"LITTLE FUJIAN (FUKIEN)”
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times of first Shanghaiese and then Fujianese in-migration (see Figure 2). Extrapolations of government census figures also provide us with an ethnic portrait of North Point that is quite distinct from that of Hong Kong in general (see Figure 3). The estimate of 35,000 Fujianese is a conservative one; probably it is safest to say that nearly three out of every ten Hong Kong Fujianese lives in North Point and that Fujianese in North Point make up about 1/5 of the area's population (Department 1971: Tables 7, 119, 121).
North Point is also atypical in that it is a distinctively middle-class neighborhood in contrast to the working-class milieu of most Hong Kong neighborhoods. It depends, though, where in the district you live. Up on the hill overlooking the harbor and the rest of North Point, for instance, new high-rise buildings have been built that are definitely in the luxury class. Few Fujianese live there. Instead, Little Fujian is to be found in the crowded gaggle of three, six, and twenty-storey apartment buildings located within a few blocks of King's Road and Electric Road.
The first Fujianese neighborhood (sub-neighborhood) in North Point was in the Electric Road vicinity, along Shell, Jupiter, and Mercury Streets; even today's Mercury Street market is heavily patronized by Fujianese. These blocks were the sites of many of the six-storey buildings erected in the late 1950s, and they attracted a large proportion of the Fujianese newcomers. More affluent Fujianese migrated to the Little Shanghai area of Fort and Kin Wah Streets. As more Fujianese poured into the area, even the blocks between the two sections along Electric Road were utilized as they gradually absorbed more and more Fujianese. In 1966, the construction of high-rise apartment houses financed by Overseas Chinese was initiated.
Fig. 2 North Point Population 1921 - 1980
(Combined North Point and Shau Kei Wan)
1921 3,108 Little Shanghai established 1931 12,518 1955 98,000 1958 110,000 1959 114,000 Little Fujian emerges 1961 132,994 1971 175,998 1975 193,000 1980 210,000 (Government forecast)