Lau’s life in Sha Tau Kok has changed little in half a century. But transformation beckons in the small fishing town on Hong Kong’s border with mainland China — part of a restricted zone meant to keep out migrants and smugglers and closed to most outsiders for more than 70 years.
Since January some of Sha Tau Kok’s ramshackle streets have been opened up to a small number of tourists, as officials in Hong Kong and mainland China promote the town as part of a prospective joint tourism and shopping hub that some claim will eventually lure an extra 10mn visitors a year.
Lau, who sells dried fish from a market stall, is wary of the influx of curious visitors. “They just want to look around and hardly buy a thing,” she said.