Photo Gallery: The Lunar New Year in Guangzhou

Hong Kong is a small territory, but it makes a great base for adventures to other cities in the region. After taking a train from Kowloon out to the Chinese-Hong Kong border, crossing over is fast and painless if you've got a tourist visa. You exit into downtown Shenzhen and from there trains will take …

Photo Gallery: A Day in Tai O

Above the lagoon, laundry dangles in the sea breeze.

In the rundown side of Tai O, rusting metal shacks await demolition.

A shop cat prowls an alleyway looking for mice.

An egret lands on the water besides the new Tai O drawbridge. Before its construction, an elderly boat dweller woman would ferry tourists and residents across.

Stacks of bamboo scaffolding glint in the sunset glow.

A preserved pufferfish hangs above shoppers at a Market Street store.

A kitchen window opens into the narrow space between stilt homes.

A boat dweller granny leans out of the patio of her stilt house. While some villagers welcome tourists, others dislike the intrusion and hang “private” signs.

A villager guides his small craft through the canals.

Construction worker gear secreted away in cubbies after the work day ends.

Sunset in Tai O.

Fish waiting to be picked for dinner by shoppers.

Feral cattle graze alongside rusting construction machinery.

A villager walk down a narrow alley between houses.

Looking in on this boat dweller home, the red lights of a family shrine glare back.

Language Barriers

Conversations in Cantonese, English and Mandarin dominate Hong Kong public spaces; passerbys may also catch snippets of Hindi, French, Japanese, Indonesian and Javanese. But something is missing. One of the first tongues spoken in the region, Hakka, has become endangered. The extinction of a language is usually tied to a disappearance of the culture it …

Eating Hakka

Cultural identity is so often defined by its cuisine. For Hong Kong's Hakka people, this is certainly true. From the chain of restaurants 'Hak Ka Hut' to the many street vendors selling turnip pancakes and soups, it seems Hong Kong just can't get enough of Hakka food. It can be a challenge however to find …

Building a Future on Land

With their long history of living on the water behind them, many members of the boat dweller community are seeking their futures on land. Many of them moved into the government-built apartment blocks only steps away from Tai O harbour. Others sought their luck further inland, seeking higher education and steady employment. A smaller portion …

Preserving the Past

Hong Kong's boat dwelling community traces its roots back literally thousands of years. Take a peak at the timeline below to catch up on your history lessons! All caught up? Good! While there's a long tradition of boat dwellers living on, well, boats and stilt homes, this doesn't exactly fit with Hong Kong's modern image. …