February 24 (Lunar calendar: February 05), 2023 Friday | Dawnxisoul393art

《WINGS》

We always miss the unforgettable times of living on Peng Chau Island, those people, those things. In Peng Chau's days, every day, we felt the different tastes of the sea. The ocean is like our life. The sea is vast, and so is life. Only when people live on the island and embrace the sea, will they truly understand the meaning and value of life?

When the sea was gentle, the blue sea level was calm and elegant. The sea stretched out in front of us, and the waves beat rhythmically against the rocks, making a cautious sound. In the distance, the sea and the sky were in the same color, and the sea and the horizon were boundless as if they were sleeping quietly. When the sea was furious, under the light of the lighthouse, the color of the sea became turbid. The rough waves on the sea approached the shore from a distance, hitting the rocks on the shore... As the waves rose and fell, there were strange notes constantly jumping into our eardrums. When the waves reached the beach, the intensity of the sound was mistaken for thunder in the sky. The waves hit the shore again and again. They no longer cared about the rocks on the shore. They tried to engulf the entire coast, and the sound almost shattered our eardrums.

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At this moment, we felt the cruel side of the sea. Although the sea would become calm in the twinkling of an eye, the sand and stones on the shore had already been involved in the heartless belly of the sea. At that time we could see the beautiful sea from the windows of our house. Walking down a clean beach street, lined with island charm and full of palm trees. The sky was often so blue and clear. It was always refreshing to look at the beautiful beach and the beautiful sea in front of us every time. Looking at the endless sea, feeling a kind of freedom, the mood was easy to relax. If there was something we couldn't let go of, just look at the sea and open our hearts. The golden beach and the blue sea are really a very harmonious match. Watching the sun slowly rise to sea level, we were immersed in the beautiful scenery until the cool sea breeze woke us up.

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Peng Chau is a small island in the eastern part of Lantau Island in Hong Kong. The shape of Peng Chau Island is like the Chinese word "concave 凹". The concave place of Peng Chau Island is "East Bay". The South and North sides are called "South Bay" and "North Bay" respectively. Peng Chau covered an area of about one square kilometer. One can still find a pottery store that once thrived near the pier. Since there is no formal bathing beach on Peng Chau Island, there are few visitors on holiday. Although there is no bathing beach, Peng Chau has a special style of tranquility and time-out.

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Peng Chau Cinema opened in the 1970s and had a glorious time. To this day, many people, like us, still don't understand why people built such a big cinema on such a small island at that time (comparable to the cinemas in Mongkok, Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s). It was the childhood memory for many islanders, the excitement of following their parents into the cinema on weekends, the pride of telling their classmates about the movies. However, all of this was no longer the case the cinema had long since closed down, and we could feel the changes in the cinema's history through the cinema's light blue walls. The cinema was still standing on a corner, and we could still see the old movie posters and ticket windows, as well as the rather nostalgic fonts.

As early as the Tang and Song Dynasties, fishermen lived on Peng Chau Island, living on fishing, commerce, and a small amount of agriculture, with "Peng Chau Bay" as the commercial center. The development of Peng Chau can be traced back to the middle of the Qing Dynasty. At that time, it took "Peng Chau Bay" as its commercial center. Fishermen and farmers from Cheung Chau Island and Lantau Island all came here to sell and buy things. At the end of the 19th century, the ash kiln industry rose in Peng Chau, with 11 ash kilns in its heyday. Because Peng Chau is surrounded by the sea, it is easy to obtain materials that can be burned into lime, including oyster shells, clamshells, coral, etc. Hundreds of residents were engaged in related work at that time. It was not until the 1930s and 1940s that the rise of cement led to its decline.

In the 1930s, the "Shanghai Match King Liu" opened the "Great China Match Factory", the largest in Southeast Asia at the time, on Peng Chau Island. At that time, that super-large match factory had 18 departments, including match manufacturing, packaging, printing, and even wooden boxes for transportation. During the heyday of "Greater China Match Factory", there were more than 2000 employees. Later, the match factory suffered a fire. After the fire, the factory no longer operated. By the 1960s and 1970s, Peng Chau's industry reached its peak. In addition to the match factory, there were also large-scale steel pipe factories, teak furniture factories, shipyard factories, textile factories, cowhide factories, ceramic painting factories, rattan weaving, and other small handicraft industries. There were more than 100 factories on the island.

