May 23: Mountains ring the horizon. Homes crowd the valley. Urban sprawl creeps across New Territories in the form of cheap 3-floor, Spanish-style villas. Vegetation (trees and grass) line roadways, but an absence of personal lawns differentiates the area from American-Dream-style suburbia.
Kam Tin Kat Hing Wai Walled Village is a relatively short walk from the Kam Sheung MTR station. We pass beat-up trucks and junk piled behind fences. Constructions workers dig pipelines in the street. Old women shuffle their feet. The local lifestyle seems more relaxed than in the city.
A swampy, thin moat separates the walled village from the rest of the suburbanites in New Territories. A solid stone wall protrudes from a different millennia. In the 1100s, a century after the Tang clan first moved to New Territories, a villager married a Sung princess.
Kam Tin walled village is one of New Territories’ best preserved. The walls surrounding the city date back to 1650, with significant repairs completed in 1725. According to a historical market nearby, around 50 walled villages remain in New Territories; only 12 still have their walled entrances.
Four Hakka women notice our approach. They shuffle outside and line up for a photo, Each dons the signature wide black-rimmed Hakka hat. “Photo. Photo,” they chant. I take three photos. “$10 dollar, $10 dollar,” goes the chorus. The lead woman continues, “Four photos, Four photos,” and she waves four fat fingers in my face. Joyce gives the women $20. The woman continues after me. “Four photos! Four photos!!!! $10 each!!!” We prepare to enter, and another woman points at a sign, “For charity purpose visitors entering the village are requested to contribute HK $3.00 to the ‘Kam Tim contribute box.’” Joyce hands the woman $6HK in coins, and she seems to urge the other, still chanting woman, to quiet.
Inside, we pass a room full of mahjong playing women. Joyce laments, “We should have put the money in the box instead of giving it to them.” Most likely, it will end up on the mahjong table instead of the village’s much needed renovations.
Narrow alleys separate buildings identical to many of the 3-floor suburban villas outside the walled village. Some older residences remain mostly intact. Some have totally collapsed - filled with garbage, old bicycles and splintered roof timbers.
After walking back to the station, we take a bus to the Lam Tsuen Wishing Trees. Once we arrive, more old women offer services. Here, it’s prayer. Traditionally, especially around the Lunar New Year, oranges attached with written wishes would have been thrown on the tree’s branches. After an accident in 2005, a branch collapsed under the fruits’ weight and a woman was injured. Now if you throw any oranges at the injured tree (propped upright with countless bamboo poles), you’ll be slapped with a $1,500HK littering fine.
She wants us to buy prayer papers to burn in incense. Joyce bargains for two papers for $10HK down from $20HK. But there’s a catch. After she takes us behind the main banyan tree to a booth, we write our names on the paper, and she springs a hidden fee. The package of three incense sticks costs $60HK. “No way,” Joyce tells her, politely (I think) in Cantonese.
The woman become angry. Joyce translates her comments, “Why not pick up a rock in the street and decide your own fortune…” “People come all the way from Tibet to make their wish here…” “You can owe me money, but you will have to pay back sometime, your boyfriend can pay for your incense, but you’ll have to pay him back too. This sort of offering must be made at your own expense. It’s a duty.” Etc…
We take the papers, quite pretty as souvenirs, and walk the opposite way around the tree – to avoid the women. A minibus takes us to Tai Po Market, where Joyce introduces me to some new flavors of herbal tea at a local shop. Beneath the glass is a list of food combinations that are toxic for the body.
A nearby minibus takes to the base of Lead Mine Pass (part of the Wilson Trail), which we climb to access the MacLehose Trail. Mosquitoes bother Joyce for the first two-three hours, but once we reach a boulder-covered hillside, the bugs are gone, the forest disappears, and the sky opens to a spectacular view of Tai Po, Sha Tin and distant Kowloon. The new danger is cow pie, which covers large portions of the path. An ocean breeze whips a thick fog up Hong Kong’s tallest mountain, Tai Mo Shan (958 meters). The mountain’s name (大 霧 山) translates directly to Foggy Mountain. The fog makes poo navigation more difficult.
Sunset arrives just as we reach a paved portion of the trail, which makes hiking in the dark easy. The sun has fallen entirely by the time we reach the summit. A weather station sits at the top in a shroud of creepy pinkish-orange fog. A dog barks hysterically. A shadow appears at the gate. We pass and begin our descent.
Aside from a white line that continues to materialize from the night, we are engulfed in inky fog. At the bottom of the mountain, under the fluorescent glow of street lamps, we meet the wild cows who had made the organic landmines along the trail. They watch us suspiciously as we leave Tai Mo Shan Country Park in search of a bus or taxi.
No comments:
Post a Comment