Boundary Stone at Magazine Gap Road
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Submitted by Unknown user (not verified) on Fri, 2007-06-15 18:49
Some net friend had a trip a couple of days ago to check the 'Victoria City boundary stones'. He found that the one at Magazine Gap Road (the latest one found) had been removed. Any idea who did that? Or it was done by the government for conservation purpose?
Forum:
Boundary Stone at Magazine Gap Road - Then and Now
Then (photo from reader):
Now (photo from Jixiang Sanbao's Xanga website) :
A shame - boundary stone at Magazine Gap Road Now
I've just written to the
I've just written to the government's 'Antiquities & Monuments Office', to see if they can provide any further information.
MrB
more photoes about the victoria boundary stones
Boundary Stone at Magazine Gap Road
Boundary Stone at Magazine Gap Road
four agencies
I just wrote to these four government agencies via e-mail,
Leisure and Cultural Services Department
Home Affairs Department
Antiquities and Monuments Office, Home Affairs Department
Civil Engineering and Development Department
See who has the answer in the earliest time.
Boundary Stone at Magazine Gap Road
Boundary Stone at Magazine Gap Road
Contact e-mails
If anyone else wants to write, here are the contact e-mail addresses:
Boundary Stone at Magazine Gap Road
Antiquities and Monuments Office, Leisure and Cultural Services Department
made the reply as follow, this afternoon:
"We will get back to you shortly regarding the situation of the Boundary Stone."
It seemed to be a complete
We will get back to you shortly, indeed
Six departments, one office
Antiquities and Monuments Office: no further reply after 18 June.
Civil Engineering and Dept.: one reply on 6 July:
"We refer to your e-mail to CEDD on 18 June 2007 and the subsequent communication
of our Geotechnical Engineering Office with you regarding the captioned subject
We have carried out a check on the matter and would like to advise that :
(a) Management and maintenance of the subject boundary stone are not under the
purview of CEDD.
(b) The subject boundary stone falls within the area maintained by private lot owner of
17 Magazine Gap Road. Control of structures and works of private lots is under the purview
of Buildings Department."
Leisure and Cultural Services Dept. one reply on 10 July:
"Thank you for writing to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department on 18/06/2007.
Please note that enquiries and complaints related to that department are now handled
by the 1823 Citizen's Easy Link of the Government. The Highways Department advised
that your case should be handled by the Buildings Department. As such, we have
referred your case to the Buildings Department for follow up."
Home Affairs Dept. one reply on 21 July:
"I refer to your earlier email to the Headquarters of Home Affairs
Department on 18 June concerning the captioned matter. To facilitate
our further investigation of the boundary stone concerned, I should be
grateful if you would furnish me with more information about it, e.g. the
approximate location, when you found it missing, etc. please. Thank you."
So I wrote to Buildings Dept. & Lands Dept. on 9 July.
I walked along the boundary in the Cuaseway Bay area on last Sunday week, and could
not any find any trace of new stone. Will continue the trace as I suspect that one may be
around Tung Shan Terrance / Stubbs Road.
Duh....... It's been 10 years but still.......
Hi T, The bureaucracy is
Hi T,
The bureaucracy is BIG:
http://www.gov.hk/en/about/govdirectory/govchart/index.htm
http://www.gov.hk/en/about/govdirectory/govwebsite.htm
Seems to me that I have to keep writing to departments, then to
bureaux, then to secretaries. Or should I write to "Public Works Dep."!?
Cheers, (though not very cheerful regarding the stone)
isdl
Bureacuracy........ I had had enough......
Hi there,
I found a link in a Chinese web forum (http://go2nature.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2173&) on similar topic. They scope covers all boundary/IL/KWW/Milelage stones in the city, not just the Victoria City ones.
Somebody there had filed an enquiry on this stone in Magazine Gap back in 2005 to the AMO...... The forum luckers also managed to confirm the management of the private lot did hire a contractor to work on the slope/stone wall. However the building management was unable (or reluctant) to give any further information.
Another posting (in English) there on page 9 mentioned the District Survey Office of the Lands Department replied on 26 June saying they are working on the case.
Best Regards,
T
I think the Antiquities and
Home Affairs Dept.