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On the coast of South Bay, there was a relatively complete factory site - Shengli Heji Ash Kiln Factory. It was said that as early as the Tang Dynasty, the people of Hong Kong used oyster shells and coral as building materials, fertilizers, paper making, and dyes. Peng Chau was located at the junction of the Pearl River Delta and the South China Sea, which was rich in marine ecology. In the 19th century, when the ash kiln industry was at its peak, Shengli Heji Ash Kiln Factory was one of them. However, there were only two houses left, one of which was two stories high, which showed the scale of the original factory. When people first met Peng Chau, people may feel incomprehensible about the abandoned and dilapidated factory areas. Another well-protected site in Peng Chau was the "Fuyuan Leather Factory", which the artists had done a great job of restoring and preserving, and opening to the public. Using the Fuyuan Leather Factory as a base, they had even created an art-filled "Secret Garden" with abandoned items from the island, which had been enjoyed by people of all ages.

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Peng Chau Island has experienced vicissitudes, but it was never desolate. From the various kinds of seafood sold in the alleys to the rattan weaving utensils and ceramics made by local residents selected from the old markets, and the fishing nets decorated at the gates of the coffee shops transformed from shacks, we could still have a glimpse of the prosperity of the old fishing industry. Local specialties such as salted fish, shrimp sauces, salted egg yolks, and flour glues were well-known. There were many small shops for delicious foods, special drinks, and handicrafts. When industrial development was replaced by commercial development, Peng Chau stopped at the pace, from the lively to the dull, from the prosperous to the natural. The scenery of the past was gone. We could only imagine the prosperity of Peng Chau Island from the abandoned factory buildings or stones everywhere. 

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Nature, once destroyed by industry, had returned to its original state after everything stopped. Next to the bridge that connected the island to another island was the entrance to the "Pengyu" trail, a hiking trail on Peng Chau Island. Although the Pengyu trail was not long, it had a sea view, land nature, and natural beaches.

Although Peng Chau Island was small, there were nearly 10 temples or places of worship for the gods or goddesses of various sizes. "Wing On Street" in the center of Peng Chau Island was surrounded by three of the largest temples to the goddesses on Peng Chau Island and had the most intense. 

The Tin Hau Goddess Temple on Peng Chau Island was dedicated to the Goddess Tin Hau. It was said that the Goddess Tin Hau was wise by nature and she could predict the future, heal the sick, and help poor people. It was said that she often traveled on a reed mat to rescue drowning fishermen. About 45 countries or regions around the world had established temples for the Goddess, and in the 1980s, Tin Hau was awarded the title of "Goddess of Peace" by the United Nations. Every year on the 23rd day of the 3rd month of the lunar calendar, the birthday of Tin Hau is celebrated with a drama performance and a procession of the Tin Hau statue on Peng Chau Island.

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The belief in the Dragon Mother Goddess (Lung Mo) originated during the Warring States period, and the custom of celebrating the birth of the Dragon Mother Goddess had been going on for 2,000 years. The Dragon Mother Goddess Temple in Peng Chau Island was first built in 1941 in Kowloon, Hong Kong. it was moved to Peng Chau Island in 1970, as the island was known as a Feng Shui treasure. The temple's sphere of influence included the Pearl River Valley, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as overseas Chinese. The eighth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar was the legendary birthday of the Dragon Mother Goddess, at that time, a large number of devotees came to worship at the Dragon Mother Goddess Temple. 

The temple of the Golden Flower Goddess (Kam Fa) in Peng Chau was built in the Qing Dynasty. Since the belief in the Golden Flower Goddess, it was said that the population of the residents of Peng Chau Island had flourished and the begging for children and grandchildren had been very effective. We once saw many dragon dance groups performing in front of Peng Chau Golden Flower Goddess Temple on the 17th day of the 4th lunar month.

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With the abandonment of factory buildings, the remarkable mark of Peng Chau Island's industrial age was slowly being erased. Some of the old sites had been converted into residential areas. Although some sites were still there, they had been sealed up, and people could see the sites through the barbed wires. However, we could find the stones used to divide the boundary of the plant sites on the roadside and miss the past. Life on Peng Chau Island was more like an adventure, looking through the broken glass and creaking old doors into the abandoned old factory buildings. The owners and workers left behind a lot of daily necessities: old cabinets, kitchenware, old TV sets, and beds. In addition, we often heard stories about another world at that time, because there were too many abandoned factory buildings on the island.

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Peng Chau Island is one of the most famous outlying islands in Hong Kong. It was a very quiet island for us, there were some beautiful beaches on Peng Chau Island, and in the words of the local people, the beaches and seawater there were the best in Hong Kong. In some shoals, it was not unusual to kiss a small sardine or a small crab. What was the most important thing? In fact, even the blue sky and white clouds were enough to keep us coming back, not to mention the many fish and prawns that the islanders sunbathed.

