Few things beat the simple pleasures of lazy weekend picnics, playing games, and walking barefoot on a field of green in your local park. Unfortunately, unlike comparable major cities like London, New York and Tokyo, urban Hong Kong is conspicuously lacking in such verdant wide open spaces, while plants and trees are kept roped off at a safe distance as if they were species in extinction. And don’t even think of walking on the grass. Sure, we have a huge amount of country parks, but it’s not quite the same as a green oasis in the city.

"There are so many people visiting our parks it would be difficult to maintain grass,” a spokesperson for the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) says in defence of the predominance of concrete. The LCSD also believes restrictions are necessary to avoid potentially big crowds getting out of hand and damaging what little vegetation there is. Their long list of restrictions now greeting visitors to Kowloon Park, for example, includes: no dogs, no picking flowers, no feeding birds, no gambling, no lying on benches, no cycling, and no skateboarding. While some are just common sense, aren’t others part of the reason parks exist? Seems that all we can really do is walk, point, look, and snap a photo. Not our idea of fun.

It’s not all bad news though; Kowloon Park does have great swimming pool facilities and a soccer pitch. Also, it’s always clean and well-kept with flowers blooming. But if you don’t want your children growing up without ever feeling grass, then you have to say something loud, about the Central Waterfront project which might as well be your last chance to see green in Central.

Anna Bisazza

Read the features:
Establish an art cinema on Hong Kong Island
Host mega-gigs at Hong Kong Stadium
Put a rooftop garden on top of the Museum of Art
Parks that are more fun than restrictive
Finish the TST construction works
Relax noise ordinances in bar areas
Build a super club
Ban evening traffic from Lan Kwai Fong