Hong Kong Photo Gallery - Lau Fau Shan's Market

Lau Fau Shan is famous for its oysters, which have been farmed in Deep Bay for some 700 years. Oysters filter polluted water and provide shelter to crabs and fish during low tide, while their dried form is used in festival specialty dishes. However, the industry has been in decline with an aging workforce, bacteria and heavy metal contamination, as well as inefficient cultivation methods. As a result, only about a hundred growers are left, a fraction of the community in the 1970s. The main street has a covered top with many restaurants and dried goods stalls lining both sides.
The fishing village is still alive and well with their equipment on full display as you near the coast. Seafood is dried in the open wherever the sun can shine through. Processed oyster shells are discard into deep piles.