Next to Pok Oi Hospital in Yuen Long is a village known as “Small Traders New Village”. The term “small traders” refers to hawkers and shopkeepers. It is inhabited by 143 households, all of them non-indigenous. It is governed by the Small Traders New Village Better Living Co-operative Society and does not belong to any rural committee.

To understand how this village was established, we need to look back to the New Territories in the post-World War II era, when the population was increasing rapidly. Many community groups and non-governmental organisations built resettlement housing to provide shelter for refugees, boat dwellers, and others without homes. The government encouraged villagers to form co‑operative societies to manage these settlements, using them as channels of communication between residents and the authorities. In 1951, a law was enacted to govern the formation and operation of co‑operative societies. Village co-operatives for managing community affairs were often named “Better Living Limited Liability Co‑operative Societies” to differentiate them from those related to fisheries or agriculture.

Hawkers had been active around Yuen Long long before these policies were introduced. As early as the 1930s and 1940s, a group of hawkers began to cluster around Yuen Long Sai Hu, then a new market town (roughly at today’s Shui Che Kwun Street). In 1948, they formally established the Yuen Long Small Traders Mutual Aid Association (the Yuen Long Small Traders Association for short). In response to development along Yuen Long’s main drag, Castle Peak Rd, in 1958, these hawkers relocated to Hong Chong Market at present-day Tung Lok Street. However, two years later, the market site was resumed for redevelopment, forcing them to relocate once more.

Following discussions and negotiations with the District Office, members of the Yuen Long Small Traders Association banded together to purchase a piece of Tso/Tong land from indigenous villagers at Au Tau. (Tso/Tong land is indigenous ancestral land collectively owned by clan organizations.) There, the government permitted the small traders to build houses free of land premium. In return, they agreed to forgo compensation for the demolition of their market stalls. To raise funds for construction and manage the housing settlement, the mutual aid association was reorganised into a cooperative society. A total of 144 houses and 5 shopfronts were allocated by ballot.

Small Traders New Village consists of terraced houses laid out along eight cross streets bisected by a main street. Each unit is two storeys high and has a floor area of about 200 square feet (18.6 square metres). Initially, these houses lacked private toilets, as it was not until 1966 that the village was connected to running water. Residents were then allowed to build extensions of about 80 square feet for kitchens and toilets. 

The co‑operative’s office is located at the centre of the eighth street and is mainly funded through rental income from the shops. Every March, property owners aged 18 or older can vote for a chairman who oversees the day‑to‑day management of village affairs.

While today, many units at the Small Traders New Village have been sublet to outsiders of varying occupations, it used to be a close-knit community where residents supported each other through various community efforts. Hawkers had to work long hours on the streets, leaving little time to look after their children. This, along with their limited economic means, led to children frequently dropping out of school. Hence, schooling was a major issue of concern among the villagers.

Even before the village was established, the Yuen Long Small Traders Association had set up a night school to provide basic education for the children of hawkers who had dropped out of the formal education system. When they planned their village, the co-operative deliberately reserved a plot of land on the eastern end for a school campus. In 1966, the school was completed and merged with the existing night school, becoming “Small Traders New Village Public School”. Although it only had three classrooms, it served over 100 students at its peak. The school building also served as an important venue for village meetings to discuss community affairs.

In the 1990s, part of the school was demolished to make way for the construction of the West Rail Line (now part of the Tuen Ma Line). During this period, classes were moved temporarily to Wing On School in Yuen Long. Later, the Kowloon–Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC), the railway’s operator, committed to building a new village school which was finished in 2003. However, it had to shut down only three years later due to declining enrollment. Four years ago, the government assigned the former school site to the Yuen Long Kam Kwong Church to operate an integrated community service centre, which continues to serve as a new kind of social and spiritual hub for the village and the surrounding area.

Luen Yick Fishermen Village: From boats to red-roofed white houses

Luen Yick Fishermen Village is located at Yim Tin Tsai, a narrow peninsula that separates Tolo Harbour from Plover Cove. Though made up of non-indigenous residents, it is eligible to elect a village representative in rural elections and falls under the Tai Po Rural Committee. Its architecture and culture set it apart from other villages—even other fishing villages—in Hong Kong. 

The area where Luen Yick Fishermen Village is located is commonly referred to as Sam Mun Tsai, which means “Three Little Gates”. This name came from another fishing village on the eastern shore of Pak Sha Tau, where there were three channels that allowed fishing boats to sail in and out of Plover Cove. However, in the 1960s, residents were relocated to the current site at Yim Tin Tsai to make way for the construction of the Plover Cove Reservoir. The place name moved with the villagers as Sam Mun Tsai New Fishermen’s Village was established in 1965. A decade later, Luen Yick Fishermen Village was set up just behind Sam Mun Tsai Village, providing another settlement for fishing families looking to move ashore. However, its origin story was very different. 

