# Ma Wan Ghost village, Hong Kong, July 2015.



## HughieD (Aug 25, 2015)

Only a few days into my HK trip and I've already done my most amazing explore. The place in question is Ma Wan fishing village. It sits on the small island of Ma Wan sandwiched between Tsing Yi island to the North and the very large Lantau Island to the south. The island with an area of barely a square kilometre in total was very traditional and was famous for fish farming, producing shrimp paste and its many seafood restaurants that Hong Konger's flocked to. 

Things changed, however, when the island found itself on the new expressway between the mainland part of HK and the new airport at Lantau, via the Tsing Ma bridge, in the mid 90s. By 2000 the island's population was around 800 but this rocketed with the completion of the Park Island high-rised residential complex, developed by Sun Hung Kai Properties, in 2006 which housed 5,000 families. Displaced residents were offered traditional 3-storey houses on the south side of the island.

Things took a bit of a controversial turn around 2009 when Sun Hung Kai Properties built the Ma Wan theme park featuring a life-size copy of Noah's Arc next to the Park Island. This was used as a pretext for the government to then relocate all the residents in the fishing village elsewhere by compulsorily purchasing their homes, resulting in the ghost town we see today. Some observers saw this as an under-hand way of clearing the south side of the island for a second residential development along the same lines of the Park Island complex. This theory was further supported by the corruption trial of SHKP chairman Thomas Kwok and his brother and co-chairman Raymond Kwok, for allegedly bribing HK Government chief secretary and No.2 in charge, Rafael Hui Si-yan, following their arrest in March 2012. The Kwoks were alleged to have paid Hui tens of millions of dollars to be their "eyes and ears" in government. After a high-profile trail Hui was found guilty in December 2014 and jailed for 7 and a half years. Raymond Kwok was acquitted while his brother was found guilty and jailed for 5 years.

The explore itself was a relaxed one. I spent several hours wandering around the massive site. One miscalculation on my part was not to put on mosquito repellent so the local mozzies get themselves a right feast! There are loads of pictures so I’m going to split this up into two reports. 

Welcome to Ma Wan!


img0134 by HughieDW, on Flickr

…and the many, many fenced-off houses:


img0135 by HughieDW, on Flickr

img0148 by HughieDW, on Flickr

The first thing you come to is a number of decaying wooden fishermen’s stilt houses:


img0144 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0141 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0140 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0149 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0150 by HughieDW, on Flickr

The majority of the abandoned houses are three-storey houses though:


img0164 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0159 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Individually they aren’t so striking architecturally. It’s more about the sheer number of them:


img0174 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Inside most are pretty bare:


img0178 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0180 by HughieDW, on Flickr

But others are pretty much full of stuff:


img0185 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0186 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0187 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Some people, understandably, weren’t too happy about the government evictions:


img0179 by HughieDW, on Flickr


img0182 by HughieDW, on Flickr

Part 2 to follow soon.


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## krela (Aug 26, 2015)

Fascinating!


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## HughieD (Aug 26, 2015)

krela said:


> Fascinating!



Cheers Krela. Part 2 is even better!


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## smiler (Aug 26, 2015)

I enjoyed that and looking forward to part two, Thanks


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## The Wombat (Aug 26, 2015)

Wow, what an interesting report. 
Surprised there is anything like this here.
When I went to HK I just took 2 million pictures of skyscrapers. 
Top work Hughie.


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## HughieD (Aug 26, 2015)

The Wombat said:


> Wow, what an interesting report.
> Surprised there is anything like this here.
> When I went to HK I just took 2 million pictures of skyscrapers.
> Top work Hughie.



Ha ha....I was the same until I got into urbexing. There's a lot of dereliction in HK as you will see for the up-coming reports. Especially in the areas of depopulation.


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## Sam Haltin (Aug 27, 2015)

Nice report. It's a pity you didn't light up an incense stick. IMG0180 there is a pile of incense sticks on top of the incense stick holder.


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## degenerate (Aug 27, 2015)

Nice one Hughie, very interesting!


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## flyboys90 (Aug 27, 2015)

Cracking write up and photos.Looking forward to the next instalment.


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