114
GREGORY E. GULDIN
and Tsat Tsz Mui Road became the foci of middle-class Shanghaiese life in Hong Kong (see Fig. 1). If there was ever a time that North Point had a majority non-Guangdongese population, this was it.*
By the early 1960s, however, changes had occurred in North Point which were having a profound effect on the area's demographics. A high-rise apartment building boom, replacing many of the post-war three or six-storey structures with 20-storey buildings, had led to an oversupply of apartments and a consequent drop in rents. Middle-income Guangdongese, who had been moving into North Point slowly but surely throughout the 1950s, could now afford to live in the once exclusive neighborhood and they poured into the area. Soon they found themselves the overwhelming majority not only in the high-rise buildings but in all of North Point as well.
The Shanghaiese, certainly, could not fill all the empty spaces, for their immigrative tide had already begun to ebb. Since the late 1950s, there had been a net outflow of Shanghaiese from North Point as those who had found ways to replenish their wealth moved to richer areas and the many who had not adjusted so well, pauperized and forced into lower-status occupations, were no longer able to afford the high rents of Fort Street and North Point and also moved away. With a dearth of available Shanghaiese residents, the old system by which North Point's Shanghaiese had maintained their neighborhood's Shanghaiese identity by permitting only Shanghaiese (or approved others) entry into their three-storey buildings — rapidly collapsed under the sudden challenge of the seemingly cavernous 20-storey high-rises. As the Shanghaiese began to leave, another minority population, the Fujianese, began to arrive in North Point in greater and greater numbers until their total eventually surpassed their predecessors' and "Little Shanghai" was eclipsed by "Little Fujian."
+
To "Little Fujian"
Most Fujianese who arrived in North Point in the late 1950s to form the basis of a future "Little Fujian" community had ironically already been living in a Fujianese community. Since the early 1950s, the few thousand Fujianese resident in Hong Kong had been living in Hong Kong Island's Sheung Wan and Sai Ying Poon districts, areas close to the city's commercial and trading centers. As the Fujianese (along with the Guangdongese) are one of Southern China's peoples who have adopted the strategy of seeking overseas
114
GREGORY E. GULDIN
and Tsat Tsz Mui Road became the foci of middle class Shanghaiese life in Hong Kong (see Fig. 1). If there was ever a time that North Point had a majority non-Guangdongese population, this was it.*
By the early 1960s, however, changes had occured in North Point which were having a profound effect on the area's demographics. A high-rise apartment building boom, replacing many of the post- war three or six storey structures with 20-storey buildings, had led to an oversupply of apartments and a consequent drop in rents. Middle-income Guangdongese, who had been moving into North Point slowly but surely throughout the 1950s, could now afford to live in the once exclusive neighborhood and they poured into the area. Soon they found themselves the overwhelming majority not only in the high-rise buildings but in all of North Point as well.
The Shanghaiese, certainly, could not fill all the empty spaces, for their immigrative tide had already begun to ebb. Since the late 1950s there had been a net outflow of Shanghaiese from North Point as those who had found ways to replenish their wealth moved to richer areas and the many who had not adjusted so well, pau- perized and forced into lower status occupations, were no longer able to afford the high rents of Fort Street and North Point and also moved away. With a dearth of available Shanghaiese residents the old system by which North Point's Shanghaiese had maintained their neighborhood's Shanghaiese identity by permitting only Shanghaiese (or approved others) entry into their three-storey buildings — rapidly collapsed under the sudden challenge of the seemingly cavernous 20-storey high-rises. As the Shanghaiese began to leave another minority population, the Fujianese, began to arrive in North Point in greater and greater numbers until their total eventually surpassed their predecessors" and "Little Shanghai" was eclipsed by "Little Fujian.”
+
To "Little Fujian"
Most Fujianese who arrived in North Point in the late 1950s to form the basis of a future "Little Fujian" community had ironi- cally already been living in a Fujianese community. Since the early 1950s the few thousand Fujianese resident in Hong Kong had been living in Hong Kong Island's Sheung Wan and Sai Ying Poon districts, areas close to the city's commercial and trading centers. As the Fujianese (along with the Guangdongese) are one of Southern China's peoples who have adopted the strategy of seeking overseas
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