Aberdeen floating village
| Aberdeen Floating Village | |
|---|---|
| 香港仔水上人家 | |
 |
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| General information | |
| Type | House |
| Location |
Aberdeen Southern District  Hong Kong
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Aberdeen floating village (Chinese: 香港仔水上人家) is located at the Aberdeen Harbour in the Southern District of Hong Kong. The harbour contains approximately 600 junks, which house an estimated 6,000 people.
Since the 19th century, Aberdeen has emerged as one of the most important fishing ports in Hong Kong. Now in Aberdeen, as the catering and tourism industries are on the rise, so is the demand for seafood. In the past two decades, the population of the Aberbeen Floating Village community has decreased due to rapid fisheries development in the nearby Guangdong Province and the increase in operating costs of the fishing industry in Hong Kong. Instead of living on the boat permanently, now the majority of the boat people only fish on the boat during the day.
The people living on boats in Aberdeen are mainly Tanka, a group which arrived in Hong Kong around the 7-9th century. While sometimes referred to as "boat people", they are in fact boat dwellers and should not be confused with the unrelated Vietnamese refugees boat people, who came to Hong Kong by boat in the 1970s.
The total population of boat dwellers in Hong Kong was estimated at 2,000 in 1841, 150,000 in 1963 and at 40,000 in 1982.
Aberdeen's temple to Tin Hau attest to a long tradition of marine and fishing cultures and traditions in Hong Kong. Aberdeen's role as a port emerged between the 14th and 17th centuries when sandalwood (taang heung muk) arrived in junks from Lantau Island and Sha Tin. The waters of Aberdeen served as the intermediary, dispatching the sandalwood into larger boats up the East China coast to major cities in China.
The Duanwu Festival (the fifth day of the fifth month in the Lunar calendar) is an event of tremendous importance to Hong Kong fishermen. Dragon boat racing in Hong Kong commenced around the 1900s. Fishermen think that rowing dragon boats during the Duanwu festival will bring them luck. Aberdeen was one of the earliest places to host dragon boat races in Hong Kong.
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Wikipedia