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HECK 360/2
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No Jalz CLE
30th January, 1979
I have been able to get material on the boat squatters of Yau Ma Tei typhoon shelter quicker than the answer on the land dispute.
1 All along the coasts of China thousands of people spend their lives on boats scarcely leaving them from birth till death. Hong Kong has always had a large floating population, most of whom are fishermen, Lut including also a great many involved in cargo handling. The numbers have declined steadily since the war as, for the first time, people, who have for generations worked afloat,have taken jobs ashore. The boats thom- selves, both fishing and cargo barges, have become modernised. Families have moved ashore while the men go to se3. The movement to the land has not however always been complete. Boat people taking jobs ashore spent the night on their boats. As the boats did not go to sea maintenance became less thorough. In some places the boats were dragged upon the foreshore as they became dilapidated. Others lay on tidal mud flats./ BY 1960 there were some 7,800 boats in sheltered anchorages (mostly typhoon shelters) but by 1978 the number had dropped to 2,400. They have now become known as boat squatters - analegous to the land squatters of the wooden huts on land.
Between 1960 and 1978 some 80,000 boat dwellers were resettled by the government in housing estates on land. Today boat squatters fall into three categories :
(a) water borne inmigrants from China, many from the Yeung Kong area of the Fearl River estuary:
(b) Hong Kong boat people who have opted for employ- ment on land while continuing to live on their boats, and
(c) Eong Kong land dwellers who have resorted to boats as a cheap form of accommodation.
James Johnson, Esq., M.P..
House of Commons,
London, SW1A GAA.
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