Wan King Path () is a road in

Sai Kung Town Sai Kung Town () or simply Sai Kung () is a town on the Sai Kung Peninsula, facing Sai Kung Hoi (Inner Port Shelter), part of Sai Kung District in the New Territories, Hong Kong. Sai Kung is the central hub of nearby surrounding villages, and he ...

New Territories The New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. It is located next to the main public square in Sai Kung Town.

Name

The English name of Wan King Path is the phonetic spelling of Chinese words for "bay view", probably a reference to the fact that one can view the nearby bay, the

Inner Port Shelter Port Shelter, known in Cantonese as Ngau Mei Hoi (), is a harbour south of Sai Kung Peninsula in Hong Kong. The water body connects to Inner Port Shelter (known in Cantonese as Sai Kung Hoi; ), as well as Hebe Haven (), Rocky Harbour () and ot ...

, not too far from this street. Outside of Hong Kong and China, Wan King Path has gained international media attention due to the name appearing similar to an English-language vulgar slang word for

masturbation Masturbation is the sexual stimulation of one's own genitals for sexual arousal or other sexual pleasure, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation may involve hands, fingers, everyday objects, sex toys such as vibrators, or combinatio ...

, ''wanking''. In 2006, it was included in the ''Rude World: The 100 Rudest Place Names in the World'' book. The name of the path may have come about when members of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

asked members of the local population the local name of locations to make a translation for signs. The residents reportedly would often reply by using names that were intentionally offensive Chinese names or by using puns and incorrect translations. The British government in Hong Kong used these names for places in Hong Kong up until the 1990s when the Geographical Place Names Board was established to correct the erroneous translations. The name of Wan King Path was not changed during this time. After the

transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong Sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China (PRC) at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony. Hong Kong was established as a special admini ...

in 1997, there were concerns that the Special Administrative Region government would change names such as Wan King Path for being viewed as colonial, however Wan King Path's name was not changed.

Buildings

Wan King Path has some banks belonging to the Hong Kong

Bank of China The Bank of China (BOC; ) is a Chinese majority state-owned commercial bank headquartered in Beijing and the fourth largest bank in the world. The Bank of China was founded in 1912 by the Republican government as China's central bank, repl ...

and

Standard Chartered Hong Kong Standard Chartered Hong Kong (officially Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited, ) is a licensed bank incorporated in Hong Kong and a subsidiary of Standard Chartered. It is also one of the three commercial banks licensed by the Hong Kong ...

located along it. Wan King Path also has a number of cafes and restaurants located along it.

References

{{coord, 22.381097, 114.271798, display=title Sai Kung Town Sai Kung District Roads in the New Territories