It's true: you really can't go home again

Back in the late '80s, I lived in Sai Kung — Tai Wan Village, to be precise — for about four years. We moved there because rents were low, accommodation was spacious, the air was clean, the environment was green and quiet, and Sai Kung town itself was a quaint, sleepy place... then rampant development took hold, and one day, we woke up to find someone had built a new 'Spanish-style' villa so close to ours that we could literally stretch our arms over the fence and touch his wall. Traffic at the weekends backed up for miles, irate drivers blaring their horns outside our front window. Our landlord suddenly wanted to triple our rent. Commuting to Tsimshatsui and then over to Hong Kong-side, we had to leave for work while it was still dark, and didn't get home until after dark. We never saw those spectacular views across the bay any more. The final straw was when McDonald's opened up in Sai Kung town. We left. Every reason we had wanted to live out there in the first place no longer seemed to exist.

I have been reluctant to return in the intervening years, but found myself there recently to collect my daughter from school camp and, while waiting for her bus to arrive, I wandered around the town, curious. I remembered some of it, but most of it was new: buildings, shops, squares, waterfront, sports ground, bus terminus, monstrous car parks, restaurants, et al.

Dusk was falling by this time, but even in the fading light, Sai Kung town is not pretty. It is grubby and shabby, full of squat, ugly buildings, grimy alleys and tiled passageways lit by glaring flourescent lamps. There has, it seems, been no coordinated or coherent effort to make Sai Kung attractive.

My photos do it more justice than it deserves. It made me sad that, in two decades, the powers that be (whoever they may be) could have made sure that Sai Kung grew into a lovely little seaside town... but they didn't. Sai Kung is testament to the rampant, largely uncontrolled development that takes place in the New Territories, where vision is short and ambitions apparently go no further than "make more money, faster".

I make no apology for my opinions; Hong Kong is so beautiful in so many ways, and it has so much potential. The government bleats on repeatedly about how 75 per cent of Hong Kong is country parks or undeveloped land, but behaves as if this grants it carte blanche to allow developers and indigenous NT villagers to do what they like with the remaining 25 per cent. It is a crying shame.