Then & Now | On a slow boat to China: when coastal shipping, not direct flights, connected Hong Kong to mainland China and Southeast Asia
- Before flights connected Hong Kong to mainland Chinese cities and places such as Singapore and Bangkok, people made inexpensive trips on small coastal ships
- The journeys inspired writers, but as times changed so did the routes and on-board accommodation, even if the feeling of being at sea remained the same
Swift, efficient transport connections between Hong Kong’s various hinterlands are now taken for granted; air travel and high-speed railway networks link locations along the China coast – including both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
But until the widespread advent of direct air services from Southeast Asia throughout the 1980s, relatively small-scale passenger vessel services enabled overseas Chinese with ancestral roots, close family connections, larger quantities of baggage and business links with China coast ports to travel to China inexpensively.
Most coastal ships hailed from Southeast Asian port-of-origin destinations with large ethnic Chinese populations, such as Singapore, Saigon, Bangkok and Manila; many also called at Hong Kong.
Regular, scheduled passenger-freight services through Hong Kong continued after the 1949 Communist assumption of power in mainland China, but steadily diminished in frequency after the United Nations-led embargo on direct China trade was mandated in 1950, following the outbreak of the Korean war.
One exception was passenger-freight services to Taiwan; these expanded considerably, particularly as commercial flights between Hong Kong and Taipei in those years – relative to distance covered – were some of the most expensive in the region.