tim's experiment

Sorry if this comes as a disappointment, but 69K is not an interesting new sexual technique. It is the number of our local minibus. The prosaic label does not do justice to the variety and interest of the route. Let us start in the Shatin KCR (if you’ll pardon the expression) station. Emerge at the bus station end. Note that you are still on the first floor. Unfortunately this level of the bus station is reserved for real buses. To get a minibus you have to turn left and go down a long ramp. This brings you to ground level, where you will find a row of minibus stops, and a taxi rank on the far end of it. Why the taxi rank is so far away from the station I do not know, but as a result this station cannot be recommended for people with mobility problems.

The 69K stop is the first one you come to. This is handy. I presume it is not because we have any particular priority – it just happened to be the first route to be set up. Happily the minibus stops are under the fly-over ramp which leads to the aristocratic bus station upstairs, so the queue is usually dry or shady, as you wish. But usually I find a minibus waiting with free seats. This is a prosperous route and runs are frequent, so one does not wait long.  As the driver pulls out observant passengers will note Pai Tau Village on the left. This is one of the primeval parts of Shatin though you would not think so to look at the houses now, because most of them have been turned into shops. On the right we pass the headquarters of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, which looks rather pompous for this purpose. This is because it used to be the headquarters of the Regional Council (note to younger readers: before 1997 Hong Kong had two councils, Urban and Regional, which were entirely elected. After the hand-over they were abolished. I wonder why.) Meanwhile the shopping mall and office block on your left is mainly notable as the local lair of Ikea. Behind it are the local Government Offices, carefully sited half a mile from the nearest public transport.

We now zoom up a hill towards a bridge which threatens to take us into the centre of Shatin proper, but before we get to the bridge over the railway line we take the ramp off to the left. This leads to a highway named with Hong Kong’s usual flair in these matters “New Territories Ring Road”. Despite its apparently exalted status and purpose this highway only offers two lanes in each direction. It frequently clogs up. Minibuses making the return journey can avoid it by taking to the back streets but the northbound side is usually usable. We roar along here at whatever speed our minibus can manage, but not for long. We take the first slip road and this leads us into Fotan.

Fotan used to be an entirely industrial enclave. The name has something to do with charcoal burning. All the hills round the industrial core (which like the rest of Hong Kong has little real industry left) are now covered in housing estates of one kind or another. Readers who know their MTR will perhaps be wondering at this point why the minibus goes to Shatin when there is a perfectly good train station in Fotan. This would be to ignore a basic fact of Hong Kong transport planning, which is that nothing must be allowed to impede the Jockey Club in its vital work of separating the gullible from their money. So whenever there is racing at the Shatin racecourse (which is not in Shatin) the trains no longer stop at Fotan – they stop at a special station next to the horse casino instead. No doubt when this move was being planned the railway people did not realise that Fotan would not for ever be a purely industrial spot, deserted at weekends. But as a result of their efforts a great deal of diesel fuel is wasted taking people to Shatin to get a train they could easily board in Fotan. So it goes.

As you come into Fotan a huge six-lane highway stretches ahead of you. This goes nowhere and the minibus ignores it, turning left at the first opportunity into a little backwater called Shan Mei Street. Here we are in what passes for downtown Fotan. There is a shopping mall (MacDonalds, KFC and Starbucks are represented) a Post Office, a bus station and two recreation grounds.  The ground floors of the industrial buildings on the left are gradually being converted into shops. The interesting thing about Shan Mei Street is that it illustrates the latest European ideas about road safety, which go thus: you make a road safer not by separating the traffic from the pedestrians, but by providing copious visual clues which tell drivers to slow down. In Shan Mei Street this all happened by accident. The planners clearly wished to do their usual trick and line the road with fences. But they couldn’t. There are too many entrances, exits, bus stops, garages, and pedestrian crossing requirements. So the driver turning into the street (fortunately this requires a sharp turn at each end) is immediately presented with a spectacle of traffic islands, parked cars, buses picking people up and taxis dropping them, and usually the odd hand cart or dreamy pedestrian with mobile phone glued to ear as well. So drivers, unless terminally stupid, slow down and the street is safe. It is, however, extremely busy. Local drivers spurn the six-lane alternative because it has three sets of traffic lights in it.

In Shan Mei Street we come to our first minibus stop. Usually nobody gets off at this point. If you just want to get to the middle of Fotan from Shatin there are easier and cheaper ways, especially if you are already on a train. At the end of the street the minibus turns left into Sui Wo Road, on which it will stay for the rest of the trip. Just up this road is Sui Wo Estate, and here we have the first serious stop, at which quite a lot of people get off. Sui Wo Estate was the first Home Ownership estate in the New Territories. It is spread up the hillside with a lift and footbridge connecting the two halves, so the minibus actually stops twice. A further stop, just round the corner, caters for two private estates, Shatin 33 and Scenery Gardens.

