A Hong Kong island, sleepy today, that was hub of industry from matches to porcelain
Known today as a relaxing getaway, compact Peng Chau was a pirates’ haven and, until the 1930s, polyglot fishing community, when factories making matches and hand-painted ceramics drew thousands of newcomers to island
Life slows down before you even step on the Peng Chau ferry. The boat tootles amiably on the way to one of Hong Kong’s most under-appreciated outlying islands.
When they arrive on the island, visitors are greeted by a plaza shaded by banyan trees and studded by plastic chairs. Here, the islanders sit, watch the water, gossip and while away an afternoon.
Three decades ago the journey would have been very different.
“Far from the madding crowd of Hong Kong, though only 45 minutes away by ferry, is the island of Peng Chau, where you won’t find peace and quiet either,” wrote American author (and former Post contributor) Will Schwalbe in 1985.
In a good-natured essay for The New York Times, Schwalbe described an afternoon visit to bustling Peng Chau. Rather than banyan trees, visitors at the time stepped off the ferry to encounter a vacant lot filled with hawkers selling stinky tofu, fishballs, fish intestine, grilled squid, chestnuts, chicken feet and corn for HK$1 per serving.
With an area of just under 1 square kilometre, Peng Chau was home to about 8,000 people – compared to 6,400 today – nearly all of whom lived in the densely-packed settlement squeezed between two hills, the ferry pier and a sandy beach. Most of the houses were traditional greystone structures with pitched tile roofs and a single large room that housed sons, daughters, parents and grandparents.