Author: Tsz Yiu Chau

Creative Writing piece

The former Hollywood of Wong Tai Sin District

Diamond Hill, as to the contrary believe, it does not have any diamonds presents in its former mines. However, it did use to reside some of Hong Kong’s stars. So, today we will have a look at the history and landmarks of Diamond Hill.

Diamond Hill, there are several explanations circulating about why it got its name. The most widely accepted explanation is it is due to mistranslation from Cantonese to English the Chinese character “鑽” meaning to drill, “石” means rocks, combined means drilling rocks. However, the word “鑽石” has another meaning diamond, and originally had a stone quarry that was mined for decades, which is why this hill got its name. The another theory is that the crystals contained within the rocks mined from the area have a diamond-like luminance, which was reference in the Diamond Hill MTR station’s mosaic pattern. 

The story is all started back in the Southern Ming dynasty, when Tai Hom Village was founded by the descendants of the Ming imperial family. The family transitioned into landlords after Ren-feng Zhu purchased the land and built a village in the early 1800s. The village grew into a structured rural settlement in Kowloon. After World War II, a lot of refugees started building makeshift homes close to the village, turning the Diamond Hill area into a crowded squatter zone. Meanwhile, the film industry was booming, and Diamond Hill turned into a prime location for film studios. During its heyday, Tai Hom Village earned the title of the cradle of Hong Kong cinema, even picking up the nickname “Hollywood of Hong Kong.” Plus, the village was home to famous personalities like Nancy Sit Ka Yin, Sunny Dai Yiu Ming, and Andy Lau Tak Wah. However, by the late 1960s, local Cantonese cinema started to fade, leading to the shutdown of many film studios. In 1992, the Government began reclaiming land in Tai Hom Village, and the clearance was wrapped up by 2001. Despite, all that, the remains of the history of Tai Hom Village still exists. 

Time to talk about landmarks. 

Plaza Hollywood, it was located at the Northern part of Tai Hom Village. The name was chosen due to the place have historical influence to Hong Kong’s filming industry, subsequently the private residential estate Galaxia above the mall was named due to the exact reason. The mall was modelled after Hollywood’s aesthetics. At the large atrium, “Star Plaza,” is located in the very centre of the venue and displays 60 awards won by Hong Kong film stars at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Hammer Hill Park, is a Chinese classical garden designed in Tang dynasty style architecture with hills, water features, trees, rocks, and wooden structures.

Diamond Hill Water Feature Park, it was located at the Southern part of Tai Hom Village. The three treasures of Tai Hom had been relocated and restored in this park, including the Stone House (a Grade III historic building), the machine gun bunker (a Grade II historic building), and the former Royal Air Force hangar (a Grade III historic building).

So, I hope you learn something from this. Tune in the others section to learn more about this district.

just a typical Tuesday for me

A typical day of Tuesday 

My typical day of Tuesday usually starts with me suddenly waking up due to bad nightmares, anxiety, room temperature or my alarm clock, which is around 8:30 – 10:30. After I woke up, I stare at my plushies contemplating my life choices of why did I buy them and then realize that I just like plushies, after that i did my morning routine of brushing my kinda filthy teeth after spending the entire slumber time exposed to air, morning shower if i forgot to shower before bedtime, and finally wash my face with some kind of Japanese face washing cream.

At 10:45-11:30, I typically have breakfast during that period because I can save some money by not buying lunch because I had already filled up my stomach from having that breakfast that may be considered to be categorized as brunch by the masses. The places I usually who for breakfast are local Cha Chaan Teng since they offer great value breakfast up until 11:30.

At 12:00-16:30, I started to work on either my art commissions as a freelance digital artist or helping my mother on her company’s website, printing posters or sticking posters in local major pharmacy franchises as her company is lacking in employees, in addition to gaining some work experience. Sometimes when I was illustrating I questioned myself, why do I even continue to illustrate, perhaps the client who commissioned me is just an act of being petty with me. I know it’s just a super far fetched speculation , but sometimes I wonder if it’s true and it’s not me being super ultra paranoid. This may explain one of the reasons why I am always trying to improve my skills, just to match people’s expectations of me.

At 16:45-17:30, I waited for transportation such as Metro and buses, to commute to my weekly English skills free talk class for 1.5 hours. Between 17:30-19:00, I have my English teacher and my classmate. I like hanging out with them. They are pretty cool people. However, I also question why am I still participating in this class. Is it just that I wanted to hang out with them or is it just that I don’t want my sword to rust due to long periods of time not using them? I sometimes think that my English skills are just flatlining and unable to increase. The answers to this I am still not very sure about.

At 19:15-20:00, I had my dinner meal. I used to eat much later, around 21:00-22:00, but restaurants in Hong Kong started to close earlier after the Covid years. If I can eat much later, I won’t be hungry during the midnight hours. After dinner, I started to stream on my Twitch and Youtube channel. Although there were not many viewers participating, the viewers who participated in the stream often gave me joy.

At 3:30, after I finished streaming, I did my bedtime routine, and was ready for bed. As I hit the hay, I stared at the endless void thinking about my somewhat meaningless life until my eyelids became too heavy. 

Well thanks for reading this somewhat depressing day of my life.