Hong Kong is a placed where people care exceedingly, in my opinion, about two words– Fung Shui. Tin Shui Wai, which has another name for it after a tragic happened last year of a mother carrying her children and jumped off the buildings and were found dead. ‘City of Sorrow’.
It was not intended to turn out like this. The government has planned to develop this secluded part of Hong Kong, located in the out-lying areas of Hong Kong, to be a self-contained and better-planned area for people, who maybe tired of noise from road-constructions, to live and work in a ‘greener’ and fresher place. However, things have been going worse these years. People living in Tin Shui Wai are people of low-income. Despite the poverty that Hong Kong citizens living in Tin Shui Wai have to bear, there hadn’t been any more serious tragic until the one happened about two months ago. This aroused the attention of the public and started to help them out of this predicament.
Now, Heung Yee Kuk chairman has proposed to change the name ‘Tin Shui Wai’, because of the meaning and insinuation of the name behind. Tin is the sky; Shui is related to water and Wai is a verb which means to confine something and don’t let go. It seemed to Mr. Lau that the people are walled in and Shui is actually symbolizing prosperity, meaning that people are difficult to prosper.
The name seems to have a physiological effect on those people and making them to feel despair and isolated. He claimed that it would affect their confidence and perseverance. An open contest is then suggested by Lau, to choose the best name being submitted. However, Lau said, that the change will only become really necessary when the people living there feel that they need a change.
This is not the first time that people suggested, or succeed in changing places’ name. In fact, the names of few Hong Kong places were changed in the past years for the same reason– Fung Shui.