And now the 69K magically transforms itself. Up to now it has been the standard Hong Kong public transport scene: people get on, sit down, and stare at their mobile phones. People will sometimes call out if they want the next stop, but at the early busy stops the driver will usually stop anyway. As we go up the hill, though, the minibus becomes more like the rural branch line depicted in the Ealing comedy the Titfield Thunderbolt (thoroughly recommended – find it here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ReXJTD60c).

Suddenly the ride is a social occasion. People getting on greet the driver. People getting off thank him for stopping. Children are encouraged to address him as “uncle”. Passengers talk to each other. The population is now thin but regular and a lot of people know each other at least by sight. The exuberant lady who sweeps our road rides up and down her patch. Many of the riders are now domestic helpers, for the estates up here are generally rather upmarket and employers have cars.   A break from isolation in a house full of foreigners goes down well.

Sui Wo Road at this stage is rather pleasant. Trees and bushes abound and there are occasional glimpses of the Shing Mun River Valley. We pass a special school run by Caritas, which has its own bus fleet and consequently rarely calls for a stop. We pass Shatin College and its associated Primary School on one side, and the Baptist University Staff Quarters on the other. I recall that when this was first built the staff insisted that they wanted a simple number and road designation on the grounds that it was embarrassing enough for non-Baptists (by then in a large majority) to have the religion in the name of the university and they did not want to live with it as well. The university agreed to this but it seems the Post Office did not because the name has stuck. Past the staff quarters  is the most up-market part of the road, a little street called Mei Wo Circuit, which has not only exclusive estates but many houses individually built to architect designs. The place is obviously a big attraction to burglars because it is home to a lot of large and noisy dogs.

A long uphill straight brings us to a small barricaded turn-off. Walkers who pass the barrier can reach the MacLehose trail, Tsuen Wan and other distant attractions. Exhausted hikers can get the minibus down the hill from here, although there is no official stop. The road levels out, passes Greenwood Terrace on the right and Ville de Jardin on the left. Then it does a smart left turn and abruptly stops. This is the end of the line.

At this point, it must be said, the Transport Department’s arrangements have little connection with reality. In theory the minibus stop for the last estate – Ville de Jardin – is further up, on the edge of the large piece of dead end which for decades served as the car park for the nearby Lions’ Look-out. In practice nobody takes any notice of that: the minibus drops its last passengers right outside the estate entrance, and residents going downhill stand opposite. The minibuses did park by the old stop, because it was handy for the clump of bushes which they use as a toilet. No official toilet is available within a short walk of the route.

A year or two ago the Transport people got complaints from some nearby resident that the car park, when empty in the small hours of the morning, was attracting players of noisy car driving games. Why the resident concerned could not just call the police when the noise was bothering him I do not know. Instead we had a public consultation  over the question whether we approved of five mature trees being removed to make room for a roundabout. The answer to the question was “no” and the trees are still there. But we got the roundabout anyway. This is a silly place for a roundabout because it is not a road junction of any kind. The roundabout is just a glorified speed bump. But glorified it is. There are large road markings and signs. Also, the minibus stop, which was not used as a stop, was now in the wrong place. So the Transport genius in charge of this enterprise moved it to the car park, which now in theory no longer exists. The result of all this stupidity is that the new signs and markings are ignored. People park where they used to park and the minibuses stop where they used to stop. Actually we did not need a new roundabout and bus stop. What the place really needs is a public toilet. But that, I suppose, would have to come from another department.

I infer from this that our government’s efforts to collect local opinion are still not terribly successful. I am a frog at the bottom of our local well, but presumably other frogs in other wells can also point to arrangements which testify to the good intentions and ignorance of the officials concerned. We should not pick on the Transport people either. The Ag and Fish’s efforts to curtail the activities of the local monkey population have been hilariously and totally ineffective. If you are visiting the Lions lookout you will see their giant monkey trap, which is now in its second year as an ineffective obstruction in a perfectly good footpath. By the car park which is no longer supposed to be a car park is a large sign saying in both languages that “feeding monkeys causes problems; nature can meet their needs”. But nobody is feeding them at the car park anyway.

In other jurisdictions one might take up matters like these with one’s local councillor but in Hong Kong this presents problems. Your district boarder is also a participant in the CE election. This may explain why DB seats attract a large supply of mysteriously well-funded DAB candidates. This means that in many cases, including mine, the relevant member is someone I would not vote for if the only other candidate was Adolf Hitler. I hear he is good on the local stuff. But is it fair for me to ask him to sort out the monkeys, the roundabout, the toilet, and any other little local problems, when no matter how sincere and successful his efforts I shall be voting for someone else?