Page
SUPPLEMENT OF THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1959.
Page
A matter of saving up rain - drops
W these islands to provide a
THEN the founding fathers of Hongkong reconnoitred permanent. British settlement near the approaches to Conton there were two islands that they had to choose from. One was rugged and quite inhospitable. It was even held by some that 'the ground carried sickness and could not be dug or turned., The other was settled and prosperously farmed in several valleys. But the founders chose the most rugged. Hongkong Island, in preference to Lantao because of water.
+
In Hongkong rain comes in short forrential bursts, some of violent ferocity. In a few minutes hugo drains that run down our mountainsides and under the towri are raging channels of white foam that roar and tear away large chunks of their retaining walls, and some- times even. carry away pieces of hillsides, roads, and garden lots. That is our rain. And it comes for so short a while that all our water for three-million people and our growing Industries, must be stored in reservoirs large enough to last for the rest of the year.
We now have 14 reservoirs that hold 10,- 500 million gallons. The biggest is the latest Tai Lam Chung -- with 4,500 million gallons held by a 1,200, foot dam. Next comes Shek Pik which will be aven larger. 5,300 million gallons will flood a deep wide valley.
But the latest and most original plan of all is also the oldest. Six hundred years ago dykes were built to seal off salt flats and turn them into fields. Throughout Hongkong these old sea walls have crumbled, but have not been washed away. In Castle Peak, Shatin, around. Tolo Harbour, and over near Salkung there are more than a hundred miles of thern. The highest and best preserved are out at Shataukok where one can
see the kind of agriculture that must have existed in the New Territories of long ago. Many of the walls are said to be "pre-Chinese," and to have been erected by a wall building tribal people who lived here many centuries ago. But today this ancient method is coming back into A now life, It is planned to build another length of sea wall that will cut off "Plover Cove" (see diagram) and turn a large salt estuary into A fresh water lake. The scheme is the most original and the newest water conservancy project of all. Yet it is also the oldest.... pre-British, and pre-Chinese!
Above: The Shak fik Valles, vidios, qui
Above: Tai Lam, Chung,
Above: Paddy fields on the Shum Chun river. Below: Hongkong at night,
and eating
IF Hongkong were cut off entirely from outside supplies
today, the combined production of her fields and fishing fleet could supply at a pinch all that, she needs but.nice.
This is the land that supports: 3 million people. From these fields come 30,000 tons of rice a year. (10% of what we need)', 60,000 tons of vegetables: (60% of "consumption). These farms sent 189.493 pigs to our abattoirs last year of the 798,000 which were slaughtered, and 1,300 of the 94,000 cattle.
nd last year these fields." "exported pigeon. And last quail, fat geese and ducks worth $2,000,000 "and $3,000,000 worth of export crops like ginger, lotus.root and canned lichee. In former days New Territories fields around Shatin sent rice to the Emperor's table in Peking, and even today the high quality rica of Hongkong is exported as a luxury to other lands and their cheaper produce brought here in a profitable excha
exchange:
The people who live around these fields are not newcomers to farming. They are industrious and have the skill of centuries backed up by the fatest medicines and techniques of a modern minded Agricultural Depart- ment. Those who keep potted chrysanthemums and en- courage one foot to spread out into a hundred blooms have the skill also to grow a cabbage as big as a motor -fyrus___Those, Who bred the Chinese gold fish with his popping eyes can to raise fresh water table fish in mari- made ponds. And there is scarcely an area in town or country where by searching your could not find dovecots. hen coops, duck ponds and beehives........ for in spite of her rapidly rising population Hongkong produces every year more and more of the food for her own table.
Night Light
Hongkong ba bway by day, she is busier by night. 1958, Thure is no street in the city so poor that you will not hear laughter and the clatter of mahjong counters into the early hours of each morning. Hongkong's most important business is her tourist, trade, and her largest income comes from visitors.... The value of this troue in hard to guess, but many of those who come, come simply on buying apress." · "Hongkeng's free port umakon things so much cheaper here that a business- min from Australia or the Philippines will fly to Hongkong with a shopping list long mough to cover "the costs of his travel and his holiday here by the sayings that he makes from prices in our shops. When The leaves, Hongkong the leaves loaded with optical and electronic gear, typewriters and cooking gadgets {from Americo, cameras and binoculars from Germany and Japan, cloth, wptches, "Hi-fi" sets and records, and`sults of English worsted. " A lady from Australia, asked what she was taking away, replied "a dining room table." Passengers aboard wisiting ocean liners on world cruises save up for their Hongkong stopovar as the big spending spree of the trip.. When the U.S. Carrier Midway last visited. Hongkong- her 2,300 men ́aboard' left behind more than $2 million.An- other ship reported that the average spending of her -crew members on a first visit here was US$400 a hend.
"Hongkong is a place to save up for when you visiti
"But visitors do not spand on portables alone. Hongkong has memories too to give away to those who seek them. Cantonese cooks are aítísts of such delicacy that when they cook a fish they want it alive and swimming five minutes before they set it on the table. At Aberdeen (below) one of the world's forgest, fishing fleets supplies Hongkong kitchens and its own flooring, restaurants with the kind of fish they want." Gooks are, so fastidious here that the livelihood of the smaller fishing, sampan is preserved against its larger rivals. . for the frozen fish of the huga trawler (if it can find a market at all), fatches lơm than half the price of the smaller trawler's fresher "chilled" catch. The chilled catch" of a trawler fetches loss again than the book-caught cofch of an ocean-going, Junk," "Highost price of all is paid for live fish," which to many palatos, ls the only fish worth eating." And the best place to eat it is in Aberdeen's own floating restaurants where your dinner swims in a basket Hill'you choose.
At night the bright lights of these gay barges ́shina out over dark water and silhouette the bulks of a thousand fishing junks which lie at anchor.“ And the lights of the two citipi 'which · foće, each `other across the waters of Hongkong Harbour come on too- in their nightly contest to see whịch town con 'rbine the brightest. in pang ada.. ?" in '
Above: (Aberdešné sláné