The Shing Mun River (Chinese: 城門河) or Shing Mun River Channel (Chinese: 城門河道) is a river in Sha Tin , Hong Kong .
30-533: The original Shing Mun River began at Needle Hill , and flowed into the former Tide Cove (Sha Tin Hoi), a shallow bay. In the 1970s, Tide Cove was reclaimed and turned to Sha Tin New Town . The river was extended through a 7 km long, 200 m wide artificial channel in the middle of the area to flow into Tolo Harbour . Other rivers that had originally flowed into Tide Cove are now tributaries of Shing Mun River in
60-509: A certain extent in South Korea , remain virtually identical to traditional characters, with variations between the two forms largely stylistic. There has historically been a debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters . Because the simplifications are fairly systematic, it is possible to convert computer-encoded characters between the two sets, with the main issue being ambiguities in simplified representations resulting from
90-555: A population equivalent of 160,000 in the 1980s. At that time, hardly any living creatures were found in the river. The water quality of Shing Mun River has improved from bad to good in terms of the Water Quality Index since 1993. Lifeforms including fish and invertebrates have also reappeared in the river. In 2001, bioremediation and dredging works began to further improve the river environment. Levels of odour-causing sulphides and E. coli subsequently dropped sharply. But
120-613: A standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages . In Taiwan , the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters . These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of
150-869: Is 産 (also the accepted form in Japan and Korea), while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan the accepted form is 產 (also the accepted form in Vietnamese chữ Nôm ). The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers;
180-493: The Chinese Commercial News , World News , and United Daily News all use traditional characters, as do some Hong Kong–based magazines such as Yazhou Zhoukan . The Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified characters. DVDs are usually subtitled using traditional characters, influenced by media from Taiwan as well as by the two countries sharing the same DVD region , 3. With most having immigrated to
210-640: The Shanghainese -language character U+20C8E 𠲎 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-20C8E —a composition of 伐 with the ⼝ 'MOUTH' radical—used instead of the Standard Chinese 嗎 ; 吗 . Typefaces often use the initialism TC to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters, as well as SC for simplified Chinese characters . In addition, the Noto, Italy family of typefaces, for example, also provides separate fonts for
240-555: The People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters . Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. There are differences between the accepted traditional forms in mainland China and elsewhere, for example the accepted traditional form of 产 in mainland China
270-587: The United States during the second half of the 19th century, Chinese Americans have long used traditional characters. When not providing both, US public notices and signs in Chinese are generally written in traditional characters, more often than in simplified characters. In the past, traditional Chinese was most often encoded on computers using the Big5 standard, which favored traditional characters. However,
300-662: The base of Needle Hill. The Lower Shing Mun River can also be found at the base of the hill. Needle Hill is mainly composed of Granite . Wolframite , Molybdenite and Quartz ores can be found at the base of the hill. Wolframite, a tungsten ore, was discovered at Needle Hill in 1935. It was mined there from 1938 to 1967. The mines used to obtain Wolframite ores are now abandoned. 22°23′14″N 114°09′38″E / 22.387089°N 114.160486°E / 22.387089; 114.160486 Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are
330-742: The colour changes in the Fo Tan Nullah, tests conducted in December 2015 by a private laboratory at the behest of Sha Tin District Councillor Scarlett Pong Oi-lan revealed that pollution had worsened in the Shing Mun River. The tests showed that the E. coli are 1,300 times the EPD standard, while water acidity and suspended solids are three times the standard. Pong said that the E. Coli concentration
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#1732798605678360-645: The form of concreted nullahs . The Shing Mun River channel runs from the Tai Wai area, through the Sha Tin town centre to the Tolo Harbour. It has three main tributaries, namely Tai Wai Nullah , Fo Tan Nullah and Siu Lek Yuen Nullah . Along the Shing Mun River are high-rise residential, commercial and industrial buildings with numerous village-type developments such as City One Shatin and Wo Che Estate scattered around. Several bridges were built to connect
390-493: The inverse is equally true as well. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters. In Hong Kong and Macau , traditional characters were retained during the colonial period, while the mainland adopted simplified characters. Simplified characters are contemporaneously used to accommodate immigrants and tourists, often from
420-725: The mainland. The increasing use of simplified characters has led to concern among residents regarding protecting what they see as their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters. The use of simplified characters in government documents and educational settings is discouraged by the government of Taiwan. Nevertheless, with sufficient context simplified characters are likely to be successfully read by those used to traditional characters, especially given some previous exposure. Many simplified characters were previously variants that had long been in some use, with systematic stroke simplifications used in folk handwriting since antiquity. Traditional characters were recognized as
450-682: The majority of Chinese text in mainland China are simplified characters , there is no legislation prohibiting the use of traditional Chinese characters, and often traditional Chinese characters remain in use for stylistic and commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertising. Traditional Chinese characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promulgation of the current simplification scheme, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. In
480-983: The merging of previously distinct character forms. Many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between these character sets. Traditional characters are known by different names throughout the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially refers to traditional Chinese characters as 正體字 ; 正体字 ; zhèngtǐzì ; 'orthodox characters'. This term is also used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard characters, including both simplified, and traditional, from other variants and idiomatic characters . Users of traditional characters elsewhere, as well as those using simplified characters, call traditional characters 繁體字 ; 繁体字 ; fántǐzì ; 'complex characters', 老字 ; lǎozì ; 'old characters', or 全體字 ; 全体字 ; quántǐzì ; 'full characters' to distinguish them from simplified characters. Some argue that since traditional characters are often
