Farms, factories and the future: Wong Chuk Hang to change again with MTR opening

Once a backwater cut off from northern Hong Kong Island, Wong Chuk Hang saw factories sprout, then wither, before art galleries, fashion studios and cafes moved in. Now it is set to be another Taikoo Shing

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South Island MTR Line carves its way through Wong Chuk Hang towards Aberdeen Harbour. The area’s farmers once exchanged their produce for seafood with the fishermen in Aberdeen. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 6:30am, 16 Oct 2016Updated: 5:26pm, 30 Jan 2017

Before Wong Chuk Hang Estate was demolished in 2007 to make way for an MTR station, residential tower blocks and a shopping centre, architect Sarah Mui Sze-wa returned to take photos of the place she once called home. She wistfully recalls the close-knit community that once lived there.

“The 10 blocks of the estate were all connected. As kids, we used to run from block one all the way down to block 10 along overground walkways. My grandparents ran a grocery shop on the estate that my mother managed, and I was there every day,” she says.

Wong Chuk Hang MTR station nears completion earlier this year. Photo: David Wong

Mui also remembers the estate’s many ground-floor shops, including a hardware store and one selling stationery. “I could just go into the stationery shop and take stuff, and the owner would ask my grandfather for the money later.”

Residents would to hang out at the nearby Tai Wong Ye Temple, by a ditch where golden bamboo grew on the banks. Yellow bamboo ditch, in Cantonese, is Wong Chuk Hang.

Sarah Mui, an architect who grew up on the now-demolished Wong Chuk Hang estate, sits in Nam Long Shan food market. She worries the district will lose its soul after the MTR station opens. Photo: Jonathan Wong

The estate, the first phase of which was completed in 1969, was the area’s only public housing. It was built to accommodate workers employed in the low-density industrial buildings that line Wong Chuk Hang Road. Separated from the hustle and bustle of Causeway Bay by the Aberdeen Tunnel, it has always been a relatively quiet and low-key working-class area – in stark contrast to the neighbouring millionaires’ enclaves of Shouson Hill and Repulse Bay.

“It’s the most backward district of Hong Kong Island,” says Lau Chi-pang, an associate professor of history at Lingnan University, who published a book about Wong Chuk Hang last year.