Hung Shing Temple

Turn round and walk back again to Queen's Road East. Turning right, continue along until you come to the Hung Shing Temple, on the opposite side of the road. This temple was probably a small shrine when the British arrived in Hong Kong. Like many of the older temples in Hong Kong, it is built around a huge rock. The lintel over the door gives the date of the present building as 1860-61. In 1909 the roof collapsed entombing three female worshippers. The Shekwan pottery roof ridge dates from the rebuilding of the roof. The two small figures that jut out from the beams on each side of the door above your head represent the Sun God on the right and the Moon God on the left. The lions perched on the horizontal granite beams are the guardians of the temple.

Inside the temple, walking past the altars from left to right, the first is an altar to Lady Kam Fa, whose name means 'Golden Flower', protector of pregnant women and the mothers of small babies. Hung Shing is next, followed by the Sixty Year Gods and then Pao Kung. In the small temple on the other side of a passage you will find first the City God, Shing Wong. Kwan Yin is in the centre and beyond her in the far corner is Lung Mo, the Dragon Mother. Behind them you can see the huge rock around which the temple was built. If you turn back to the passage, you will find an old staircase at the end that takes you to the upper room of the temple. Here in this peaceful corner a Sakyamuni Buddha stands with one hand pointing to mother earth and the other raised in a blessing. Outside the back of the temple is a huge old banyan tree whose roots have grown down over the steps leading up to it and whose canopy spreads over the roof of the temple.