Bowen Road Park, Recreational park in Wan Chai District, Hong Kong.
Bowen Road Park, also known as Orchid Valley, is a park in a V-shaped ravine where Bowen Road crosses a stream on a short three-arch bridge. Two small paths lead into the ravine, whose rock walls carry four marble plaques with Chinese inscriptions: "Listening to the Spring," "Living Water," "Washing Away Dust" (now lost), and "Clear Spring."
The park developed around an aqueduct built to carry water from Tai Tam Reservoir toward Central Hong Kong. This water infrastructure shaped the path and land where the park now exists as a public space for the community.
The valley's rock walls carry four marble carvings in Chinese characters: "Listening to the Spring" by Ye Gongchuo, "Living Water" by Chen Jianpo, "Washing Away Dust" (now lost) and "Clear Spring" by an unknown hand. In 1941 ten Hong Kong-based scholars who favoured the Qing dynasty met here regularly to compose poetry, publishing the collection Orchid Valley Gathering; the eldest, 78-year-old Liu Weiqing, wrote its preface.
The terrain is flat with paved paths that work well for jogging and morning exercise routines. Wear comfortable shoes and bring water, especially on warmer days when the sun can be intense along the exposed sections.
The Lover's Stone that gives its name to the nearby Lover's Stone Park on Bowen Road is a separate site from Orchid Valley itself; the valley's own carved rocks bear the inscriptions "Listening to the Spring", "Living Water", "Washing Away Dust" and "Clear Spring". The "Living Water" carving still gives the spot an alternative local name.
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