Sometimes, we rent a boat, go out to sea to watch the sunrise, paint from life on the boat, enjoy the wind blowing in the middle of the sea, or close our eyes and imagine how happy it was to jump into the blue sea from the boat. In autumn, we lay on the soft grass and watched the clouds drifting away with the wind. We sat on a rock at dusk by the sea hugging our legs and waiting for the tide to go out, or sat on the beach waiting for the beautiful starry sky at night. On weekends, we climbed to the top of "Finger Mountain" to see the view of Hong Kong, carefree and relaxed.

 

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"Finger Mountain" is the highest point of Peng Chau Island. Although it is only 95 meters high, it is the only place in Hong Kong that can enjoy a 360-degree panoramic view of Hong Kong. To the East, are Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, to the South, are Lamma Island and other islands, and to the West, is Lantau Island. If the weather was fine, we could also see the Tsing Ma Bridge and Hong Kong Disneyland. Peng Chau Island is a virgin land for travel beyond people's imagination. Rock climbing, mountain walking, exploration, and historical sites could be "heard" by abandoned primary schools to tell the stories of children in the past... All these would give us unforgettable Island memories, beautiful as fairyland. It is absolutely unexpected for people outside the island.

We could often see some seabirds stopping on the cement piles of the abandoned old factory buildings, watching their partners flying into the distance. The island was full of interesting rocks, colorful, lifelike, and wild. It was not difficult to find some layered and colorful sedimentary rocks, in which the paleontological fossils were preserved. The natural erosion made the island beautiful. Except for the stone views, there were also some precious creatures in the waters of Peng Chau Island, including a variety of stone corals, algae, many kinds of coral fishes, and invertebrate marine life. The natural beauty of the island had not been disturbed too much. The wide sea, the pure white sandy beach, the sea breeze rolling up the fine waves... ah, the beautiful Peng Chau Island!

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Some remote places were like the forgotten ends of the earth, and it was difficult to take a panoramic camera to photograph a building. Sometimes we could see some anglers on the rocks, and we could also see young people chasing the waves with the boats in the sea. When the beautiful day was coming to an end, the boundary between the sky and the sea gradually blurred the line toward the long-awaited romantic intimacy of the island's night. The island in our picture was an unnamed tiny island directly opposite Peng Chau Island. There seemed to be no residents on the tiny island. Some people on Peng Chau Island called this tiny island "Pregnant Women's Island". 

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We spent the evening at home painting something about "Pregnant Women's Island". The sea was calm while we were working on the paintings. That night, the moonlight, like the fog made of hazy silver yarn, flashed the solemn and holy lights on the sea. The sea seemed to be asleep, all we heard was the gentle sound of the waves. A little swan that fell out of line, a little sailboat， crossing the sky in silence... In this tranquil moment, it suddenly occurred to us that the nameless tiny island across Peng Chau Island had been observing the changes in Pang Chau Island for thousands of years. It could say that this nameless tiny island was a true witness to the glory that Peng Chau Island once had!

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The island has undergone great changes, and many things have disappeared. However, a kindergarten, Wei Peng Kindergarten School, established in 1960 and dedicated to providing early education for children on the island, has always stood on its original site. At that time, we saw the children after school repeating their performances in the kindergarten on the way home， and we felt the professional level of teachers' teaching. The children sang various nursery rhymes and nursery rhymes， and we felt the enlightenment education of teachers' artistic edification. The stars on the children's foreheads were still on their heads long after they had left the kindergarten, and we could feel the weight of the teachers in the children's hearts. 

When we passed the kindergarten every morning, we could always see a few female teachers busy in it, and there was no time to rest. Female teachers, whether young or old, were so beautiful, professional, and dedicated. The classroom was full of theme decorations carefully designed by teachers. Each festival changed in different ways to create a happy atmosphere, with bright colors, vivid images, and exquisite craftsmanship. We really admired the creativity and design of the teachers, and deeply felt their efforts of teachers. The kindergarten is the high sky and the children are the seabirds flying under it, the kindergarten is the vast ocean and the children are the fish swimming in it. We felt lucky for the children on the island had such a good kindergarten and such good teachers.

We made a decision in our minds that if we had a child, we would send the child to the kindergarten. May our child, like a seagull, exercise strong wings there, fly tenaciously, unbowed by the sea winds and waves, and fly bravely into the sea of life.

By dawnxisoul393art

(2870w)