Vignettes of the World
Li River was always known and praised for its beauty. The Yellow Cloth Shoal, a scene of the karst peak clusters at the Li River, is featured on the RMB 20 yuan bank note. It brings the Li River to the fore of China’s national …
The fishermen of Xingping had engaged in the cormorant in their fishing practices for centuries. This very special practice has drawn many interested tourists and I was keen to see it when I went to Xingping. There are two options in terms of boat rides …
The Asia Society Hong Kong is a nonprofit and educational organization that aims to promote mutual understanding in all matters of culture, arts, policy and politics in Asia.
Located in the former Victoria Barracks area, the Asia Society has taken over the former Explosive Magazines A and B as its venue of events and exhibition. The whole area comes with a holistic approach to historical preservation, art, ecology and architecture.
The Asia Society established its branch in Hong Kong in 1990. The current site for the Asia Society was opened in 2012. The site consists of a new building and four other heritage buildings, with a connecting bridge and a podium with art exhibitions.
There are a few heritage buildings in the Asia Society complex. The Starr-Greenberg Building is now the administrative office for Asia Society. Former Magazine A is now the Chantal Miller Gallery and it is the venue for exhibitions. Former Magazine B is now the Miller Theater. Some of the original features of the magazine turned out to serve unintended benefits for the theater. Finally, the GG Block close to the entrance of Asia Society is now also the office space for administration. The rest of the Asia Society complex were newly constructed in 2012 with the support of private funds and donations, and it is fully owned by Asia Society.
Award-winning U.S. architect Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects designed the complex with restoration, conservation and adaptation in mind. The entrance hall of Asia Society is lined with artificial marble from Iran, with patterns that echo the natural granite of Magazine A in the site. This is part of the effort to incorporate eco-friendly concepts in the site design.
There are a few pieces of artwork in the Joseph and Josephine Lau Roof Garden, which is meant to be a zen garden and a place of respite within Hong Kong’s urban landscape. Artist Zhang Huan derived his inspiration for the copper and steel piece Long Island Buddha from a trip to Tibet. He observed the damages done to the buddha statues there and renewed his thinking about the Cultural Revolution. Therefore on this artwork some sections show intentional dents and damages as an artistic message.
The marble on the walls at the zen garden match with the environment and feature textured stones from Burma.
The Yasumoto Bridge is intended to be an ecological walkway, where pedestrians will enjoy bird viewing and their singsongs with the urban views of Hong Kong island on the side. On the hillside, the original fan palms there were preserved and new ones were planted to serve as a habitat for the short-nosed fruit bat. These fruit bats are seen at dusk.
This bridge was restored during the building period. It was supposed to be a straight bridge leading directly to the magazine, but the elbow bridge now provides a v-shape, pointed viewing point. During the construction, the fruit bats flew away but they came back when the fan palms were replanted.
Of the many heritage sites at the Asia Society, I found the explosives track to be the most interesting. The history of the Former Explosives Magazines must be understood within the larger context of British strategic defense in this whole area of Admiralty.
At one point in history, the Arsenal Yard was located at the seaside. Now this location is the Hong Kong Police Headquarters. Going north, the Arsenal Street used to be where the raw materials for ammunition and explosives were transported to the Victoria Barracks by the coolies. The workers must wear lint-free garment to avoid causing sparks when they transported the explosives. The architects have preserved the transportation tracks as a way to celebrate the unique history of the former Victoria Barracks.
Photo: The stones next to the former explosives-mixing facility are the foundation for the explosives transportation paths.
In 1865, the British army built the former explosive-mixing facility that would eventually become the Starr-Greenburg Building. This building comes with some typical colonial building features, including a veranda. Veranda A is where the stone path from a century ago as well as the stone foundation of the columns are seen.
The Boundary Stones were there since 1910, before the site was occupied by the British Navy. In this year the British army handed over this site to the Royal Navy, and the five boundary stones were established here. Admiralty acquired its name as the region governing the Royal Navy.
In a previous entry, I have shared about an exhibition of old photographs of Hong Kong held at the Chantal Miller Gallery, Former Magazine A. Magazine A had not changed except for the gate. It was built of granite. The entry hall’s granite, mentioned earlier, was meant to simulate this natural granite at Magazine A. Its wall is quite thick at 8 feet, one of the obvious reasons is to protect against explosion and to keep the temperature constant.
Photo: the cannons on site were discovered during the restoration. One is front-loaded and one is back-loaded.
Magazine B was built in 1905, of bricks. Bricks were comparatively easier and faster to source than granite. At the time of construction, the British army wanted to gain control of this site. It wanted to stop the civilian government from taking this land to widen Kennedy road. Therefore it used bricks as a measure of expediency.
For ammunition storage, originally there were four chambers to keep the explosives. During the restoration, the architect removed two walls. The theatre accommodates 176 people, and the plasterer roof is original. As it is now, the building is a double-wall construction, helpful for sound and temperature-proofing.
