words yvonne teh

Hong Kong may appear all glass and cement but for those in the know many of the city’s secrets are carved in stone.

Think Hong Kong and what comes to mind? For many visitors to the Fragrant Harbour, it will be a picture of the northern side of Hong Kong Island as viewed from Tsim Sha Tsui, and dominated by the shiny skyscrapers of Central and the Peak. For locals, especially those who regularly watched the long-running Below the Lion Rock TV series, however, the more emotionally resonant vision of the place they call home will centre on the distinctive natural rock formation that resembles a lion perched on a ridge.

As the opening lyrics of the TV series’ theme song go, “Happiness is a certainty in life, though there are times of tears. Ever since we met beneath this Lion Rock, there are more smiles than sighs.” And while many people have indeed met beneath that rugged formation, other hiking enthusiasts have met on the 495m Kowloon Hill (also named Lion Rock) on which that large rock lies and elsewhere within the borders of the 5.57 sq km Lion Rock Country Park it has given its name to.

Lion Rock is not the only outcrop in Hong Kong given extra meaning by people’s imaginings. The territory abounds in formations from which a leisurely mind can easily construct a familiar resemblance, and some such imaginative constructs, passed on from generation to generation, have become legendary. Others, however, rather defy the imagination – it takes quite a stretch, for instance to be able to ‘see’ the not-so-well-known Stone Horse in the Lion Rock Country Park. In contrast, it’s easy enough to understand how the 15m knoll known in Cantonese as ‘Mong Fu Shek’ (Waiting for Husband Rock) could inspire a legend about a woman who climbed to high ground with her baby to spend day and night watching for the return of her husband – some say a fisherman, others a farmer who had reluctantly gone to seek a livelihood across the seas.

Regardless of his occupation, though, people generally agree that mother and child waited in vain for the man who perished at sea. But that wasn’t the end of the poignant story – it closes with the gods eventually taking pity on the poor woman by releasing her and her child’s souls to join that of her husband, while turning their bodies to stone as an eternal tribute to wifely loyalty and faithfulness. And to this day, plenty of women are prepared to trek up the hill to Amah Rock overlooking Shatin to pay their own tribute to the stone figure whose height equals six or seven grown men standing on top of one another.

Although smaller in size, another Amah Rock, lying above Wanchai on the Midlevels’ Bowen Road and also known as the Marriage Rock (or, most popularly, Lover’s Rock), attracts its share of female worshippers too – as witnessed by the incense sticks, fruit, flowers and other offerings placed around it pretty much all year round.

Nonetheless, it’s during the traditional Maiden’s Festival on the seventh day of the seventh moon in the Chinese lunar calendar that this Lover’s Rock – whose resemblance to a phallus prompted local historian Jason Wordie to suggest in Streets: Exploring HK Island (2002) that some “earthy humour” may be behind the naming of such structures – becomes a particularly popular pilgrimage site for women. That special day is also known as the Seven Sisters Festival in homage to the over 1,000-year-old legend of the youngest of the celestial Queen Mother of the West’s seven granddaughters who married a cowherd from the human realm across the Milky Way.

The Seven Sisters (Tsat Tsz Mui) was also the name of a group of granite boulders that used to stand on the North Point beach. Buried in 1934 during a land reclamation (one of a number that moved the coastline quite a distance north of King’s Road), the seven rocks were linked to a local legend about seven beautiful sisters who used to live in a nearby Hakka hamlet. When one of them died (by her own hands, one version has it, because she didn’t want to marry the man her parents had chosen for her), the others all decided to commit suicide too to ensure that, always linked in life, they would be united in death as well. Soon after, seven large rocks made their appearance on the seashore. Believed by some to be the sisters whose bodies a sympathetic wandering goddess transformed into granite blocks, they may be visible no more, and their legend close to forgotten, but references to them remain in Tsat Tsz Mui Road and the surrounding area.

But rather than mourn the end of North Point’s Seven Sisters, we should celebrate the scores of other unusual and interesting rock formations in Hong Kong’s 1,104 sq km, many of which have so inspired people’s imaginations. For example, as those who have made it out to the eastern-most section of Sai Kung East Country Park have discovered, it’s not only El Capitan, the most awe-inspiring feature of California’s Yosemite Valley, that displays an amazing natural ‘heart-shaped’ formation. A similar formation in Sai Kung park has been dubbed the Heart of Hong Kong – that and other fascinating stone structures further northeast in Tung Ping Chau make a trip to an island much closer to Mainland China than the HKSAR well worthwhile.

Particularly noteworthy on this, Hong Kong’s only island (out of 232) with shale beaches, a pair of wave-cut watchtower-shaped sea stacks known in English as Guard Stones (and Cantonese as Kang Lau Shek) lie close to the eastern-most tip. And on the southwest side lies another rock formation that has provided something for the imagination to play with. A long, triangular bed of dolomitic cherty siltstone has been named Dragon Descending into Water (Lung Lok Shui) because it looks so like the back of the mythical beast disappearing into the sea.

As might be expected of a people who consider dragons to be highly auspicious, Hongkongers seem to see them in a lot more places than others might. And so Tung Ping Chau is far from the only part of the territory that is home to a formation associated with the celestial creature. To name just four others, Tap Mun Chau (Grass Island) boasts a Dragon’s Neck Muscle (Lung Keng Kan), neighbouring Chek Chau (Port Island) possesses a Huge Dragon rock formation and a Good Dragon’s Pool lies close to the border of Pat Sin Leng Country Park while Ma On Shan has had to settle for the more modest Dragon Boat Rock.

Quite a few other animals have also been spotted in local rock formations. And although sceptics about such resemblances abound, we dare those within viewing distance of southern Lantau Island’s most famous rock not to see the porcine creature that Fat Pig Rock is named for! Indeed, the main debate about it is not whether the formation is shaped like a fat pig but rather if it is a pig full of pride or one that fears it’s about to fall into the sea!

Often even the most imaginative minds are more likely to see a part of a creature rather than the whole thing in a stone structure. For instance, a preponderance of ‘heads’ has been found in various parts of Hong Kong – including one of ‘a foreigner’ on Lamma Island and that of the monkey king close to the Yuen Tsuen Ancient Trail that runs through Tai Lam Country Park. Dog heads are also common throughout the territory.

For the best chance of finding unusual and interesting rock formations, however, one can do worse than venture out to Po Toi Island, the largest of the Hong Kong group.

The southern headland there, in particular, is the place to see three of the more evocative of Hong Kong’s natural structures; two of which, the Buddhist Monk Stone and Buddha’s Palm Rock have religious associations, even if by name only, though the third really does resemble a supersize Tortoise Going Up a Hill!

Hong Kong is far more than just high-density architectural erections. Even if you don’t venture out to the remote areas of the Fragrant Harbour, it has a plethora of unusual and interesting geological formations to explore. In fact, there is so much to discover that it might not be too much of an exaggeration to say that for those who delight in natural wonders. Hong Kong rocks!