Mui Wo Mui Wo (Plum Nest) is a rural town on the eastern coast of Hong Kong’s Lantau island. Mui Wo is located on Silvermine Bay, named so because of the silver mines that were once mined out for silver during the 19th century and has since been sealed off for safety. During 1277 the imperial refuged in silver mine bay known as Mei Yu during that time. Mui
One of the most beautiful islands of Lantau.
Wo was the main point for people who are setting out to explore Lantau Island for the day. Today it is still one of the main ways for reaching South Lantau - from the beaches in Cheung Sha, to the fishing village of Tai O.
Contents: Using maps
2
physical characteristics
4
human characteristics
5
spatial terms
6
cultural characteristics
7
Persuasive Article
8
Bibliography
9
Using Maps A map shows a simplified version of a place from overhead. This is how to read a map of Mui Wo. Step 1: Find Location of place or region You need to find the absolute location or grid location of the place you are looking for. See which method the map you have uses. In this case you could use grid location for this Mui Wo map. Step 2: Measure Map Distance You need to find the scale on the map and see what scale they are using to measure. For example they could use 1cm= 1km for the scale. This would mean that every centimeter you measure that would equal to one kilometer on the ground. This map uses a scale called the line scale, which is easier to use with a ruler to be more exact. On the Mui Wo map scale it 500m= 1000ft.
Step 3: Find Map Direction On most maps the top of the map is north, but you should make sure by looking for a compass rose on the map to show direction. On this map of Mui Wo, the compass direction is north, so it is easier to read.
Step 4: Interpret the Map Legend (key) The map legend or key is used to show what symbols represent on the map. There are three major types of symbols on a legend: colors, lines, and point. Color symbols are used to identify larger places with parks, lakes, and cities. Line symbols are what connect different cities and towns together like with rivers and roads or dived them like boundaries. Point symbols are used for small places where there is a lot of human interaction. on this map i used different colored shapes on the map to show where important spots are in Mui Wo.
By: Sarah Gattis
Map of Mui Wo:
After reading the information above about how to use a map, you can look at this map of Mui Wo, the scale and key to have an understanding of the area. While it is a satellite map with some clouds coverage, the key and outlines should give you a sense of size and layout of the area.
Physical features of Mui Wo Mui Wo a rural town on the eastern coast of Hong Kong one of the main ways to reaching South Lantau. From the beaches of Cheung Sha, to the fishing village of Tai O. Rural towns are best known for their tourist attractions but what most tourists don’t know is that the best places to go in tourist areas are the ones that aren’t on a map or in a book such as beaches and hidden water falls and on your way to one of these spots you may come across a strange animal or two maybe even an exotic bug.
By: Libby Fowler
The exotic animals of Mui Wo such as snakes, lizards, birds, monkeys, butterfly’s and sugar gliders that are set in the wonderful mountains and forests to make Mui Wo home to these animals as well as people. Two of the most common animals that can be spotted everywhere are the water buffalo these are as common in Mui Wo as people are on the MTR. Because of being harassed, the Hong Kong government was forced by the people from the city who claimed that the buffalo are unsafe to be wandering in the city, some claim that these massive animals have caused traffic to stop just so they can cross the road to devour the grass on the other side. Bugs are also extremely common such as butterfly’s there are thousands of species around the world, the most generic butterfly’s seen in Mui Wo are white with a small detail on their wings there are also more elaborate butterfly’s such as the tiger butterfly with their brilliant designs and colors you almost can’t resist pulling out your camera and snapping a few photos. In Mui Wo there are plenty of waterfalls to explore and beaches to relax on but only one beach remains that allows dogs to romp on the warm sand. Silvermine beach is one of the last beaches left that allow dogs on it’s sand. Although the dogs and people have to share the beach, most people are quite happy to let the dogs roam close to their swimming spot, As long as the owners clean up after s their pet. Some people prefer to take their pet on a hike through the brush and stop by one of the water falls that are scattered throughout the trails, to find one of these amazing swimming spots one has to tray from the beaten down hiking trail and follow the sound of rushing water. These are two of the dog friendly areas that your pet can enjoy without people becoming paranoid or upset. Overall Mui Wo is a pet friendly area where you can enjoy a day out filled with exploring and adventures in the mountains amazing water falls and hiking trails or a relaxing day on the beach.
