Silvermine Bay Beach on Lantau Island. Photo © Edwin Lee, licensed Creative Commons Attribution.
Relatively untouched by the city sprawl that affects the New Territories, the Outlying Islands are a wholesale change from the cosmopolitan Hong Kong advertised in guidebooks, and the opportunity to explore a more traditional Cantonese lifestyle is often part of the attraction. If you want to eat Cantonese food, speak Cantonese, and live in Chinese Hong Kong, the villages on the Outlying Islands are ideal. Despite their far-flung reputation, moving to the islands doesn’t require tears and white handkerchiefs waved at the port, although the commute to the city is likely to be a major factor in deciding where to live. Of course, low rents for big spaces are also a convincing attraction. This has usually meant affordable houses outside small villages, but today people are braving the boat journey for an increasing number of fair-priced luxury apartments and dedicated low-rise developments, such as the one in Discovery Bay.Despite their far-flung reputation, moving to the islands doesn’t require tears and white handkerchiefs waved at the port, although the commute to the city is likely to be a major factor in deciding where to live. The two main inhabited islands of Lantau and Lamma are only 30 minutes away from Hong Kong Island by ferry and Lantau has both an MTR and road connection to Kowloon. Nevertheless, island living isn’t ideal for those who need to commute daily to the city. You’ll constantly have one eye fixed on your watch and one hand on your briefcase, ready to dash to your next ferry departure. On the islands, access to facilities, public services, and shops varies from village to village and island to island. Lantau already has international schools, supermarkets, and, penciled into its future, a hospital, while Lamma residents need to use the ferry for all three. However, despite the belief of some expats that living on the Outlying Islands is similar to bedding down inside a crater on the moon, services such as cell phone coverage and broadband are widely available in all but the smallest villages. Prices for goods, including food, are generally a little lower, but then so is the selection.
On paper there are over 235 islands to choose from, although in practical terms only a handful of these will be on your real estate radar. The majority are little more than a collection of rocky outcrops or desert island strips home only to sunbathing seagulls. Around a dozen or so of the larger islands once housed lively fishing villages, but as the fishing industry has died so have the villages and all that is left is a skeleton crew of inhabitants largely cutoff from the rest of Hong Kong. Substantial population centers and civilization are only found on Lantau, Lamma, and Cheung Chau, which, along with Peng Chau, are the only islands with regular ferry schedules.
Excerpted from the First Edition of Moon Living Abroad in Hong Kong.