The corridor inside Magazine B was for inspection, and the inspectors took their oil lamps to peep through the small windows. The dome-shape corridor prevents catastrophe – in the unfortunate event of explosions, the force would push upward instead of sideways, and the corridor passage is for quick evacuation. The brick was bound in English bonding, one long brick against one short brick, double wall.
There are free tours conducted in English or Cantonese available for sign up at the Asia Society website. There is one Cantonese tour and one English tour held on the same day once per month, usually at the end of the month. Be sure to visit the website at the beginning of the month of the tour to book in advance, because they do get full.
The address of the Asia Society Hong Kong is 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty, Hong Kong.
Descriptions on site at the Asia Society.
The website of the Asia Society.
Free English tour of the Asia Society.
In the morning I inquired with the hotel staff the possibility of maybe joining a half-day tour to see the Silver Caves. To my surprise, (and this really is very surprising to me), the hotel staff advised me not to join those tours. They said …
I did not get to try the beer fish in Huangyao and so I was very keen to try it in Yangshuo. Indeed, when I just arrived in Yangshuo, I saw all these restaurants claiming to be beer fish specialists. That would be my dinner …
I was only spending one day in Yangshuo and by the afternoon I had decided to take it easy. The boat tour of Lijiang River would be departing soon at 3pm on Binjiang Road, so I hurried to the pier. This 1.5-hour boat ride will feature iconic views that are memorable, these views are what give Guilin its fame for natural landscapes. For a 1.5 hour ride the ferry would take us between Yangshuo and a town called Fuli and back, going the southern downstream direction. The boat ride cost 120 yuan. It is possible to take a ferry all the way from Guiling to Yangshuo. The whole scenic route on Lijiang would span a good 67 km, known as the “living gallery.”
In Chinese, we say Guilin’s landscape is best of the world. When I arrived in Yangshuo, people were saying that Yangshuo’s landscape is best of Guilin. And there was no doubt in my mind that I would be seeing the best of the best scenery there. The day was blessed with plenty of sunshine.
Photograph: In Yangshuo, by the pier of the boat tour
At 2:50 I boarded the ferry. We were seated as directed (selection of the window seats was not available, everybody had to be directed in the seating). There was some introduction and we were handed a menu. I ordered the Changshou fish, which is a river catch from the Li River itself. It’s a fried fishies dish and it was not too bad.
There is a standard way of appreciating Guilin scenery. The imagery is often compared to some common ideas, and usually the names are either fun or poetic. Naturally, a tourist would try very hard to see the scenery in the light that its supposed name suggests, but very soon you would find that to be a very tiring exercise. Some of the peaks clearly match their names, but others would quickly be lost on an untrained eye. On this part of Lijiang River, I was supposed to have seen the White Crane Drinking Water, The Thumb Peak, The Straw Hat Peak, The Saddle Hill, and the Incense Burner Hill. No, I did not manage to take any photographs to illustrate how the Chinese people associated these peaks with their poetic imagination; it was hard enough to catch the Chinese name, let alone understanding the tour guide’s quick pointing at these hills for the descriptions. There were tens and tens of these peaks exhibiting their own individual grandeur on that sunny afternoon.
About 20 minutes after the boat departed from the pier, we were able to go up to the deck and feel the embrace of the peak clusters all around us, rolling on endlessly above the meandering river. Surely, the natural beauty of Lijiang was an incredibly pleasing sight, but I found the occasional human footprint to add an interesting touch to the natural scenery. We saw some fishing boats, some town establishments afar, and some interesting structures by the shore as well.
The Li River is part of a river waterway that spans all of Guanxi Province. With its origin at the Maoer Mountain, which is the “first peak of South China” at an altitude of 2141.5 meters, Lijiang refers to “the upper reaches of the Gui River in northeastern Guangxi, China. It is part of the Xijiang River system in the Pearl River basin, flowing 164 kilometres (102 mi) from Xing’an County to Pingle County.” Furthermore, the ‘upper course of the Li River is connected by an ancient Lingqu canal with the Xiang River, which flows north into the Yangtze; this in the past made the Li and Gui Rivers part of a highly important waterway connecting the Yangtze valley with the Pearl delta.”
A few doors away from the Riverview Hotel there was a very nice and classy coffee shop called Ming Yuan. I could not resist and went in for a pistachio basque cheesecake and a coffee with litsea, a kind of ginger-like root that comes with a very special fragrance. The litsea is common in China, but perhaps not in Hong Kong. I had my first litsea coffee and it was such a pleasant surprise. It has a hint of spiciness but the flavor felt balanced and “rounded,” as in not having the sharpness of ginger. I like to compare it with ginger because in Chinese the name of litsea is “wooden ginger.”
This was a perfectly relaxed day for me. For those who would not mind rushing through some more sights in Yangshuo, there are the Moon Hill, the Silver Cave (Yinzi Cave), and the Yulong river boat rides. Because these sights will involve renting a car (or booking a tour), I had not made arrangements to see them.
Descriptions on site in Yangshuo.
The Wikipedia on Li River.