Human Characteristics
Human characteristics are man- made objects in a community. Mui Wo is filled with human characteristics all over the community. The children in Mui Wo are in risk of education because of what they have to travel to get to one. There is only one primary school and no secondary school in Mui Wo. Students have to wake up at 5:00 a.m. to travel 3-4 hours to get to school. Since they have to wake up so early and arrive home so late this causes them to have lack of sleep and can cause poor physical health. This makes it difficult for students to do after school activities and sports. There is an empty school in Mui Wo right now but nobody is occupying it. Parents in the community are trying to turn it into a secondary school but also there are people trying to turn it into a drug rehab center. This is the only place in Mui Wo that there is room for a school since it is already there. There are many forms of transportation to get to Mui Wo. You can take a bus, car, taxi, ferry, hike, or bike. Many people take the ferry because it’s convenient for people and it’s also a nice view. There ferry
By: Sarah Gattis
goes to many different places including Discovery Bay, Central, Cheung Chau, and Ping Chau. There is a temple in Mui Wo called Hung Shing Temple. There are two statues of lions in the front of the temple. One is the male lion stepping on a gold ball and the other is the female lion playing with the cub. The lions are guardians of the temple. The temple is 1200 sq. feet. The Hung Shing Temple was built before 1843 according to a rock carved with history near the temple. There’s a Chinese saying that that Hung Shing is the guard of the south sea and the fishermen and Mui Wo in general warship the temple and later on it was spread to the mainland and the king continues to praise the temple. There is another saying that Hung Shing was a person that helped the king that said you should read a lot about astronomy to help fishermen. He died early from being too tired. They built this temple to warship him. His spirits did not die so this helped the community out of many disasters.
The world in Spatial terms- Distribution By: Crystal Lam
Mui Wo in Spatial Terms Hong Kong a city with a population of 7 million people is very crowded because of the lack of place. Therefore, the spread of the people in Hong Kong is very important and the geographic term world in the spatial terms means the spread of the Earth surface by both humans and environmental resources. Transportation and infrastructure are one of the key things, which helps spread the population. Imagine if one day the only type of transportation available is walking then everyone will be choosing to live near places, which have the most resources such as Central; however, with other transportation available such as ferries, even if you live on an isolated island like Mui Wo, it would still only take you about 30 minutes to get to Central. Mui Wo, a tourist attraction in Hong Kong is also home to 4,700 residents (according to data from the Hong Kong government in 2004), therefore, the transportation of this little oasis is very important, since many of adults and students have move in and out in Mui Wo for work and school. Furthermore, infrastructure in Mui Wo not only have to support its residents going to other islands in Hong Kong, it would also has to support the residents moving around Lantau. Lantau is the biggest islands in Hong Kong with 146.75 square miles, 84% bigger than Hong Kong Island. Therefore, one of the most critical issues in Mui Wo is to sort out the transportation of all the residents. While Mui Wo doesn’t have the abundant transportation options, there are still a ferries to common
places such as Central. Not only there are taxis, there are also 4 different ferries destine to different places and over 5 buses for the residents to transport to places, such as Central and Tung Chung. However, these transports might not be the most convenient. For example buses, which goes to the Asia World-Expo only operates when there are events happening there, it leaves either 15 minutes straight after the event had finished or if the bus is full before the 15 minutes is over. Although moving to other places is important, moving inner-Mui Wo is also an important traveling aspect for both tourists and residents. Mui Wo might not be a big place but it is still inconvenient for you to walk around to all the destinations you would like to go. There are ten streets in Mui Wo, which would help both residents and tourists to move around Mui Wo through vehicles. And also the streets lead to most structures in Mui Wo. Furthermore, most people arrive in Mui Wo via ferry. Therefore, near the Mui Wo ferry pier there are the most road structures. In conclusion, Mui Wo might not have the most wellestablished transportation system, but the other islands and people had worked their best to provide the most suitable transportation for all.
