{"id":11969,"date":"2025-01-14T11:38:28","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T11:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/14\/this-300-year-old-farming-village-was-abandoned-in-the-1960s-now-residents-are-moving-back\/"},"modified":"2025-01-14T11:38:28","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T11:38:28","slug":"this-300-year-old-farming-village-was-abandoned-in-the-1960s-now-residents-are-moving-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/14\/this-300-year-old-farming-village-was-abandoned-in-the-1960s-now-residents-are-moving-back\/","title":{"rendered":"This 300-year-old farming village was abandoned in the 1960s. Now residents are moving back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surrounded by forest-covered mountains cloaked in mist, a patchwork quilt of green farmland and steel-blue waves breaking on mangrove-strewn mudflats, Lai Chi Wo does not look like it belongs in Hong Kong. <\/p>\n

The remote 300-year-old village is one of the city\u2019s oldest settlements \u2014 and one of its most biodiverse. <\/p>\n

Its location is no accident: it draws on <\/strong>the traditional philosophies of the Hakka people, one of Hong Kong\u2019s pre-colonial indigenous groups, who built the settlement. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe maintain what is called a feng-shui forest, to preserve the village,\u201d says Susan Wong. The 73-year-old grandmother is the village chief, and was born in Lai Chi Wo, when the town was home to around 1,000 residents. \u201cFrom our ancestors to now, it has been passed down, not to let anyone cut down the trees. If you cut all the trees out, the mountain will become bare, and nothing can cover the village.\u201d <\/p>\n

Feng shui \u2014 which literally means \u201cwind\u201d and \u201cwater\u201d \u2014 is a design philosophy about how homes, villages and cities should be arranged for good fortune. <\/p>\n

In Lai Chi Wo, the position of the forest is intended to shelter the village from typhoons, prevent landslides, and manage extreme heat and cold. <\/p>\n

However, in the 1960s, residents began to leave their ancestral home: Hong Kong was industrializing rapidly, and it was becoming hard to make a living from farming. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t even have shoes or clothes to wear,\u201d Wong recalls. Lai Chi Wo is so remote that, even today, it can only be reached by a three-hour hike through the jungle, or a long boat trip around the coast. <\/p>\n

In the 1960s, \u201870s and \u201880s, many <\/strong>families emigrated overseas \u2014 like Wong\u2019s, who moved to the UK when she was 15 \u2014 for better opportunities, and elderly residents passed away. <\/p>\n

Lai Chi Wo became a ghost town. <\/p>\n

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This photo was taken in 1976, when Lai Chi Wo was already in decline.<\/span> <\/div>
HKSAR Government<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A child stands barefoot at the village gate in 1976.<\/span> <\/div>
HKSAR Government<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Restoring a community<\/h2>\n

Over the decades that Lai Chi Wo lay empty, buildings crumbled, and farmland grew wild with weeds. The roots of banyan trees twined around open doorways, and wild boar or lost hikers were the only foot traffic through the decaying village. <\/p>\n

But Lai Chi Wo was not entirely forgotten. <\/p>\n

\u201cElsewhere in Hong Kong, many abandoned villages had houses collapsed beyond recognition and vegetation invaded <\/strong>the whole village,\u201d says Chiu Ying Lam, head of the Hong Kong Countryside Foundation. However, when he first visited Lai Chi Wo in 2009, he was surprised to find several homes were well maintained. <\/p>\n

Lam speculated that these absentee homeowners were still connected to their ancestral home, and were planning to return one day, perhaps to retire. This sparked an idea that would eventually become the Sustainable Lai Chi Wo program: a decade-long collaboration between NGOs, universities and government agencies to restore the village to its former glory. <\/p>\n

In re-establishing the community, the unique biodiversity around the village could be protected too, says Lam. <\/p>\n

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