Lok Fu, corner of Kowloon that encapsulates Hong Kong’s history
From its settlement in the 13th century to the growth of Kowloon Walled City, post-war public housing and the city’s biggest urban park, to its regeneration today, Lok Fu offers a microcosm of Hong Kong’s history
“Tiger’s Den to be no more” – that was a headline in the August 10, 1971 edition of the South China Morning Post. The resettlement estate that had been known for more than a decade as Lo Fu Ngam (meaning Tiger’s Den, or Tiger’s Cliff), would henceforth be called Lok Fu, meaning “happiness and wealth”.
The estate had taken the name of the surrounding countryside, which had been presumably named after the tigers that once roamed Hong Kong. The last wild tiger in the city was killed in March 1915, shortly after it had mauled two police officers to death in Sheung Shui, but the residents of Lo Fu Ngam weren’t about to take any chances. More than 40,000 of them petitioned the government to change the name of their estate.
These days, there are no tigers in Lok Fu but there is artisanal coffee. It is roasted inside the Stone Houses, a row of old village houses that have been converted into a speciality coffee shop and history museum.
“When this was a village for grass-roots people, there used to be little restaurants and cafes around here,” says Mo Pui-yee, secretary general of Wing Kwong So-Care Company, the NGO chosen by the government to renovate and manage the historic site.
A few hundred metres away lies the site of the Kowloon Walled City, which once towered above Carpenter Road. To the north stand the housing blocks and shopping mall of Lok Fu Estate, and to the west is “Checkerboard Hill” (named after the orange and white squares painted on the hillside), which pilots used as a visual reference when making their final approach to Runway 13 before landing at Kai Tak Airport.