Cultural Characteristics of Mui Wo
There are lots of forgotten cultures from the past, which might not be seems to have any importance now, but all of these features have once played an important role in some lives and it is worthwhile for us to remember it. As a place with at least seven hundred years of history, Mui Wo has many cultural characteristics, of which some still remains today. A cultural characteristic means beliefs, traditions and structures created or belong to a group of people with similar background. Most of the cultural remains of Mui Wo are temples, however, some might not have expected that even the Mui Wo primary school has over seventy years of history within its walls, it also has a story of its own to tell. There are far too many heritage cultural characteristics in Mui Wo for describing each in detail here. Therefore, only Man Mo temple and the watch towers in Mui Wo will be introduced briefly in the passage below. Man Mo temple is the oldest temple in Mui Wo. It is a cultural feature because a temple is a structure created and belongs to the Chinese beliefs. People believe that it was built around 1537 in Ming Dynasty, which means this temple could be dated back to around four hundred years ago. Although the Man Mo temple is not a huge scale project but it is still really important to the Mui Wo’s residents. Firstly, despite of the temple’s small size it is dedicated to two Chinese gods, which are the Kwan Tai and Wen Chang. In addition, this temple acted as the court when there were fights, during the time when there is still mining in Mui Wo. Today, there
might not be as many residents in Mui Wo as it used to be but each year all the residents still gather around the Man Mo temple to celebrate Kwan Tai’s birth with different activities. Showing us that the Man Mo temple still has its ability of uniting the Mui Wo’s residents. Watch-out towers are also an important feature in Mui Wo during the olden times. Since Mui Wo used to have a silver mine, these watchout towers’ purpose was for monitoring the place and preventing pirates from invading the island. There are over four watch-out towers in Mui Wo. During the Second World War these watch-out towers were also used for defending against the Japanese. To suit the watch-out towers’ purpose strong materials such as granite was used to reinforce these structures. Although, these watch-out towers are historical remains with around sixty years of history, however, many of these towers are now damaged or are no longer in use. Furthermore, many of these watch-out towers are in the middle of the mountain, which is really hard to reach and therefore, cannot be used as a tourist attraction. Although, the towers can no longer serve their original purpose but nowadays they are still fighting to stand, hoping that they could continue to tell their own stories to different generations for passing on the livelihood and the culture, which belongs to the Mui Wo residents.
By: Crystal Lam
Interesting Fact: jb
This bridge located in Mui Wo is called the 5 cent bridge because every time you cross it you have to pay 5 cents.
Mui Wo’s Facelift
By: Crystal Lam, Sarah Gattis, and Libby Fowler
Recently, many changes are taking place in different areas of Hong Kong to help increase Hong Kong’s competitiveness throughout Asia. Mui Wo is one of a famous, traditional, ecology and cultural tourism attractions and it is also going to undergo constructional improvements for increasing its competitiveness. This great improvement that is undergoing in Mui Wo is a facelift around the pier, that is going to bring both positive and negative aspects to all areas in Mui Wo from the environment to the lives of the residents there. Furthermore, as this facelift is a major project, therefore, we would also like to express our opinions about this project. Mui Wo is getting ready to add a facelift to it’s community. The community is going to renew the pier, entrance plaza, town square, and a heritage and cycle trail. The government is also planning to add a small stadium for sports and recreational activities. These are some of the few changes the government is planning to make in Mui Wo. As this facelift would help increase Mui Wo’s competitiveness, as a group we agree with this arrangement; hoping that this would bring more work opportunity, increases the population and the most importantly is to let the Mui Wo’s cultural and
environmental heritage be passed on. However, according to the summary of public views of Mui Wo’s facelift 90.9% people’s opinion being included in this summary believes that Mui Wo’s residents should have the final say, ironically 80% believe that the government did not answer what they want. Therefore, as a group we believe that the opinions of the residents in Mui Wo should not be forgotten throughout the whole facelift process and although, this new change to Mui Wo started for a good cause; however, the environmental and cultural habitat in Mui Wo should not be destroyed because of this development. A balance should be created between old and new. For example, choosing materials that are suitable for the environment would be a suggestion from our group for how to create a balance between the old and the new in Mui Wo. Therefore, as a group we support this change, but this change must be done under certain circumstances.
Bibliography Facelift of Mui Wo Summary of Public Views (interview). (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.facelift-muiwo.com/pdf/Engagement/PublicViews_rev9(Eng).pdf Mui Wo Primary School (n.d.). School’s History. Retrieved from http://www.mws.edu.hk/info.html Bak Mong Mui Wo Watchtower (website). (2010, August 22). Retrieved from http://www.hkhikers.com/Mui%20Wo%20watchtowers.htm Mui Wo Rural Committee (n.d.). Mui Wo tourist attraction. Retrieved from http://muiworc.com/scenic.html Mui Wo Man Mo’s Birth (website). (2009, June 5). Retrieved from http://www.hkhikers.com/Mui%20Wo%20Man%20Mo%20Festival.htm 木糖MM (n.d.). Man Mo Temple. Retrieved from http://www.ka6.com.cn/store/10333.html Hong Kong Mui Wo. (n.d.). In Hu Dong. Retrieved April 20, 2011, from http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E6%A2%85%E7%AA%9D#5