510-431: The month it was ‘partly grey and partly turquoise’. Residents and green groups speculated on whether the pollution was caused by the illegal dumping of pigments or industrial waste. The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) and Drainage Services Department investigated but were unable to determine the cause of the pigmentation as of December 2015. An EPD test revealed that the river was polluted by sewage. Aside from
540-677: The official script in Singapore until 1969, when the government officially adopted Simplified characters. Traditional characters still are widely used in contexts such as in baby and corporation names, advertisements, decorations, official documents and in newspapers. The Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative in Southeast Asia regarding simplification. Although major public universities teach in simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications such as
570-700: The original standard forms, they should not be called 'complex'. Conversely, there is a common objection to the description of traditional characters as 'standard', due to them not being used by a large population of Chinese speakers. Additionally, as the process of Chinese character creation often made many characters more elaborate over time, there is sometimes a hesitation to characterize them as 'traditional'. Some people refer to traditional characters as 'proper characters' ( 正字 ; zhèngzì or 正寫 ; zhèngxiě ) and to simplified characters as 簡筆字 ; 简笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'simplified-stroke characters' or 減筆字 ; 减笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'reduced-stroke characters', as
600-833: The predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China , Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau , as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages written using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts . Korean hanja , still used to
630-667: The resemblance of a needle by its peak. At around 400 above sea level, it forms a needle-like shape at its peak. The granitic rocks that form this hill is part of a granitic ridge that starts at the Tolo Channel and ends in Kwai Chung . Needle Hill is located within Shing Mun Country Park . Stage 7 of the MacLehose Trail includes the summit of Needle Hill. The Shing Mun Tunnels pass through
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#1732798605678660-614: The riverside, such as the Chinese Banyan and a few cotton trees . Shing Mun River is a popular place for water sports, such as: rowing , canoeing , kayaking and dragon boat racing. There are three boathouses in the river, located at Yuen Wo Road and Shek Mun respectively. The river has a standard of 2000 metres long for regattas. The Shing Mun River was once heavily polluted from the indiscriminate discharges from livestock, industrial, commercial and domestic sources. The total organic pollution load from these discharges amount to
690-483: The situation immediately. 22°23′05″N 114°11′48″E / 22.384781°N 114.196529°E / 22.384781; 114.196529 Needle Hill Needle Hill or Cham Shan ( Chinese : 針山 ) is a mountain in New Territories , Hong Kong . It has an altitude of 532 m. This is a part of a popular hiking route including Grassy Hill and Tai Mo Shan . The mountain got its name due to
720-636: The traditional character set used in Taiwan ( TC ) and the set used in Hong Kong ( HK ). Most Chinese-language webpages now use Unicode for their text. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hant to specify webpage content written with traditional characters. In the Japanese writing system , kyujitai are traditional forms, which were simplified to create shinjitai for standardized Japanese use following World War II. Kyūjitai are mostly congruent with
750-985: The traditional characters in Chinese, save for minor stylistic variation. Characters that are not included in the jōyō kanji list are generally recommended to be printed in their traditional forms, with a few exceptions. Additionally, there are kokuji , which are kanji wholly created in Japan, rather than originally being borrowed from China. In the Korean writing system , hanja —replaced almost entirely by hangul in South Korea and totally replaced in North Korea —are mostly identical with their traditional counterparts, save minor stylistic variations. As with Japanese, there are autochthonous hanja, known as gukja . Traditional Chinese characters are also used by non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Maniq people living in Thailand and Malaysia use Chinese characters to write
780-528: The two sides of the Shing Mun River. There are several major bridges across the Shing Mun River: Although the river is primarily designed for the drainage of storm water from Sha Tin with a catchment area of 37 km, it is also a popular place for recreational users such as rowers, anglers, riverside walkers and cyclists. There are continuous pedestrian promenades on both sides of the river. Many species of trees has been planted along
810-518: The ubiquitous Unicode standard gives equal weight to simplified and traditional Chinese characters, and has become by far the most popular encoding for Chinese-language text. There are various input method editors (IMEs) available for the input of Chinese characters . Many characters, often dialectical variants, are encoded in Unicode but cannot be inputted using certain IMEs, with one example being
840-494: The water quality is still threatened by the polluted condition of Tolo Harbour, which backflows into the Shing Mun River during high tide, causing contamination. An artificial river bank was also built along a 250-metre section near Man Lai Court , where there are relatively severe sediment accumulations and odour problems. In late 2015, the Fo Tan Nullah, which flows into the Shing Mun River, changed colours several times. In early December it turned an electric blue, while later in
870-587: The words for simplified and reduced are homophonous in Standard Chinese , both pronounced as jiǎn . The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han dynasty c. 200 BCE , with the sets of forms and norms more or less stable since the Southern and Northern dynasties period c. the 5th century . Although
900-564: Was at its highest level since 1995. In early 2016, thousands of fish died in the river. On 1 November 2016, the real estate company Link REIT was fined $ 15,000 for contravening the Water Pollution Control Ordinance because wastewater from the Mei Lam Shopping Centre, owned and managed by Link REIT, was being illegally discharged into the Shing Mun River. The company was ordered to rectify
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