At the entrance to Tate's Cairn Tunnel lies a neighbourhood that's little more than 10 years old in its current form but has roots that stretch back centuries. If you can block out the roar of the traffic heading in and out of the city from the New Territories, Fung Tak Road offers a welcome respite from the urban mayhem that stretches across the Kowloon peninsula below.
The road's Chi Lin Nunnery, a vast temple complex modelled on Tang-dynasty architecture, attracts surprisingly few visitors. Like the nearby Wong Tai Sin temple, this site was chosen because it backs up on the Kowloon hills, an auspicious location that was once a peaceful distance from the urban jungle.
The temple, newly rebuilt, has long been overshadowed, first by squatter settlements and then by the faceless megatowers of the modern metropolis. From its grounds, the 'mountains' that dot the horizon are now made of concrete and glass. The complex is effectively surrounded by a wall of faded public-housing blocks and new high- rise developments.
Diamond Hill has traditionally been one of the poorest parts of Hong Kong. In the 1950s and 60s, the area became one of the city's largest 'informal settlements', with squatter villages stretching down the slopes towards the city, housing some 50,000 people at their peak. Pathologist Feng Chi-sun's 2009 memoir, Diamond Hill- Memories of Growing Up in a Hong Kong Squatter Village, captures a time of slumlords, drug dealers and refugees from the mainland, trying to carve out a life in the city. The last squatter homes were removed in 2000.
There never have been diamonds at Diamond Hill- the name may have come from the rock quarries that operated here, since the Cantonese term for the district can either mean 'diamond hill' or 'drill rock hill'. Another interpretation suggests the rocks here contained quartz-like qualities that, at a stretch, resembled a girl's best friend.
The new face of Diamond Hill is one of kindergartens, amahs, grandparents passing the time in nearby Hammer Hill park, suburban shoppers chatting in Cantonese- the Putonghua tidal wave doesn't seem to have yet swamped these slopes- and streams of commuters making their way into the towers overhead.
