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3 Lantao Island LANTAO ISLAND (Eric Hamilton) There were biggish patches of cultivation around Tung Chung and Tai O. My own view in those days was that the chief importance of Lantao Island vis-à-vis Hong Kong was: (a) the fishing industry based at Tai O (Wong Fa are delicious!) and (b) the salt pans at Tai O. These were rather mismanaged and I think we ought to have devoted more attention to them. LANTAO ISLAND (S. H. Peplow) Lantau. Lan — broken, Tau — head. So-called from the shape of the Lantau Peak, which has a cleft or as the Chinese say, is broken. lt is sometimes called Tai Yu Shan, Big Island Mountain. LANTAO ISLAND (Paul Tsui, written after he retired) I love Lantao Island. As a small boy when still in school, I took part in a launch picnic which took us right round the island. It took the whole day to get round and a part of the voyage sailing to the south of the island was marked by pretty rough seas which caused me to be seasick. As an undergraduate at the University of Hong Kong, Professor Hsu Ti Shan of the School of Chinese Studies used to take us up to the monastery at Ngong Ping for long weekends to observe how the Buddhist monks lived and prayed. During the British Military Administration the Royal Navy brought me to visit the various parts of the island, once by Mine Sweeper, several times by Harbour Defence motor launches and twice by their sea planes called Sea Otters. The Marine Police took me there by their largest Police Launches (oceangoing tugs). On top of that I took the ferry. One of the routes took 34 Southern DiStrict officer reportS some three hours to Tai O via Ma Wan and Castle Peak. The other took just about an hour to Silvermine Bay for Mui Wo. When I returned to serve as District Officer South I had my own departmental launch, an Australian-built light wooden tug; and when I entertained visitors (e.g., Mr Harold Ingram, at one time the Acting Governor for Aden who was commissioned to write a book on Hong Kong and its people for the Corona Library) I could use the Governor’s barge or the Marine Department’s de luxe lighthouse tender. I have also been offered the use of private pleasure craft owned by my friends. Once landed on an island, I would have no alternative but to walk. By established custom make-shift sedan chairs (a bamboo chair attached between two bamboo poles) would normally only be used by people who were too sick to walk. By far the most memorable of all the trips I have made to Lantao was one in the company of a Mr Hum, the Port Works Engineer of the Public Works Department, whom I took out to take soundings of the sea bed fronting Tung Chung, with a view to ascertaining whether or not it was worth building a jetty for the convenience of the inhabitants living in the Tung Chung valley. We travelled on board my department launch, and the journey from Tsim Sha Tsui took about two hours. On the way, Mr Hum told me how an engineer would set about tackling the problem that we were about to tackle. He explained in great detail how technological soundings could be taken, but emphasised the importance of taking note of the movements of tides as well as water flowing from the Pearl River, the geological formation of the sea bed and beach. He had to assess the potential usage of the project, noting the number of people as well as the type of craft likely to use the facilities when built. Then he would work out mathematically how big the pier should be, how big the pillars of support should be, how much steel to reinforce the concrete and what sort of a mix the concrete should be to withstand the rusting, etc. After the pier is built, who would maintain it? And how much it might cost to employ one or more workers to maintain it? The lecture or rather the “tutorial” was so fascinating that it ended up with my saying how clever and marvellous he must have been to have worked his way up to qualify as an engineer. To my surprise, he responded by saying, “Mr Tsui, an engineer only deals with subject matter which is quantifiable, in that you...

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