Yu Pang George Chan, The Last Fishermen in Hong Kong (TRAVEL 2022)

When introducing Hong Kong, people usually start with: "Hong Kong was once a little fishing village..." In the last century, being the most important shelter for local fishermen, the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter was once crowded with thousands of fishing boats and houseboats. Time has changed, the stenchy fishing village has now become an international city; the fishing industry has declined, and you can barely smell the taste of salted fish in Aberdeen now. As someone who grew up in Aberdeen and living on the land, I am inexplicably curious about "boat people" or "people living on water", as if we were from different races: do they all love to eat fish? Do they take months to come back every time they go fishing? Most importantly, do they get seasick like me? To answer these questions, and to record the last generation of Hong Kong local fishermen, I interviewed a couple fishermen and created this series. I found that due to overfishing, government policies, COVID-19 and many other different challenges, the local fishing industry is now in danger: no young blood are willing to join the industry and most of the remaining fishermen reached their retirement age. This is an ongoing project about the fishing industry and the last generation of fishermen in Hong Kong.

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