Is this mural village the last stand against Hong Kong’s rapid urbanisation?

Inspired by Taiwan’s ‘Rainbow Village’, New Territories residents campaign to preserve city’s rural past, not with loudspeakers or banners, but with paintbrushes

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(From left) Villagers Yuen Ka-keung, who started the mural campaign, John Choy Yuk-wai and Yeung Koon-ping. Photo: Roy Issa

Published: 4:17pm, 6 May 2018Updated: 10:56pm, 6 May 2018

Among a sprawl of abandoned farmland and scrapyards on Hong Kong’s last untouched frontier lies a cluster of idyllic, rainbow-coloured village houses.

Ping Yeung San Tsuen in the New Territories, which was in the government’s cross hairs for development more than six years ago, once again faces being bulldozed.

But instead of marching with banners and loudspeakers to save their homes from being razed to the ground, villagers are arming themselves with paintbrushes.

Yuen Ka-keung, one of the residents who started the campaign in 2013, said hundreds of university students and volunteers had helped bring the village to life by painting murals on houses and along paths.

The mural village lies in Ping Che, New Territories. Neighbouring Shenzhen is in the background. Photo: Roy Issa

“We took inspiration from a popular mural village in Taiwan. It became a sort of ‘soft protest’ against the government to stop development plans,” Yuen said, referring to a settlement known as “Rainbow Village” in the city of Taichung in central Taiwan.

Villager Yuen Ka-keung wants to raise awareness for a rapidly vanishing way of life in Hong Kong. Photo: Roy Issa