Ngau Tau Kok
Ngau Tau Kok (牛頭',
Jyutping: ngau4 tau4 gok3,
Pinyin: Niútóujiǎo) is an area of
Kowloon,
Hong Kong, located at the northern part of
Kwun Tong District, next to
Kowloon Bay. It covers
Jordon Valley, Ngau Tau Kok and Upper Kwun Tong Town Central. More than 210,000 in population are living in Ngau Tau Kok. It is one of the major residential areas in Kwun Tong District.
In Chinese, Ngau Tau Kok means
ox horn. Before the reclamation of Kowloon Bay, the coastal line of Ngau Tau Kok looked like a cow horn shape, therefore there was namely
Ox Horn (in Cantonese: Ngau Tau Kok). There are 2 main hills located in Ngau Tau Kok,
Jordon Valley (Shum Wan Shan) and Crocodile Hill (Lok Yue Shan), around half of the resential blocks are built on the hills in Ngau Tau Kok.
Ngau Tau Kok is a residential area as well as the by-town central of Kwun Tong District because it is just next to the Kwun Tong town central, and the development of Ngau Tau Kok is highly centralized. The areas around Lower Ngau Tau Kok Estate is famous for its
street food, including
congee,
noodles and many other traditional
Cantonese cuisine. In summer, Ngau Tau Kok has many religious ceremonies to cerebrate the Yu-lan festival, a festival from chinese ghost tales.
Ngau Tau Kok has a long history of Hakka habitants. In early colonial days of Hong Kong, it is one of
the four hills in Kowloon (九龍四山) in eastern Kowloon where the hills are famous for their
granite. The granite stones from Ngau Tau Kok were transported to
Victoria City on the
Hong Kong Island over the
Victoria Harbour. Some stones were even exported to
Canton City.
Before being a residential area, Ngau Tau Kok was an industrial area.
Amoy Food manufacturing was sited in Ngau Tau Kok for manufacturing
soy sauce.
A
reservoir, located in
Jordon Valley, provided fresh water to residents in Ngau Tau Kok. The reservoir has since then been disposed and is now used as a refuse
reclamation area. A
battery was also found in Jordon Valley but it was removed due to the urban development project.
Before the
MTR Kowloon Bay
Depot was built, the site was formerly the Ngau Tau Kok Industrial Estate.
|
Wai King Building (Leftmost block) and Amoy Garden (April 2006) |
SARS Outbreaks
During the spring of 2003, Ngau Tau Kok was one of the famous area in Hong Kong due to the
SARS outbreaks.
Amoy Garden (淘大花'), a high-density private housing estate, having a serious outbreaks of SARS. Most of the SARS sufferers were living in Block E of Amoy Garden. Ngau Tak Kok was also one of the highly suffered area with SARS in Hong Kong during this time.
Town Gas Explosion
On
11 April 2006, a fatal underground explosion was taken place in Ngau Tau Kok Road and Jordon Valley North Road, causing 2 deaths and 8 injuiries.
Wai King Building (偉景") in Ngau Tau Kok was damaged serviously. The reason of the explosion was due to the leakage of the
town gas, one of the major utility in Hong Kong, from the underground pipes.
Major roads in Ngau Tau Kok includes:
*
Choi Ha Road*
Chun Wah Road*
Elegance Road*
Kung Lok Road*
Nagu Tau Kok Road *
Shun Lee Tsuen RoadAn
MTR station in the northern part of Ngau Tau Kok is named
Kowloon Bay, the
Ngau Tau Kok MTR station is located in the southern part of Ngau Tau Kok. Both MTR stations are on the
Kwun Tong Line.
