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Tsuen Wan, a multi-faceted community, provides dwellers with all kinds of facilities, such as education, hospitals, recreation and transportation, to meet their needs of life. To become what it is today, Tsuen Wan has in fact gone through stages of development to transform itself from a rural village to a self-sufficient town.
To learn more about the history of Tsuen Wan, here is an opportunity with the opening of the "Tsuen Wan Then and Now: A Kaleidoscope" exhibition at the Sam Tung Uk Museum. Running from tomorrow (April 3) onwards, the exhibition will feature a selection of historical pictures and valuable relics, giving visitors a glimpse of a dynamic and lively Tsuen Wan.
The early inhabitants of Tsuen Wan mainly moved from inland after the repeal of the Evacuation Order in the eighth year of Kangxi reign (1669) of the Qing Dynasty. When the British government assumed sovereignty over the New Territories in 1898, the population of Tsuen Wan numbered about 3,000, mostly concentrated in areas along the coast, the Shing Mun River valley, Kwai Chung, Tsing Yi and Ma Wan.
Pre-war Tsuen Wan was an agrarian society. People also raised pigs and poultry, and some people made their living by fishing. Besides, Tsuen Wan was home to the small-scale manufacture of foodstuffs such as bean curd and bean sheets, soya and other sauces, preserved fruit and incense powder. As economic activities multiplied in the late 1930s, small factories began to spring up and merchants then set up Tsuen Wan Trade Association Limited to help promote the commercial activities in the district.
In 1949, large numbers of people moved from China to Hong Kong, and this had a great impact on Tsuen Wan's population. Many capitalists arriving from China set up factories in Tsuen Wan. In the late 1950s, about 20% of labour force of Hong Kong was concentrated in the district. By 1970s, textiles, clothing, plastics, metal products and electronics became the top five industries in Tsuen Wan.
From the early 1960s, the government embarked upon a scheme to develop Tsuen Wan as a satellite town. One of the main tasks of the scheme was to increase land for industrial use and housing. Further to the establishment of the New Territories Development Department in 1973, Tsuen wan was then engineered to develop into a modernized new town of today.
In the near future, there will be quite a number of large-scale capital development projects to be completed in Tsuen Wan, including the construction of Tsuen Wan West Station of the West Rail, infrastructure projects in co-ordination with developments near the new airports and north Lantau Island, and the redevelopment projects of the older sections of the district.
Organised by the Hong Kong Heritage Museum (Heritage Museum), the "Tsuen Wan Then and Now: A Kaleidoscope" exhibition will trace the changes in Tsuen Wan in the last hundred years, from a cluster of villages in pre-Second World War days, through the rapid increase in population and industrial development in the post-war years, to the infrastructure of a new town from the 1960s. Visitors will have a better understanding of Tsuen Wan's inclusiveness, its transformation from a rural to an industrial economy, and the transition from a traditional to a modern way of life.
Located at 2 Kwu Uk Lane, Tsuen Wan, the Sam Tung Uk Museum opens from 9 am to 5 pm daily and closes on every Tuesday. Admission is free.
For further details, please visit the Heritage Museum's website at www.heritagemuseum.gov.hk or call 2411 2001.
End/Tuesday, April 2, 2002
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