Tourists in Hong Kong are flocking to the 300-year-old village of Kuk Po, whose decaying mansions and reed fields offer a respite from the former British colony’s famously frenetic pace.
The seaside village was once home to Hakka people from southern China, but was mostly abandoned in recent decades, even as gleaming high-rises sprang up in nearby Shenzhen across the Chinese border.
However, Hong Kong’s government is encouraging visitors to go off the beaten path and has loosened entry restrictions to the territory’s northernmost neighborhood of Sha Tau Kok — making it easier to visit Kuk Po via speedboat.
Photo: AFP
RUSTIC CHARM
On a recent weekend this month, tourists thronged to the village’s picturesque sights, surrounded on three sides by gentle valleys.
“When people talk about Hong Kong, it was about the skyline, the city area, the financial hub,” Singaporean exchange student Kevin Choy said.
Photo: AFP
“Very rarely do people talk about the countryside,” the 24-year-old said.
“This side of Hong Kong is something that I never imagined,” he added.
Lilian Lee, whose family has deep roots in Kuk Po, said her parents returned there during the COVID-19 pandemic to enjoy the charms of village life — a choice that may resonate with stressed-out city-dwellers.
In 2022, she started welcoming visitors into her family’s two-story ancestral home — built nearly a century ago.
“The world outside is very stressful and chaotic ... but here you can relax and be at ease,” the 30-year-old said.
“This is a beautiful environment that should be treasured [and] our family came together to share this place with more people,” she said.
The Hakka — whose name means “guest people” — are known for their long history of migration and transformed Kuk Po into a market town, though its numbers dwindled after Hong Kong urbanized in the 1960s.
Tour organizer Paul Chan said sustainable tourism was driving more tourists to visit the near-deserted town.
“When the public is interested, it creates a virtuous cycle: for houses and monuments to be restored, and cultures to be revived,” Chan said.
ECO-TOURS
The Hong Kong government hopes eco-tours can promote nature conservation while generating cash for the territory. Kuk Po was among the rural townships listed in a tourism policy blueprint last month.
However, despite the uptick in interest, Lee said it was difficult to financially sustain revitalization efforts that include tours, tasting events and workshops, and that she hoped the government would invest more in sustainable tourism.
“I hope the village will not turn into a tourist attraction solely for sightseeing, but rather to follow an educational approach,” she said.
“Many villages and their histories in Hong Kong are gradually disappearing... I hope these things can be passed on,” she said.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS