Hong Kong Travels: Sha Tau Kok

Sha Tau Kok is the closest you can get to mainland China without crossing over. Confusingly, there are two. One nearer to start (or end) of Starling Inlet, and the famous border town. I am unsure what led to the situation, but I assume it must be quite tedious for a taxi driver to ask which one each time they’re requested to take someone there.  

The trip required the most preparation of anywhere I have visited so far in Hong Kong. A little over a week before, I applied for a Closed Area Permit which is needed to even visit the town. The website informed me that it should be submitted at least three days in advance of the trip to allow for processing. The approval arrived less than 20 minutes after submission.  

The extra processing added an extra layer of excitement to the upcoming trip. I had some idea of what to expect, an idea of what I was hoping to see. Unfortunately, the most famous attraction, Chung Ying St. was off limits, so I had to make do without it. 

It took the better part of an hour to arrive from Sheung Shui. Much like the drive to Sai Kung, the world whizzing by outside the window is wild mountainsides and small-scale businesses. Car repairs and house reading senses are among those you pass, although I doubt they are connected to each other. Great pylons stick out to the greenery like lighthouses in the ocean. There I felt I was at the very edge of Hong Kong.  

The feeling only compounded when our bus was stopped at the entrance, so our travel documents could be checked. When you finally exit the bus, you find yourself in a very quiet, very colourful town. Scattered all around are wall and floor paintings, including depictions of cultural festivals as well as local life. The mascots of the Leisure and Cultural Services department are uncommonly widespread around town on freshly painted floor murals or as full statues. Additionally, all the residential blocks are different colours, which is a completely unnecessary but very welcome decision. Altogether, these features give an otherwise sleepy town some character outside of the obvious association with the border.  

In the middle of the water, far from the shore and dwarfed by green mountains surrounding it, is a floating collection of sheds. Were my Cantonese better, I would have asked what it was as it was too far away to tell from the eyesight alone. If I had to guess I would say it was a series of fisheries, though I could see no people working. It indicates how the residents of Sha Tau Kok utilise the limited space by using the water instead. It clearly means much to the community, as small wooden fish carvings hang from the pier with hopes for the future drawn on. In a waterside temple, props and photographs from the Local 10 Health festival celebrating the goddess of the sea reinforces this idea in my mind. How appropriate then, that it was the pier looking out over the calm waves that I realized what was in front of me. 

The actual border is the least convincing I have ever seen. At first it was so innocuous I did not register what it was. Across the water, stretching from Sha Tau Kok to the island opposite is a long line of linked blue boys. At first, I thought it to be a boundary for swimming or sailing or fishing. Looking more closely, a boat was parked on the opposite side. A lifeboat, I surmised. But slowly it dawned on me that the people looking at me across the short gap were not Hongkongers: I was looking back at China. The buoys were the border. The other side of the water had a different political system to the water by me. The kites were crossing over without permits. If one of the fishermen landed their hook a little further over the barrier, what would happen to them?  

It is a very weak separation. A small ditch made to channel floodwater and a low wall on the Chinese side that could be scaled with the small jump is all there is. Small windows allow you to see the other side, though likely they are meant for the reverse. See-through screens let you spy on the Chinese side of the security check, though there is nothing impressive to see, save for how casually the locals pass from one side to the other. Almost as if the boundary is arbitrary.  From the information on the history of Sha Tau Kok, it seems the border was even more arbitrary before. The firefighters on the Hong Kong side had to be trained in midwifery due to how often pregnant women would cross the border to give birth. Smuggling goods unavailable on the mainland was another feature, a prominent item being baby formula, fittingly. 

As I said, my pass did not allow entry into the famous street, so I had to settle for what I could see. That limitation brought a certain perspective away from simple tourism. I imagined if I had friends I could only wave at, or being denied paramedics because they could not walk the 20 meters to cross the border. You can see towering apartment blocks with cranes creating more nearby. You can see how much smaller Sha Tau Kok is, how the people in China can look down on Hong Kong, but none of the buildings are tall enough for Hongkongers to do the same. You are at the edge of a large town that has been awkwardly snipped off and tipped back on. People have small gardens tucked away from the town, while the other side of the fence has skyscrapers. You can see what China looks like through the window, but China could watch you from the moment you arrive.  

Subways that go underneath the border check for vehicles are closed and have been for a while. A single chair and wooden table on wheels are almost dusty enough for you to draw your name on them. The notices are only in Chinese, so I have no way of knowing why. Curiously, there is more barbed wire and higher fences by the vehicle checkpoint to Sha Tau Kok than there is into China, as if the border police expect someone to leap from their car into the gardens to steal vegetables or straw brooms. Even some of the private properties look harder to trespass into than the border wall. The spiked curls and pointed tips of the decorated fences make for an unwelcoming feeling, as if the residents are prepared for something. 

Maybe it was the flood of mainland tourists who appeared as I was leaving, who seemed oblivious to the street traffic as they spilled off the pavement, which affected my ultimate view of the town. I wondered as to their perspective, where they had been before, if they felt they were in foreign territory or just a particularly insular part of their country.  

I cannot speak for the people on the other side of the street. But as I was once again checked for my documents when leaving the town, I was left with the impression of a dam about to burst, a buildup of floodwater waiting only a few more years before rushing over the flimsy barriers. I saw a shark waiting for its moment to devour the fish, all the easier for it already being in a net. An uncomfortable thought, to be sure.