SECRETS

The little-known island of Tai A Chau

Yvonne Tung covers the hidden history of one of the Soko Islands

We featured the remote Soko Islands in last month’s Big Day Out, but we wanted to take a closer look at Tai A Chau’s history. The island forms part of the chain of Soko Islands and it’s a place that’s largely unexplored these days.

Divided into Upper Tai A Chau and Lower Tai A Chau, this 0.12 square-kilometer chunk of land was once inhabited by over a hundred Hakka residents (a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are mainly in the provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhejiang, Hainan and Guizhou). They migrated to Hong Kong in the 18th and 19th centuries and made a living out from farming and fishing. Farmers stayed on the land for pig farming and pineapple cultivation while fishermen lived on wooden junks in the bay.

When the Vietnam War came to an end in 1975, Tai A Chau played a role in housing the refugees that were displaced. Though they had escaped the widely feared new regime in Vietnam, they were not regarded as refugees and therefore treated poorly. Vietnamese people took to Hong Kong by boat and ship and in an effort to address the influx of Vietnamese refugees, the indigenous people of Tai A Chau were moved in the 1980s. A detention centre was built there, where 5,000 refugees were held.

On September 23, 1989, the Vietnamese refugees started an insurrection and over a thousand people attacked 50 police officers who were on duty at the detention site. Some officers swam and escaped to rafts nearby but the situation had gotten so out of hand that officers had no choice but to evacuate. After one night, police returned in numbers and took back control. 23 police officers were injured and some refugees were killed.

After this incident, the refugees were gradually moved off Tai A Chau to another detention centre. The last group departed from Tai A Chau in 1996 and the detention camp was shut down in that same year, leaving the island empty.

Several suggestions were made regarding the usage of this vacant land, such as building airport facilities, prisons and storing liquefied natural gas. Yet, because of safety concerns and inconvenient transportation, none of the proposals have been approved to this day.

While there is a possibility that conservation projects will be carried out in the waters around the island, as they are the only habitat in Hong Kong where Chinese White Dolphins and finless porpoises co-exist, now, there is only an expansive concrete road to welcome you and the leftover foundations of removed structures. Walking into the woods, you may be able to spot remnants of the past, such as stone chairs, tables and fences. There is also a wall carved with the Chinese characters “Tai A Chau”.

The future of Tai A Chau is still up in the air. Whether it will be used for economic development, a port for environmental conservation or simply remain unchanged for the coming decades, no one knows. Considering it’s a place that’s been touched by interesting bouts of history, we reckon it’s a place worth visiting for those prone to adventure.