In the 1960s, many fishermen were still working and living aboard boats in Tolo Harbour, but catches were gradually declining. Some turned to work as divers, descending to the seabed to harvest highly valued shellfish such as conch and scallops. They lived wherever their boats were moored. When typhoons approached, all the boats in the harbour would crowd into the sheltered bays of Yuen Chau Tsai and Tai Po Kau for safety. It was a difficult and insecure life.  

One of those shellfish divers, Ng Chiu‑kwong, later became the Residents’ Representative of Luen Yick Fishermen’s Village, i.e. the village chief. He recalls that his father’s generation still lived at sea, typically owning two boats: one moored at Tai Po Kau for use as a houseboat, while the other was used for scallop diving. At that time, an American Episcopal Church missionary was preaching in Tolo Harbour and invited fishers to attend Sunday services at St. Stephen’s Church in Hung Hom. Noticing that these fishermen had no permanent homes, he proposed to help them build houses on land so they could settle down and raise their families in a more stable environment.

The missionary’s plan received the approval of the Tai Po District Office. Because basic road infrastructure had already been built when Sam Mun Tsai Fishermen’s New Village was constructed, the government granted the land behind the village to fisherfolk represented by the Hong Kong and Kowloon Trades Union Luen Yick Association as a collective, and issued the organisation a government land license.

Church staff used Ng’s family boat to register fisherfolk in the Tolo Harbour area. Anyone who made a living in this area was eligible to apply, attracting boat dwellers from Yuen Chau Tsai, Tap Mun, and Ko Lau Wan. However, the local fishing community considered Hoklo boat dwellers, (another sub-ethnic group who spoke a Fujianese-based dialect) to be too loutish, and so excluded them from registration. 

Ng says that many fisherfolk were eager to leave their transient lifestyle behind. While the church offered financial assistance, building a house still cost each household around HK$7,500. At that time, divers only made about HK$500 per month, a little more than ordinary fishermen. Despite this, many were willing to pay and even took out loans to obtain a permanent home.

The church brought in a British engineer to design the village: each house was given a footprint of about 400 square feet, with white‑painted walls and a stripe of red tile around the roofline, and a small cross marked on the outside of every house. This gave the village its distinctive appearance. After several years of construction, the first phase of 81 houses was officially completed on 28 June 1975. Units were assigned by ballot. The village still preserves its original plaque inscribed “This village was made possible with the assistance of funds from the people of America.” Later, as more fisherfolk came forward to register for a home ashore, the government allocated land for a second phase, expanding the village to 123 units in total.

Over the years, villagers have elected a representative for each row of houses, as well as overall representatives for fishermen and villagers respectively. These representatives together form a mutual-aid committee responsible for managing daily affairs. Today, the village is still governed by this committee, with residents paying a monthly management fee (initially HK$30, now HK$80) to cover environmental hygiene and other communal services. External repairs are now handled by the owners themselves, but façades must retain the original design of white walls and red rooflines to preserve the village’s uniform appearance. 

Like many rural villages, Luen Yick’s permanent population has gradually declined due to urban development, and only a few households still engage in fishing or operate fish rafts (floating fish farms). Unlike typical fishing villages in Hong Kong, where residents worship Tin Hau and Tai Wong Yeh (Great Lord) and participate in events like the Da Jiao festival (打醮), Luen Yick’s Christian heritage means that most villagers are Christians or Catholics. Only a few still worship Tai Wong Yeh, and traditional fisherfolk celebrations like the Tin Hau Festival are seldom observed. The village has cultivated a distinctive identity as a Christian fishing village.

The histories of Small Traders New Village and Luen Yik Fishermen Village reveal how different post‑war non‑indigenous communities in Hong Kong sought a place to call home. Although these two villages developed under very different circumstances, they both show how hawkers and fisherfolk, through collective organisation and cooperation with churches and government agencies, managed to establish themselves and build a life during times of uncertainty. Despite their different paths, the emergence and continuance of these villages demonstrate more than just the diversity of rural life in the New Territories; they also remind us that outside of the standard “indigenous village” narrative, a significant number of non‑indigenous residents have played a quiet but vital role in shaping Hong Kong’s countryside.

This article was written by contract researcher Ng Cheuk Hang.

Special thanks to Mr. Ng Chiu Kwong, the resident representative of Luen Yick Fishermen Village.