Gin Drinkers Bay or Gin Drinker's Bay, also colloquially known as Lap Sap Wan, was a bay in

Kwai Chung Kwai Chung is an urban area within Tsuen Wan New Town in the New Territories of Hong Kong. Together with Tsing Yi Island, it is part of the Kwai Tsing District District of Hong Kong. It is also part of Tsuen Wan New Town. In 2000, it had a populat ...

, Hong Kong. The bay was

reclaimed Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lak ...

in the 1960s and became

Kwai Fong Kwai Fong is an area of Kwai Chung Town, Kwai Tsing District, Hong Kong. Location The mainly residential area extends to Kwai Hing () in the north, Lai King in the south, Tsing Yi South Bridge, Tsing Yi Bridge to the west, and Tai Lin Pai ...

and part of

Kwai Hing Kwai Hing is an area of Kwai Chung Town, Hong Kong. The mainly residential area extends to North Kwai Chung in the north and east, Kwai Fong in the south, and Kwai Chung Estate to the west. It is part of the reclamation of Gin Drinkers Bay i ...

. At the mouth of the bay stood the island of

Pillar Island Pillar Island or Tsing Chau was an island in the Kwai Chung area of Hong Kong, sitting at the mouth of Gin Drinkers Bay, by the side of the Rambler Channel, opposite Tsing Yi Island. In the 1960s, the bay was reclaimed and Tsing Chau became a ...

. The bay was a

harbour A harbor (American English), harbour (British English; see spelling differences), or haven is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is a ...

for

Tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature. Etymology Originally, in the time of the ''Man'yōshū'' (latter half of the eighth century AD), the term ''tanka'' was used to distinguish "short poem ...

fishing

junks A junk (Chinese: 船, ''chuán'') is a type of Chinese sailing ship with fully battened sails. There are two types of junk in China: northern junk, which developed from Chinese river boats, and southern junk, which developed from Austronesian ...

. They relocated to

Tsing Yi Tong Tsing Yi Lagoon, or Tsing Yi Tong, was a lagoon on the east shore of Tsing Yi Island in Hong Kong. Its water came from a stream in the nearby valley of Liu To and its outlet was at Tsing Yi Bay. It acted as the shelter for nearby boat people, esp ...

and

Mun Tsai Tong Mun Tsai Tong or Moon Tsai Tong () was a harbour located between northeast Tsing Yi Island and Nga Ying Chau in Hong Kong. It was reclaimed for the development of a new town on Tsing Yi Island in 1980s. The harbour became two public housing estat ...

Tsing Yi Island Tsing Yi, sometimes referred to as Tsing Yi Island, is an island in the urban area of Hong Kong, to the northwest of Hong Kong Island and south of Tsuen Wan. With an area of , the island has extended drastically by reclamation along almost all ...

before the commencement of reclamation. ''Lap Sap'' (垃圾) means "rubbish" in

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...

. It is unclear why the bay was named "rubbish" in the past. However, it was coincidentally once a dumping area for rubbish after extensive reclamation. It is assumed that in

Gin Drinkers Bay Park Gin () is a distilled alcoholic drink that derives its flavour from juniper berries (''Juniperus communis''). Gin originated as a medicinal liquor made by monks and alchemists across Europe, particularly in southern Italy, Flanders and the Ne ...

Kwai Chung Park Kwai may refer to: * Kwai (app), a Chinese video sharing app, * River Kwai (disambiguation), two rivers in Thailand * Kwai (DC Comics) * KWAI, radio station, See also * Kwaio language * Kwaio people Kwaio is an ethnic group found in central Mala ...

near Pillar Island that the area is subject to

landfill gas Landfill gas is a mix of different gases created by the action of microorganisms within a landfill as they decompose organic waste, including for example, food waste and paper waste. Landfill gas is approximately forty to sixty percent methane, ...

produced deep in the ground even though it is covered with earthen hills. It remains closed due to unsafe levels of landfill gas. Gin Drinkers Bay is known for the

Gin Drinkers Line The Gin Drinkers Line, or Gin Drinkers' Line, was a British military defensive line against the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941, part of the Pacific War. The concept came from France's Maginot L ...

, which formed a defensive line against the Japanese invasion in 1941.

References

Kwai Chung Bays of Hong Kong Ports and harbours of Hong Kong Waste management in Hong Kong {{waste-stub