Village sights in Hong Kong
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Tai O
A century ago this mostly Tanka village on the west coast of Lantau was an important trading and fishing port, exporting salt and fish to China. Today Tai O is in decline, except perhaps as a tourist destination offering an intriguing glimpse of the life of a traditional fishing village. A few of the saltpans still exist, but most have been filled in to build high-rise housing. Older people still make their living from duck farming, fishing, making the village’s celebrated shrimp paste and processing salt fish, which you’ll see (and smell) everywhere. It remains a popular place for locals to buy seafood – both fresh and dried. As recently as the 1980s Tai O also traded in…
reviewed
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B
Tung Chung
Change has come to Tung Chung, on Lantau’s northern coast, at a pace that can only happen in Hong Kong. This previously all-but-inaccessible farming region, with the small village of Tung Chung at its centre, has seen Chek Lap Kok, the mountain across Tung Chung Bay, flattened to build Hong Kong’s international airport and a New Town rise up, served by the MTR. As part of the territory’s plans to solve its housing crisis, Tung Chung New Town has now become a 760-hectare residential estate. The expected population of Tung Chung and the neighbouring New Town of Tai Ho is 330,000 by 2012. These developments and transport improvements have put an end to Tung Chung as a peacef…
reviewed
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Shui Tau Tsuen
This 17th-century village, a 15-minute walk north of Kam Tin Rd, is famous for its prow-shaped roofs decorated with dragons and fish along the ridges. Tiny traditional houses huddle inside Shui Tau Tsuen’s walls. The Tang Kwong U Ancestral Hall and the nearby Tang Ching Lok Ancestral Hall were built in the early 19th century for ancestor worship. The ancestors’ names are listed on the altar in the inner hall and on the long boards down the side. The sculpted fish, on the roof of the entrance hall, symbolise luck; in Cantonese, the word for ‘fish’ (yéw) sounds similar to the word for ‘plenty’ or ‘surplus’. Between these two buildings is the small Hung Shin…
reviewed
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C
Sok Kwu Wan
If you continue on the 4km Family Trail on the leafy, low-rise island of Lamma, you’ll encounter a pavilion on a ridge, this time looking down onto Sok Kwu Wan (Picnic Bay), with its many fine restaurants, and fishing boats and rafts bobbing in the bay. Although still a small settlement, Sok Kwu Wan supports at least a dozen waterfront seafood restaurants that are popular with boaters. The small harbour at Sok Kwu Wan is filled with rafts from which cages are suspended and fish are farmed. If entering Sok Kwu Wan from the south (ie from the Family Trail linking it with Yung Shue Wan), you’ll pass three so-called kamikaze caves : grottoes measuring 10m wide and 30m dee…
reviewed
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D
Kat Hing Wai
This tiny village is 500 years old and was walled in some time during the early Ming dynasty (1368–1644). It contains just one main street, off which a host of dark and narrow alleyways lead. There are quite a few new buildings and retiled older ones in the village. A small temple stands at the end of the street. Visitors are asked to make a donation when they enter the village; put the money in the coin slot by the entrance. You can take photographs of the old Hakka women in their traditional black trousers, tunics and distinctive bamboo hats with black cloth fringes, but they’ll expect you to pay (around $10). Kat Hing is just south of Kam Tin Rd. If travelling from Yue…
reviewed
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Ping Kong
This sleepy walled village in the hills south of Sheung Shui is seldom visited by outsiders. Like other walled villages still inhabited in Hong Kong, it is a mix of old and new, and has a lovely little Tin Hau temple in the centre. You can also go exploring around the farming area behind the village compound. To get to Ping Kong from Sheung Shui, catch green minibus 58K from the huge minibus station south of the Sheung Shui Landmark North shopping centre on San Wan Rd. The centre is a short walk northwest of Sheung Shui MTR East Rail station. Alternatively, bus 77K between Yuen Long and the Sheung Shui and Fanling MTR East Rail stations travels along Fan Kam Rd. Alight at…
reviewed
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E
Cheung Chau Village
The main settlement on the island of Cheung Chau lies along the narrow strip of land connecting the headlands to the north and the south. The waterfront is a bustling place and the maze of streets and alleyways that make up the village are filled with old Chinese-style houses and tumble-down shops selling everything from plastic buckets to hell money and other combustible grave offerings. The streets close to the waterfront are pungent with the smell of incense and fish hung out to dry in the sun.
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F
Yung Shue Wan
Though it’s the larger of the two main villages on the leafy, low-rise island of Lamma, Yung Shue Wan (Banyan Tree Bay) remains a small place, with little more than a main street following the curve of the bay. Plastic was the big industry here at one time, but now restaurants, bars and other tourism-related businesses are the main employers. There is a small Tin Hau temple dating from the late 19th century at the southern end of Yung Shue Wan.
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