From the earliest settlers throughout Hong Kong’s history, people living on the island have been dependent on the surrounding waters for their livelihood; trade, fishing and as a place to live due to the shortage of space on land. Today very little remains of the old ways of salt production and fishing with most trade being done via computers as unimaginable values upon the lofty floors of glass fronted towers that now look down on the once frantically busy waterway of Victoria harbour Don’t get me wrong; it’s still busy but not quite how it used to be when going by the old images of pre-war Hong Kong (more on that later). Indeed the dramatically changing scenery of Hong Kong extends beyond the construction sites and office buildings, the continuing reclamation process is reducing the available harbour and shelter space for boats immediately adjacent to the business districts and the bulk of the shipping ports have begun relocating into mainland China where there isn’t the restriction on space. Looking out to sea it’s hard to miss the unfathomably large 18-container wide ships steam past.

It’s a strange view looking across Causeway Bay, below me lay a tangle of rafts of all shapes and sizes, tarpaulins draped across their tops to act as shelter from the weather and all of them loosely connected with thread-bare ropes forming a slowly undulating mass in the swell. Small craft being paddled laboriously out across the harbour yield to the sampans that chug about, ferrying people from land to water-borne craft. Yet above all the swirling chaos stood neat, ordered static structures, air conditioned offices, high-rise apartments and glistening deep blue glass. Imposing in their placement and dominating the landscape, the people who live on the water are not just looked down in the literal sense of the phrase and the economic status pushes the buildings ever higher. Two worlds so far apart on one level but so undeniably linked to each other…