Kowloon City is one of the most vibrant districts in Hong Kong. Encompassing a wide area, the locale is home to neighbourhoods such as the bustling Hung Hom and Kowloon Tong to the more secluded—at least until the Sha Tin to Central Link opens—Ma Tau Wai and To Kwa Wan. In the middle of this sits Kai Tak, the site of Hong Kong’s old international airport, now in the process of redevelopment.

Dr Vivian LEE, Associate Professor of CityU’s Department of Chinese and History, has been working on a Kowloon City-themed walking trail in collaboration with the Social Welfare Association of the Hong Kong Anglican Church (Sheng Kung Hui) that seeks to introduce the district, specifically Hung Hom, to students who might otherwise have little notion of the rich local culture to be found in this area.

“[The project] was intended to give cultural and heritage management undergraduates an opportunity to apply their knowledge about local history and heritage in a community project,” explains Lee. “Through guest lectures, training workshops, field work and archival research, students worked in teams to develop themed guided tours to introduce the history of the Hung Hom district to the general public. Each guided tour design had to tell a story about different aspects of the local community, including traditional customs, religious practices, and social and economic development.”

Developed as part of the government’s urban renewal project in the district, discussions about the walking tours began back in 2017. The Social Welfare Association approached Lee when she was Hung Hom Community Comes Alive for Students working on a related local history project. One of the aims was to expose students to a series of immersive and experiential learning activities that included the implementation of educational games and a walking trail.

“Students did a lot of preparation through guest lectures and workshops that gave them a foundation in the historical development of the Hung Hom district and basic techniques in designing guided tours and public engagement activities,” says Lee. “In February 2018, they went on a field trip with HKAC staff and were introduced to the social workers, shop owners and ‘kaifongs’ in Hung Hom, some of whom they interviewed at a later stage. These training and out-of-classroom activities were indispensable to the development of their guided tour projects.” A team of students was selected to further develop their project into a guided tour. Their hard work was rewarded when the tour was fully booked within 24 hours of the announcement on Facebook.

Wendy CHEUNG Shuk-kwan, a student who helped design the tour, described the experience as unforgettable, and was grateful to have had such a good learning opportunity. Cheung was tasked with working on the theme “Hung Hom religion”, and was in charge of the section about the Kwun Yum Temple built in 1873. She was surprised to learn the significant relationship between religion and the local community, and discovered that “Chinese and Western religions have played an important role in the Hung Hom community, [both] spiritually and corporeally”.