Tang Lung Chau Lighthouse

The fourth place to visit is Tang Lung Chau Lighthouse. The lighthouse is located in the south of Ma Wan and in between Tsuen Wan and the Lantau Islands, the geographical uniqueness of the lighthouse used the guiding the foreign ship to Kowloon and Hong Kong Islands. The material for building the lighthouse was imported from England. In the early time of the service of the lighthouse, it relies on human control. Therefore, the lighthouse contains a kitchen, toilet, bedroom etc., in order to let the bricks keeper live on the island. However, the lighthouse itself did not have a supply of fresh water, so rainwater was collected from the roof and stored in the underground tank.

The Tang Lung Chau Lighthouse(燈籠洲燈塔) came into service in 1912 and it was manually controlled until 1980s. At the moment, The Hong Kong Marine Department have ownership of the lighthouse. The lighthouse was built because of the trading business in Hong Kong after the opening of the Suez Canal In 1869. The government thought it was necessary to build a lighthouse to warn the ship and guide them while they were traveling to Hong Kong. The automatic lighthouse was declared a monument in 2000. This is also one of the lighthouses built before the war.

The lighthouse was a symbol of the history of the business trade in Hong Kong in the early colonial era. As the trading economy relied on shipping around the world, the lighthouse worked as giving signals to the foreign business ship and guiding them the right way to the center of Hong Kong. This ensured Hong Kong‘s leading status in the trading industry from 1910s until post-war period.