Just outside central Hong Kong, in the vast area known as New Territories, many once-thriving villages, have now been left abandoned and overtaken by nature. Many of these remote settlements were flourishing until the 1950s. Then, people started to move to the urban areas to find better-paid jobs, while others took advantage of Hong Kong's ties to the UK and went oversees to work in the Chinese restaurant business.
By the 1960's an increasing number of people moved away from these villages, abandoning the rural homes, and traditional lifestyles like farming and fishing became less viable. Today, houses and other buildings in villages such as Chau Tau and Sham Chung have been consumed by Hong Kong's climate and fast-growing foliage. Even though some former residents would like to return to their villages, it's hard to so as the government doesn't offer enough services in those rural areas. Today, the only ones who visit Hong Kong's abandoned villages are hikers and urban explorers.
SEE ALSO: More ghost towns around the world // More abandoned places in Hong Kong // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES
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A lot of interesting photos here, although I would like to have read some context. For example, the photo 4th from the end is of a building in Sham Chung that had painted friezes under the eaves that were still clearly visible in the late 1980s. You are right to suggest that villages like Sham Chung were abandoned because of their remoteness, but you should visit the northern New Territories, where traditional Chinese houses lie abandoned in the midst of fairly dense modern rural housing.
ReplyDeleteBy coincidence, I posted about one such abandoned house two days ago; it was called Bamboo Garden, even though there was no bamboo in the grounds of the house.