My first impression of Yangshuo was that it was a vast expanse of a no-man’s land. From the Edge of Yangshuo County to Yangshuo City Proper Bright and early at 8:20 am I was at the Qianxing Square of Huangyao Ancient Town and ready to …
I arrived at Huangyao in the late afternoon and I had not had any food since a very early breakfast. I decided to have a bowl of Guilin Mifen (rice noodles) before I did more touring of the ancient town. Photo: The West Gate of …
A leisurely walk within the ancient town of Huangyao will take some three hours or so. I began walking into the ancient town from Qianxing Square and came across the main street with all kinds of vendors and restaurants. The storefronts were all well-kept and the walk was pleasant with many photogenic spots.
Huangyao has had a history of over one thousand years. The town came into being during the Kaibao Period of the Song Dynasty. The ancient town went through a period of expansion during the Ming Dynasty, and it thrived during the Qing Dynasty. Most of the old buildings that make up the antique face of Huangyao were of the Ming and Qing dynasty era.
Because the villagers that live there mostly had the surname of Huang and Yao, this ancient town became known as Huangyao.
Even though Huangyao is relatively low key as a tourist destination, it is well-known for a few things. In the following I will go through some of the scenic sites in Huangyao. Its scenery by the creek has been featured on a postage stamp series, China Ancient Town II Special Stamp.
There were not very many tourists on this warm winter afternoon, but the main street of Huangyao was lively. There were many vendors selling all sorts of curios, some featured the specialty products of Huangyao. Needless to say, there are restaurants after restaurants standing in this part of town. However, it did not occur to me that too many of those eateries were actually open for business.
This cobblestoned part of the town is very picturesque and I was just-so-happy that I made it there, even though there would not be much time left before dusk sets in.
All over Huangyao it breathed antiquity, along with a sense of self-assuredness over its own historic beauty. The people there were very relaxed. They did not plead customers to buy their products, nor did they even call out to me to take a look.
The walk offered plenty of sensory pleasures. The ancient brick buildings, humble as they were, seemed to stack one against the other endlessly. You turn a corner and there were more of those blue brick buildings, plastered in different shades of earthy mud. Its structures having endured some of the most significant crossroads in China’s history, the ancient city exhibits its humble beauty crafted by the very hands of time.
Occasionally you would come across some traces of communist propaganda, as Chairman Mao seemed to be revered still in Huangyao—but even that hallmark of modernity appeared to be dated in 21st century China.
The Ancient Well of Immortals belongs to a relatively older era of the ancient town’s history. Build in the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty, the well comes with the legend that this was where the seven immortals came and play. There are five sections of the well. The “inner ponds” are for drinking water and washing vegetables, and the “outer ponds” are for washing clothes. Every year on the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar, the town celebrates the “Water-taking Festival.” The well is still being used for its intended purpose today.
The Dailong Bridge is namely the most-photographed scene in the ancient city of Huangyao. This scenery, along with the beautiful creek, Yaojiang, and the mud-plastered buildings behind, is what has been featured on a postage stamp issued in 2016.
The Dailong Bridge was built during the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty. It was restored during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty. It is believed that this bridge is what channels the “dragon’s breath” from the nearby Zhenwu Mountain, therefore it was named “dailong,” meaning “bringing forth the dragon.” There are two arches, one large, one small, beneath the stone throughway that provides pedestrian access between the shores of the narrow creek of Yaojiang.
At the advanced age of 800 years, the Dragon Gate Ficus stands tall and vibrant at the mouth of Yaojiang creek, guarding the waterway that would nurture the eastern shores of the Huangyao Ancient City. Its aerial roots entwined within itself in a “circle of life,” the tree shows a teardrop hollow and then extends its roots further with a straight arm, the woven fabric of century-old roots propping a luscious crown of evergreen leaves above. In the cool of the tree’s umbra one would feel inclined to sit for a while, right by the droning murmurs of the creek Yaojiang.
The Yikongzhigu is an important gatehouse in the ancient city. Its name came from The Book of Poetry, meaning that “because heavens blesses the stability of this place, it stands steady and strong.” Built during the early Qing Dynasty, the gatehouse comes with two stories. The upper story is for guards as a watchtower, the lower story is for passage inside and outside of the ancient city.
The Guo Family Courtyard was built during the reign of the Daoguang regin in the Qing dynasty. According to descriptions on site, the Guo Family Courtyard has a layout of the “flat-ground courtyard building” typical in the Huangyao Ancient Town, composed of the front hall, courtyard, main halls and the wing rooms. This structure would be considered a grand mansion in the ancient town. The courtyard is open for visitation and it comes with some really beautiful, perfectly aligned round entrance archways.
The lake is also where the most iconic photographs are taken of Huangyao, especially with the typical peak clusters of Guilin as its backdrop. It was nearing dusk and so the colors made the scenery especially poignant with a touch of poetry.
Descriptions on site at the Huangyao Ancient Town.
At the Qianxing Square drop-off point I first came across the Ancient Stage. Built in the third year of the Jiaqing reign in Ming dynasty (1524), the Ancient Stage was the only building in Huangyao that served the purpose of cultural performances. When it was …