TAI PING SEAN
1075
Another local Chinese district name which carries with it considerable interesting records is Tai Ping Shan, otherwise known as the Po Hing Fong, a little below the Chinese Y.M.C.A., where formerly was a small public garden, and now stands the Tung Wah Hospital. Tai Ping Shan in Chinese means the "Hill of Peace". Over one hundred years ago, before the British arrival on this island, there was among the pirate chiefs here operating with coastal strongholds in Aberdeen and Shaukiwan, a man named Cheung Po Chai, who made his home at Tai Ping Shan, which must have been a secluded place for the buccaneers, considering the undeveloped state of the coast in the now "Central District".
The traditional record attached to this pirate chief was that before the British arrival he surrendered with his men to the Manchu government in Canton and was made an imperial guard. The name of Cheung Po Chai, recalling his adventurous career in Hongkong, can still be found among the oldest records of the Manchu regime in Canton. It is believed that after the pirate chief's surrender to the Manchu officials the villagers, who were much relieved at his departure, named the place "Hill of Peace" as a contrast to the lawless elements who had prevailed there before Cheung Po Chai gave up exploitation of the junks trading along the China coast and passing Hongkong, being often enough pirated when they dropped anchor here.
"Premeticus". "Your interesting comment on the origin of the Tai Ping Shan district which, as you state, in Chinese means the Hill of Peace", makes one realise more than ever how man, through his alleged civilising agency, can change the face of nature. I take the following from the Hongkong Mercury of 1866 (67 years ago) which speaks for itself:
In "What does the Government or our Surveyor General - Lo. Waddell (in those days, Director of Public Works) propose to do with the $25,000 to be placed at his disposal next year for the improvement of Tai Ping Shan? It is just such a job and such a sum of money as can be beautifully botched and scientifically wasted without any improvement whatever being effected in the sanitary conditions or in the aspects of that worst of bad neighbourhoods. We should like to know what is the nature of the Surveyor General's plans for getting comfortably rid of the money? We feel confident that he has a plan, but equally confident that it is only a half-measure, intended to palliate, not to grapple with the evil. There is no possibility of improving Tai Ping Shan otherwise than by pulling it down, levelling the site, draining it for the first time in its existence and having it rebuilt. It will be only a half-measure to run a wide street through the centre of the district with a main drain under it. That won't put drains, cook-houses, water closets and other conveniences into the houses. That won't affect any improvement in the by-streets and lanes.
It is utterly out of the power of Government to resume one single lot of land there because Government has hitherto failed to complete this part of the original contract of sale, and because every house in the place has been built with the sanction of the Surveyor General. Even if one half of the proprietors could be dispossessed, a partial rebuilding could do no good. Let Government resume the whole of the land in that quarter and pay a proper compensation. Let the whole neighbourhood be levelled to the ground, the hills cut down, the ravines filled in, a new site made and drained and then, if put up for sale by public auction, the enhanced price will cover the whole of the expenditure and leave a margin. But don't throw away $25,000 in patching and repairing what is too rotten to bear a patch.