Peng Chau, with a population of about 4,000 persons, has several small industries typical of an earlier day in Hong Kong, such as tanning and lime burning. It was an important match manufacturing center before Macao competition overshadowed it. It also harbors small farming and fishing settlements.
Hei Ling Chau, a nearby island, houses the colony’s leprosarium, run by the local auxiliary of the Mission to Lepers. It has 540 patients, including refugees from Red China who were turned out of a leprosarium near Canton when the Communists closed it down. A visit to the island may be arranged through the Mission in Hong Kong and is worthwhile on two counts; it will clear up many common misconceptions about the disease and show the visitor how far medicine has progressed in treating a disease that was once considered fatal. When a Chinese became a known sufferer from the disease, he was, until a few years ago, driven from the community and his family were subjected to abuse by their former friends.
Hei Ling Chau conveys no sense of hopelessness today. Its well-kept stone cottages, workshops, hospital and chapel are arranged around a thriving vegetable garden cultivated by the patients. The unsatisfactory chaulmoogra oil treatment has been replaced by streptomycin, sulfones and other new drugs. Surgery has helped to restore the function of hands crippled by the disease. It is not true that the fingers of lepers drop off; the bones shrink if the disease is not checked.
Most cases on the island are infectious, but chances that a visitor will catch the disease are almost nil. Its chief victims are the undernourished poor. Although leprosy is not hereditary, children may contract it from parents. About 30 young victims of leprosy presently attend a primary school on Hei Ling Chau while being treated. Their chances of recovery are excellent. Early, mild infections can often be cleared up within a year; advanced cases may take many years to cure.
Under staff instruction, many patients have become competent tailors, embroiderers, carpenters, cabinet makers or basket weavers. Very few are bedridden, unless they have an additional disease such as tuberculosis. About a third of the patients are women. Everything concerned with the operation of Hei Ling Chau reflects intelligence and devotion in helping lepers to find their way back to useful living.
Tsing Yi Island, off Tsuen Wan, has a few minor industries such as lime burning and brick making, and its steep hillsides grow an especially sweet variety of pineapple. There is also a community of fishermen and a small village with stores where one may purchase food and soft drinks. Chickens and chow dogs, unmenaced by autos, roam its streets. When cold weather comes, some of the chows will vanish. Many Chinese regard chow meat as a delicacy that will keep the consumer warm in winter, increase his strength and fortify his virility. Killing chows for food is illegal, but every winter the police arrest dozens of dog killers, and the courts hand them high fines and jail sentences.
Lantau Island has only one stretch of paved road in its 55-square-mile extent, but it is a favorite spot for hikers and religious pilgrims. There is a good bathing beach at Silvermine Bay, where the ferry stops, and the paved road, traveled by a new bus line, connects it with the dam-building site at Shek Pik.
Some years ago the island was so isolated that its people built stone towers as redoubts against the forays of pirates. By government permission, residents were allowed to keep arms to defend themselves against raiders. Several of the old towers still stand.
The Buddhist monastery of Po Lin Chi, on a mountain plateau two miles north of Shek Pik, is inhabited by a small community of monks and nuns living from the produce of its fruit trees and gardens and the contributions of pilgrims who struggle up a mountain path to visit the retreat. Visitors are welcome and may stay overnight at a guest house on the grounds. Meals are prepared on wood fires in an ancient, smoke-stained kitchen. Surrounded by its orchards and with two or three massive tombs on the surrounding hills, Po Lin Chi is a quiet echo of James Hilton’s Shangri-La.