【4K】Walk at Kat O, Hong Kong | A 300 years ago Hakka and Tanka village

Kat O is located in the west of Mirs Bay. With an area of 2.35 km², it is the largest island in North District.
History and Culture
According to archaeological data, human activity was evident on Kat O as early as the Neolithic Age, 4,000 years ago. About 1,000 to 300 years ago, several permanent settlements were established on various parts of the island. In 1661, to curb resistance from Ming adherents, the Qing government promulgated the Coastal Evacuation Order and the Ban on Maritime Trade and Transportation, making it mandatory for residents in the coastal region to move at least 50km inland. Kat O became deserted. It was not until the ban was lifted some 20 years later that Hakka villagers settled on the island in great numbers, and fishermen returned to live and operate in nearby waters. Kat O fishermen came from the Mirs Bay area. They were boat-dwellers in the early years and led drifting lives. Kat O became an important anchorage for Mirs Bay fishing boats and was also a stopover point for vessels sailing between Yantian, in Shenzhen, and the northeast New Territories. Attracted by its geographical advantage and favourable environment, many fishermen came to live on the island. They were later joined by outsiders. Over the decades, 43 clans belonging to 37 families have called Kat O home. Despite contrasting lifestyle habits and folk customs, these clans live together harmoniously. Kat O is one of very few communities in Hong Kong co-developed by multiple clans, where everyone mixed and thrived agreeably. The local population peaked in the 1950s and 60s. More than 6,000 people lived on Kat O during that period.
Hakka people are farmers by tradition. On Kat O, Hakka men and women had their respective family duties. The women did the housework and farmed, while most of the men fished at sea. Unlike other fishermen, Kat O’s Hakka fishermen usually caught fish with stake-nets or dong-tsai, which are huge nets made of firwood poles, bamboo, ropes and a rectangular fishing net. They were used either at the water’s edge or from above. They were lowered into the water and lifted at regular intervals to trap any fish swimming by. A dong-tsai is an artificial reef constructed with thick tree trunks, silvergrass, ropes and boulders. Fish are drawn to live and feed there. Fishing nets are cast around the dong-tsai to net the fish.
Kat O has poor soil, little flat land and no fresh water source for irrigation. The villagers could only build terraces on the hillsides. This type of dry hillside farming, known as che, is suitable for growing drought-tolerant crops, such as sweet potatoes, tough and sturdy plants that grow well in loose sandy soil and are tolerant to drought. Kat O was famous for several high-quality sweet potato varieties. Indeed, sweet potato was a staple food for the Hakka villagers in the early years. Kat O had a pig farming industry too, with 500 to 600 pigs on the island at one time. They were mainly for local consumption. Today, you can still see the sites of the old pig farms.
The earliest fishermen who moved to Kat O lived on purse-seiners, berthed in the local bays. Despite their limited size, the purse-seiners were both a floating home for the whole family and an essential fishing vessel. In the 1930s, only a few fishermen had built simple structures onshore. Resources were scarce, and the huts were built mainly with wood boards and tin sheets. It was not until the completion of Kat O Fishermen’s Village in Chek Kok Tau in the 1960s that fishing families began moving ashore in significant numbers. By the 1970s, most of the boat-dwellers anchored on the Kat O coast had established homes on land for a more stable life.
Filmed with DJI osmo pocket
Date: May 2022
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Everything in the video is filmed and recorded by someone in Hong Kong.
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