Home Affairs Dept. replied on 21 June, not 21 July. My typing mistake.
tabloid
Today's headline daily (free local tabloid):
http://www.hkheadline.com/news/headline_news_detail.asp?id=29614§ion_name=wnn
Hi
Hi there,
http://forum.hh1977.net/viewthread.php?tid=4106&extra=page=1
From one of the messages in this forum it mentioned the Chief Curator of the Hong Kong Museum of History confirmed the authenticity of the Seventh Stone back in late 2006.
T
Thanks for keeping us updated
Thanks for keeping us updated of the news on the Chinese-language forums.
From the various messages and copies of emails posted, it seems the AMO was aware of the seventh stone. I'll be interested to hear their description of what's happened here, given their stated role.
MrB
AMO know the 7th stone more
AMO know the 7th stone more than a year and did nothing to further study and put it in their record!
Boundary stone is public assets and noone allow to damange or remove it according to law Cap473 s32:
It seen all government departments just forget this point! Please keep push our government to locate the missing stone. The should put a replica there if unable to find the real one!
Historical file about No. 7 stone.
1924 / Administrative Reports / Public Works
http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkgro/view/a1924/544.pdf
32/192 page No. 22
The City Boundary, which for a considerable distance on the southern side follows the 700 ft contour has been defined from a point on the sea-shore at Kennedy Town as far east as Magazine Gap Road and boundary stones fixed at suitable points.
1929 / Administrative Reports / Public Works
http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkgro/view/a1929/714.pdf
14/141 page No. 23
The City Boundary east of Magazine Gap Road along the 700 ft contour was defined and boundary stones fixed or refixed.
All these governments just
All these governments just shirked their responsibility! AMO still claims that it was a 'suspected' one. My friend had sent a letter to them in Dec 2005, this is what I've heard of the earliest correspondence with AMO to informing the discovery of '007 BS'.
If AMO really did inform other government departments about '007 BS', the landlord of Magazine Heights should have been informed about this BS. I've also sent the letter to the Landlord but no reply yet.
Complaints should be raised continuously until the Government will give us a good answer.
Even now the 001-006 BS are not protected by Laws.
Reply from the AMO
Yesterday, 19th of July, I received the following reply to the message I sent on 16th June:
So, it is disappointing that it has taken them a month to send me what looks to be their standard reply on the subject. But at least it is a start. I have just sent back the following reply:
I'll let you know if I get any reply.
MrB
AMO is big
AMO is big. I aslo received the following reply from them on 19 July:
Besides this particular officer, I also received two more reply, from different officers as my case has been re-directed by Home Affairs Dept. & 1823 Citizen's Easy Link.
I also wrote to Lands Dept, Information Services Dept & Land Registry, expecting their reply. Buildings Dept made the reply, denying any responsibility.
Second reply from the AMO
I received this reply today (though it doesn't answer either of the questions I asked):
MrB
Does it matter?
"Does it matter that this boundary stone's been removed?"
Someone asked me that over the weekend. After all, it is just one little bit of stone sticking out of a wall that few people ever walk past. How many people even knew it existed?
It's true that this boundary stone isn't one of Hong Kong's greatest historic relics. But on the other hand we don't have that many relics at all, so why lose this one when it could so easily have been kept?
So yes it matters, in that it highlights some of the problems that put other relics at risk. These problems include:
Poor internal communication between government departments.
Eg On 16th Dec 2006, the Chief Curator of the Museum of History says 'You are perfectly right, there is another boundary stone at Magazine Gap Road and my colleague has already located it and taken phots of it.' (See comment #2 here)
Then on 24th January 2007 we find that the Lands department now consider there are seven boundary stones, including the stone at Magazine Gap Rd 'Please be informed that cleansing work to the seven stones has been carried out on 16 January 2007.' (See comment #4 here)
But on 19th July 2007 the reply from the AMO (Antiquities & Monuments office) is still saying 'we have yet to ascertain whether it is one of the Boundary Stones of the City of Victoria.'.
Poor communication between government departments and public.
This works both ways. On the one hand there are different, unconnected groups of the public that are keen to learn what has happened to the missing stone. But that means many messages sent to different government departments, so some departments receive messages that are not relevant to them, and I guess the AMO has to deal with many duplicate messages. Not very efficient.
Of course the reply wasn't that impressive either, with the AMO taking one month to send out a form letter.
Responsiveness.
