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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including