WAN CHAI SERIES #4 - SOUTHORN PARK

Our first 18 months in HK we lived in a hotel where, out our windows, we looked straight into The Sicko World of Smeegle the Elderly Transvestite Cat Killer. So, when we decided to stay longer and get an apartment, high on our list of priorities was that we didn't look into anyone else's life.

Thus, the moment we saw this place, with its view over Southorn Park ...

... it was "where do I sign!"

Initially, I thought the name Southorn was a cute Chinglish rendering of "Southern", but, gosh, when I found out (Jason Wordie again) how it got the name, it was the greatest buzz ever:

Southorn Park is named after Virginia Woolf's husband Leonard's sister Lady Southorn. For days after finding this out I felt all-Bloomsbury and Literary Chic, but I got over it.

Now, I have no idea where I found out the following important facts - although it may have been in Lady Southorn's book about living in Hong Kong "Under the Mosquito Curtain" - but what I recall is that how Southorn Park came about was that she was so outraged by all the highrises going up on the then-new post-War harbour reclamation, she bought three of the new blocks and donated them to "the children of Wan Chai in perpetuity, so they can play with their feet on grass."

Now, if my recollection is correct, there's a lot of weird stuff going on here. As you can see, very little of the park is for children and none of it is grass:

The children's playground

is that winsy little tree-ed

and astro-turfed area

at the back there.

And, already, one of the three blocks has been built on:

It's the Wan Chai Council building, so I guess there wasn't anyone to stop them, and since it houses parts of HK Ed Dept, you can rationalise that it still involves children, but, honestly, isn't it just so wrong. In fact, it's a serious and grave injustice and I'm sure illegal to boot!

But it gets worse. Something about having an "empty space" in this city just brings out the worst in Developers. Already, in the almost-four years we've lived here, we've had to protest further buildings. It really riles me that anyone even brokers the subject at all, so I turn up at my "Not on My Watch, Buster!!!" stroppiest! Ooh, and I always feel especially-Bloomsbury when I say, as I always do, "Check the terms of the agreement. Lady Southorn donated it to the Children of Wan Chai so they have somewhere to play." and that usually shuts Developers up and puts paid to their plans, but only for a short while as there's always someone new who wants to build on it and thus I keep having to do it.

Honestly, HK MUST get a sense of its own history. And, equally honestly, I need to check out the details of Lady Southorn's donation if I'm to keep saying this.

AND, if I'm right, someone has to put forward a legal challenge to the building that's already gone up! If they had to tear it down, that would stop these ridiculous attempts to build more highrises on it.

It's beyond my bank balance, but is there anyone out there who can afford to do this?