It seems the stone disappeared some time between late May when this photo was taken and mid-June when we learned that it had disappeared. A speedy response was needed to have the best chance to recover the stone. The AMO were notified of the stone's disappearance on 16th June, if not earlier. On 19th July, their position was still 'We would also attempt to approach the owner of the lot for the whereabouts of the Stone.'
So what can we do to help prevent this type of problem in future?
Improve internal communication
Is there an way for departments to share information about these relics? eg A simple shared website where interested people can look up a relic on an online map of Hong Kong, view its status, and add comments about it?
Improve external communication
If that type of website exists, could the public be given access to it? Some information may be confidential and need to be hidden, but if we could see what work is underway, we wouldn't need to keep bothering the departments with emails.
Also when there are questions, eg about the history of a suspected relic, why not let the public add their comments too? As we can see from the interest in this issue, there are many knowledgeable amateur historians in Hong Kong that can contribute useful knowledge and research.
Respond faster
Well, the door is locked on the inside for that one. Hopefully the better communication mentioned above could free up resources to respond faster to the main problem?
Better protect the remaining stones
Inform land-owners if stones are on their land. It doesn't have to be a heavy-handed approach, more a "Congratulations, you're in charge of a piece of Hong kong's history", with a little background and a request to contact the AMO before any work starts that could damage it. It's easy to be cynical and say 'who'd care', but I think if it was posted on the notice board for residents to read, enough people would take notice and respond positively to make a difference.
Recognise them as monuments. From the Lands Departments' message (see comment #11 here), the remaining stones have no official protection. Give it to them.
Put a simple warning on the stones. Recognising them as monuments is great, making the contracting companies take more care to look after the stones and so avoid breaking the law. But... what's most important is to stop some over-enthusiastic workman from swinging a sledgehammer at the stone. I'm sure that in the Magazine Gap Rd case, at the end of the job the workment looked at the slope with pride, congratulating themselves on how they'd taken away that ugly pointy bit and left it all smooth and lovely!! So, have a warning in plain language fixed on or near to the remaining stones.
What do you think? Is it worth causing a fuss about this? Why? And what other simple steps can we take to help stop it from happening again in future?
MrB
Communication within department.
The communication within department also matters.
According forum.hh1977, they received a reply from Lands Dept. on 6 July saying that:“protection measures HAVE been put in place for the Wong Nai Chung Road stone. Highways Department IS WORKING with Transport Department on how to protect the Bowen Road stone”
But, I received the following message on 10 July “The Highways Department advised that your case should be handled by the Buildings Department”
Furthermore, a visit on last Sunday (22 July) at Wong Nai Chung Road stone couldn’t see any “protection measures”
All we need is a bit of good communication between .............
Hong Kong Economic Times article
A reporter from the HKET newspaper has been in touch with a few questions about this topic, and says there will be an article about it in today's newspaper. If you see it, please could you let us know what are the main points they cover, as I can't read the chinese :-(
Many thanks, MrB
Translation of HKET
Reader 'isdl' emailed us:
Thanks for your help with the translation,
MrB
Today's Appledaily have an
Translation of Appledaily's
Cenotaph
Re.: Cenotaph
I agree, that thing is an eyesore and totally irrelevant in Hong Kong. Not only is it a pointless relic of bygone years that should be removed, but a constant reminder of Britain's colonial rule. Its quite odd that it hasn't been replaced with a statue of Chairman Mao or something like that (considering Hong Kong people's avarice for gambling, fortune and materialistic gains I suggest a statue of Baphomet).
Having said that, there are numerous cenotaph around the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenotaph) and although it is true that it is a reminder of British rule in Hong Kong, that "piece of stone" does serve one purpose that in itself is good enough reason to leave it where it is. That reason being that it is one of very few spots left in Central where there's some open air and you can see the sky without straining your neck. I suggest they plant some trees around it.
accroding to Headline Daily
Today's South China Morning Post
"this seventh stone was
When I look upon the
Reader's comment posted to Apple Daily on 5 Sep 07
Would someone kindly translate this Apple Daily piece into English. Tks!
Already translated please
South China Morning Post
Complaint Letter to Donald Tsang
Missing boundary monument
Summary of Media Reporting Missing Stone
Hi has anyone heard any more
I'll let you know the
Frodo?
btw I wouldn't hold out much
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