Tai Hang

 

Tai Hang is located just south of Victoria Park and the Causeway Bay Sportsground, the area encompasses the base of the valley south of Tung Lo Wan Rd and the surrounding areas of Tai Hang Road which wind along the hillside to Tai Hang Drive.

The flat base of Tai hang is easily accessible just a short walk from the Tin Hau MTR, and best way to access the upper valley is along Tai Hang Road where there are plenty of mini bus and bus lines that traverse this slow winding hillside, alternatively, you can walk via footpaths that climb up from Wun Sha St or even through the residential complex Illumination Terrace.

The area was named after the “Tai Hang” (or big stream) that formerly flowed down the hillside to the harbor between East Point and North Point. Throughout history Tai Hang is famed for its annual Fire dragon dance, during every Mid-Autumn Festival a dragon built from straw and embossed with joss sticks is paraded through the back streets of Tai Hang. This ritual was started in 1880 to ward off and dispel a plague that the Hakka settlement in Tai Hang was suffering from, this Fire Dragon dance has since became an annual ritual and till the present day this 67 metre dragon dance attracts many locals and tourist alike, in 2011 the annual Tai Hang Fire Dragon dance was even recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage.

In the more recent years and until 1970’s the Tai Hang hillsides were covered in sheet-tin and wooden shanties that housed many squatters and refugees from the Mainland. Today the area is in sharp contrast, the once sleepy low rise neighborhood in lower plains of Tai Hang has developed similar to Sheung Wan with plenty of hip and trendy cafés bars and restaurants providing a plethora of cuisines, while the upper hillside along tai Hang Road has become an upscale residential area with some of the most expensive apartments in Hong Kong, notably, the luxury residential development “The legend” which was built on the site of the once world famous Tiger Balm Gardens.