Aberdeen Fishing Village was touted to be the last urban fishing village. It was situated near the famous Jumbo Floating Restaurant – the restaurant where the Stephen Chow’s movie “The Culinary God” was filmed.
It was also near a yatch club where the old fishing boats lined side by side with the pristine white private yatches of the rich and famous. While the fishing boats were the home and the tool to livelihood of the villagers, the yatches were a luxury fun get-away for the city dwellers.
These fishing boats were often built with about 3 rooms on each boat – the biggest room would be for the son, the mid-sized room for the parents and the smallest room for the daughter. Many of these fishing families still held traditional mindset where the sons were favoured over the daughters. Some of their fishing equipment such as nets could be seen heaped on the deck for sunning. Many villagers could be seen selecting their catch and cleaning them. For the smaller fishes, the villagers would dry them in the sun and wind by lining them vertically on the deck.
Some of these villagers also had smaller sampans where they rowed out to catch the fish.
Such a contrasting side with the traditional fishing village in a modern city of high-rise apartments and luxury yatch club could be a disappearing sight as the Hong Kong government was already making plans to uproot these Aberdeen villagers and close off the fishing village. What a pity.
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