Glimpses 驚豔

Beas River 雙魚河

Professor Hui Cheuk Kuen, Desmond (許焯權教授)

There is a Beas River in Hong Kong near Fanling and Sheung Shui. The name of the river has an interesting history: its English version does not seem to have any relation to its Chinese origin. It appears that an Indian surveyor hired by the British to survey the rivers in Hong Kong took his fancy to name all the rivers he surveyed after the Indian rivers he knew from home. Thus Hong Kong got a Beas River after the famous Indian one which stopped Alexander the Great’s advances to conquer India in 362 BC! I am more interested indeed in the trees around the area the majority of which have probably a much longer history than the river’s English name – and of course, the origin of the Chinese name “Sheung Yue” which believably has more to do with Hakka than Greek culture.

香港有一條雙魚河，在粉嶺和上水附近。它的名字由來有一段有趣的歷史: 它的英文名好像跟中文名沒有什麼關係。原來早期英國人派遣了一位印度的測量師來測量新界的河流，這位印度人沒有理會河流的中文原名便用他家鄉祖國印度的河流來命名，於是香港便有了一條用印度的河命名的河流，這條河也就是西元前362年亞歷山大大帝停止進攻印度的最東邊界！我其實對這地區的古樹比較有興趣，這些古樹大部分比河流的英文名字有更悠久的歷史。當然我也想知道河流中文原名的典故，但我相信「雙魚」這個名字應該與客家而非希臘文化更有淵源。

October 12, 2019

Beas River, Hong Kong

Multicolored

Watercolors