Yau Yat Tsuen or Yau Yat Chuen () is one of the very few low density upscale neighbourhoods in the central urban area of

Kowloon Kowloon () is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. With a population of 2,019,533 and a population density of in 2006, it is the most populous area in Hong Kong, compared with Hong Kong Island and t ...

, Hong Kong. It is located in North Kowloon, at the foot of Beacon Hill. An

electoral constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

Sham Shui Po District Sham Shui Po District is one of 18 districts of Hong Kong. It is the poorest district in Hong Kong, with a predominantly working-class population of 405,869 in 2016 and the lowest median household income of all districts. Sham Shui Po has long ...

is also named after the neighbourhood.

Naming

The area's name comes from a poem by

Southern Song The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. ...

era poet

Lu You Lu You (; 1125–1210) was a Chinese historian and poet of the Southern Song Dynasty (南宋). Career Early life and marriage Lu You was born on a boat floating in the Wei River early on a rainy morning, November 13, 1125. At the time of his b ...

, titled Touring Shanxi Village. The name comes from the fourth verse in the poem (), which translates to ''Then out of the shade of the willows, came bright flowers and another village''. Hence, the area's name literally translates to "another village".

Facilities

As a primarily residential area, there are relatively few services inside Yau Yat Tsuen. There is a small

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...

, a few property agents, a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

and a few other local stores. However a large

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

Festival Walk Festival Walk is a shopping centre in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong developed jointly by Swire Properties and CITIC Pacific between 1993 and 1998. At the time of its opening in November 1998, it was the biggest shopping mall in Hong Kong. Festiv ...

, is on the edge of the village. It consists of 200 stores including a

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking * ...

and an

ice-skating rink An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water and/or an artificial sheet of ice created using hardened chemicals where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Ice rinks are also used for exhibitions, contests and ice shows. The ...

. The whole area of Yau Yat Tsuen is also within walking distance from the

Kwun Tong line The Kwun Tong line is a heavy-rail rapid transit line of the MTR network in Hong Kong, coloured green on the MTR map. Starting at Whampoa in Hung Hom and ending at Tiu Keng Leng in Tseung Kwan O, Sai Kung, the route has 17 stations and ...

(

Shek Kip Mei Shek Kip Mei, is an area in New Kowloon, to the northeast of the Kowloon Peninsula of Hong Kong. It borders Sham Shui Po and Kowloon Tong. History At the time of the 1911 census, the population of Shek Kip Mei was 72. A major fire on 25 ...

and

Kowloon Tong Kowloon Tong () is an area of Hong Kong located in Kowloon. The majority of the area is in the Kowloon City District. Its exaclocationis south of the Lion Rock, north of Boundary Street, east of the East Rail line and west of Grampian Road. It i ...

) and

East Rail line The East Rail line () is one of ten lines of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system in Hong Kong. It used to be one of the three lines of the Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR) network. It was known as the KCR British Section () from 1910 to 1996, ...

(Kowloon Tong) of MTR, the only mass transit railway operator of Hong Kong.

History

After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, affluent families built large

detached house A stand-alone house (also called a single-detached dwelling, detached residence or detached house) is a free-standing residential building. It is sometimes referred to as a single-family home, as opposed to a multi-family residential dwelling ...

s in the area of Yau Yat Tsuen. Since then, it has been expanded and covers a much larger area. Along with the neighbouring

and Beacon Hill, the area has some of the most exclusive and expensive residential properties in Kowloon.

Development

1970s

In the 1970s, some of the large houses were subdivided into approximately ten flats in each block. However, with high property prices in Hong Kong, these 3 or 4 bedroom flats, which tend to cost more than 7 million

Hong Kong dollar The Hong Kong dollar (, currency symbol, sign: HK$; ISO 4217, code: HKD) is the official currency of the Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It is subdivided into 100 cent (currency), cents or 1000 Mill (currency), mils. The H ...

s, are still prohibitively expensive for a large section of the Hong Kong population.

1980s

In the 1980s, the large development scheme of Village Garden was constructed and more flats and houses were built.

1990s

In the early 1990s Yau Yat Tsuen continued to expand with the development of Parc Oasis, where more than twenty 10-storey blocks were developed. In 1992 the nearby Polytechnic gained University status and became the

City University of Hong Kong City University of Hong Kong (CityU) is a world-class public research university located in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and became a fully accredited university in 1994. Currently, CityU is ...

Education

* Chan Shu Kui Memorial School Yau Yat Tsuen is in Primary One Admission (POA) School Net 40. Within the school net are multiple aided schools (operated independently but funded with government money) and two government schools: Fuk Wing Street Government Primary School and Li Cheng Uk Government Primary School.

References

{{Sham Shui Po District New Kowloon