Tin Hau Kung
In this Tsuen Wan Walking Tour, the first place to visit is Tin Hau Kung. Tsuen Wan Tin Hau Kung 天后宮 (also called Wai Tsuen Road Tin Hau Kung). You can experience Chinese traditional beliefs and customs there. It is located at Wai Tsuen Road, Tsuen Wan District, New Territories, Hong Kong. It was built by the villagers during the Kangxi period (1721-1722) with a history of more than 270 years. The original site is located in Sam Tung Uk Resite Village.Due to the construction of the Tsuen Wan Line, it moved to the current site opposite Luk Yeung Sun Chuen in 1984. Renovation of the Tin Hau Kung Committee was set up in 1984 too. A renovation and opening ceremony was held on 12th December,1984 and Cantonese opera was staged for celebration. Following the conventions of every year on the birthday of Tin Hau (23rd March of the lunar calendar), several Cantonese operas will be staged to celebrate the birthday for paying for God's kindness & entertaining people. In 1995, it was listed as a secondary historical building by the Antiquities and Monuments Office.The temple is divided into 3 parts: main hall (middle): worships the statue of Tin Hau (Queen of heaven), east and west: Taisui Temple 太歲廟 is set up on both sides. The left side hall is dedicated to Marshal Zhongtan while the right side hall is dedicated to the land and the God of Wealth.Tsuen Wan was originally named Shallow Bay. The bronze bell inside the Tin Hau Kung is engraved with the history of Tsuen Wan. However, villagers think that fish swimming in shallow water is played by shrimp. The artistic conception of “shallow” is not good, so it is called Quanwan 全灣(which has a perfect meaning). After that, Yang Guorui, a scholar in Yangwu Village, proposed to replace the full character with the vanilla name "Tsuen" until now.On the left side of the temple, Yiyong Temple was built dedicated to the heroic gods of the township, who defended the land of Tsuen Wan during the Qing Dynasty and died in the Qing Dynasty. In addition to being the main place of folk belief, the temple was also the site of the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee Bureau and the headquarters of the training group, formerly known as the "Global Security Bureau". Every year, representatives of Tsuen Wan Rural Committee Village, together with representatives of government officials, will visit the temple and go to the heroes of the Yiyong Temple.
Sam Tung Uk Museum
The second place to visit is Sam Tung Uk Museum. It was built by the Chan Family. The Sam Tung Uk Museum is open from 09:00 to 17:00 every day of the year except Tuesdays, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, and the first three days of the Lunar New Year. Admission is free of charge. It can be accessed from the MTR Tsuen Wan station.Sam Tung Uk is a 200-year-old Hakka walled house that was declared a historical monument in 1981. It was converted into the Sam Tung UK Museum and open to the public after restoration in 1987. In June 2016, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office set up the "Hong Kong Intangible Cultural Heritage Centre" at Sam Tung Uk Museum as a display and resource centre.It aims to enhance the public's understanding and awareness of ICH through various educational and promotional activities, including exhibitions, lectures, seminars, ICH bearers' demonstrations, workshops.Occupying an area of 2,000 square metres, the symmetrical layout of the village resembles a chessboard with an entrance hall, an assembly hall, an ancestral hall at the central axis. With four individual houses in the middle, the village is completely walled in by rows of houses at the two sides and the back.
Old House in Hoi Pa Village
The third place to visit is Old House in Hoi Pa Village.The former site of Tak Wah Park is a village. The Tak Wah Exhibition Hall and Environmental Resource Centre, which were converted from the old village houses on the original site of Hoi Pa Village, are managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and the Environmental Protection Department respectively.The Hoi Pa Village had a history of over one hundred years. Three structures were preserved in the Tak Wah Park. Two were old houses, and the third one is the Chan Yi Cheung Ancestral Hall (Grade 3 Historic Buildings).The largest, two-storey Old House has the most significant stature compared with others.The small village house near the Tak Hoi Street entrance was built in 1904. It was opened as the Environmental Resource Center of the Environmental Protection Department since 1997. The Environmental Resource Center used to feature a library, media room, and a reconstructed kitchen space. However, it has closed its door since 2016.
Tang Lung Chau Lighthouse
The fourth place to visit is Tang Lung Chau Lighthouse. The lighthouse is located in the south of Ma Wan and in between Tsuen Wan and the Lantau Islands, the geographical uniqueness of the lighthouse used the guiding the foreign ship to Kowloon and Hong Kong Islands. The material for building the lighthouse was imported from England. In the early time of the service of the lighthouse, it relies on human control. Therefore, the lighthouse contains a kitchen, toilet, bedroom etc., in order to let the bricks keeper live on the island. However, the lighthouse itself did not have a supply of fresh water, so rainwater was collected from the roof and stored in the underground tank.The Tang Lung Chau Lighthouse(燈籠洲燈塔) came into service in 1912 and it was manually controlled until 1980s. At the moment, The Hong Kong Marine Department have ownership of the lighthouse. The lighthouse was built because of the trading business in Hong Kong after the opening of the Suez Canal In 1869. The government thought it was necessary to build a lighthouse to warn the ship and guide them while they were traveling to Hong Kong. The automatic lighthouse was declared a monument in 2000. This is also one of the lighthouses built before the war.The lighthouse was a symbol of the history of the business trade in Hong Kong in the early colonial era. As the trading economy relied on shipping around the world, the lighthouse worked as giving signals to the foreign business ship and guiding them the right way to the center of Hong Kong. This ensured Hong Kong‘s leading status in the trading industry from 1910s until post-war period.
