Kau Wa Keng
Kau Wa Keng, also known as Kau Wah Keng or Kau Wa Kang, is a village and valley in Lai King, Hong Kong. It is located near the reclaimed Lai Chi Kok Bay in New Kowloon. Three rivers in the valley once converged at the bay and forming a beach at the estuary. Kau Wah Keng is the former site of Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park, which closed in 1997.
Although the valley is closer to the suburbs of Cheung Sha Wan, specifically the communities of Lai Chi Kok and Mei Foo, it traditionally and administratively belongs to Kwai Chung.
Administration
Kau Wa Keng is a recognized village under the New Territories Small House Policy. It is one of the villages represented within the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee. For electoral purposes, Kau Wa Keng is part of the Lai Wah constituency, which was formerly represented by Steve Cheung Kwan-kiu until his resignation in July 2021.Villages
During the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty, the ban on human settlement in the coastal areas of Xin'an County was lifted, leading to immigration into the region. The old village of Kau Wa Keng was built by Hakka people who cultivated paddies next to the rivers on the eastern side of the valley. The oldest extant residents in the village belong to the Ng and Tsang lineages, whose descendants include the actress Margie Tsang. An ancestral hall and the Yeung Ching School are located in the village. It was formerly known as Kau Pa Keng, which means dog climbing path, before it was renamed to the current Kau Wa Keng,. A new village Kau Wa Keng San Tsuen is located on the western side of the valley and was built following an influx of immigrants from mainland China after World War II and during and after Chinese Civil War.Before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in 1941, the village was one of hiding place for many artists and writers who had fled the mainland, including the Chinese painter Huang Yongyu.