.
War's end soon saw hundreds of thousands of Chinese refugees flock to Hong Kong, bringing a fresh wave of squatters, particularly criminal elements attracted by this legal no-man's land. Lacking law and order, the area mushroomed into a squalid eyesore of illegal buildings where crime, drugs and vice flourished side by side in a maze of dank, dark alleyways.
The situation became so out of hand that the Chinese and British authorities finally agreed to clear the festering slum in 1987 and resettle its occupants.
Part of the cleared site was then transformed into this beautiful Chinese park and garden which today delights visitors from all over the world. It is built in the classical Jiangnan style featuring a Garden of the Chinese Zodiac, a Mountain View Pavilion and a Hill Top Pavilion.
Amazingly, the Commandant's Yamen survived the chaos of the area's worst years and has been perfectly restored. It is one of the few remaining Yamens in South China. Other reminders of the old walled fort include the original stone plaques from the South Gate, stone tablets and Qing official inscriptions, plus the only two cannons to survive.作者: twintwin 時間: 2010-1-2 19:39
How To Get There
Kowloon Walled City Park
1. Take a taxi from MTR Lok Fu Station Exit B to the entrance on Tung Tau Tsuen Road.
2. Bus 1 from Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry bus terminus and alight at Tung Tau Tower Road (opposite the park).作者: twintwin 時間: 2010-1-2 19:39
