Tai Po

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the district in Hong Kong, see Tai Po District.

For the new town in Hong Kong, see Tai Po New Town.

For the football (soccer) club in Hong Kong, see Tai Po FC.

Junction of Kwong Fuk Road and Wan Tau Street, Tai Po

Tai Po (traditional Chinese: 大埔) (sometimes written as Taipo) refers to the area of the traditional market towns in the area presently known as Tai Po Old Market or Tai Po Kau Hui (大埔舊墟) (originally Tai Po Market or Tai Po Town) and the Tai Wo Town (Tai Wo Market) on the other side of the Lam Tsuen River, near the old Tai Po Market Station of the Kowloon-Canton Railway British Section, within the Tai Po District.

Both market towns have become part of the Tai Po New Town in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In present-day usage, "Tai Po". may refer to the area around the original market towns (i.e. Tai Po proper), the new town, or the entire Tai Po District.

There is an apocryphal story that Tai Po was originally called Tai Po (大步), lit. big step. Once upon a time it was a big forest with tigers. People wanted to pass through the forest faster by walking in big steps. 大步 and 大埔 are pronounced similarly in Cantonese.

1 History
2 People
3 Housing
4 External links

[edit] History

View of Tai Po

Starting from the Hang Dynasty in AD 963, the indigenous inhabitants of Taipo lived by clamming and making pearls. The pearl making business reached its peak in the Sung Dynasty and started to decline gradually in the midst of the Ming Dynasty. Taipo had been developed as a fishing port around the late Ming Dynasty and the Qin Dynasty.

Thanks to battles and political struggles in modern history, a lot of people migrated to Hong Kong from China; one of the destinations for them was Taipo. People first began to settle around the riversides of Lam Tsuen River and finally Taipo Old Market and Tai Wo Town were developed.

In the 1970s, the Hong Kong government began to develop satellite cities: the first industrial estate in Hong Kong was built in Taipo in 1974; Taipo was named as “a new town” in 1979; the first public housing estate in Taipo - Tai Yuen Estate - was established in 1981. The population has soared to 320, 000 and Taipo began to prosper following the completion of the Tolo Highway which enhanced communication with the older urban areas.

[edit] People

While being a new town, Tai Po is populated with many people of Hakka origin. Before the 70's, immigrants from Guangdong Province in China migrated to Hong Kong. Many of the Hakka people moved to Tai Po, Fanling and Sheung Shui. In Tai Po, you will notice a large population of Hakka people in Tai Po Market (大埔墟), especially around the area of "Little Park" (公園仔).

[edit] Housing

Because Hong Kong is a very populated region, Tai Po has followed the many urban areas of Hong Kong by building high-rise apartments. Also, Tai Po houses 320,000 people, making high-rise apartments necessary and mandatory. These high-rise apartments are located inside estates, such as Tai Yuen Estates and Fu Heng Estates. These high-rise apartments have floors ranging from the low apartments in Tai Po Old Town to the new estates in northern Tai Po ranging from 20 to 34 levels. People prefer renting in these apartments than buying them since Hong Kong apartments are very expensive to buy. However, there are small shanty towns and at the edges of Tai Po where people use leftover scraps of steel and wood to make little houses. Also, there are people who prefer to buy houses in Tai Po instead of living in a very high building. However, this is not very common since there is limited space to make houses due to Tai Po's location in a valley and being surrounded by mountains and the sea.