Looking up at Hong Kong’s skyline of soaring office towers and mammoth apartment complexes, it’s hard to imagine that a short ferry ride could whisk you away from this bustling metropolis to another world — a world where there are no high rises, no cars and no crowds.
Just eight miles from Hong Kong’s Central Pier, Cheung Chau offers a perfect escape from the big city, with a taste of Hong Kong’s old island culture and some of the cheapest fresh seafood around. It was once a pirate’s cove — a place where renegades of the South China Sea stashed their booty. Today it’s a hideout for tourists and locals alike.
Cheung Chau is just one of several outlying islands in the Hong Kong harbor. In fact, more than half of Hong Kong’s total land mass can be found spread out across 23 country parks, offering plenty of options for day trips. Cheung Chau means “long island” in Chinese, but it’s better described by its unique dumbbell shape, where red, granite cliffs to the north and south sandwich a narrow village in between.
My boyfriend and I started our day by boarding a morning ferry (boats run twice an hour) from Hong Kong’s Central Pier. Along the way, we read up about Cheung Chau’s history and expected to spend a day in an isolated fishing village rich with culture and tradition. When we arrived, we were surprised to see modern conveniences like a big-chain grocery store and an HSBC ATM, just steps from the dock. Then the sound of a wailing oboe pierced the air and dispelled our disappointment.
We turned around to see a traditional funeral procession. Family members of the deceased disembarked from the ferry all dressed in white, the color of mourning in Chinese culture. A traditional Hong Kong funeral requires the family to don a thin outer garment of hemp sackcloth. The corner of the sack is made into a hood for women and men wear headbands. Steeped in tradition, superstition and good feng shui, Cheung Chau is an ideal place for the Chinese to bury their dead.
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