The Root

Hermann, an IT elite-turned freelance journalist. (Photo: Shirley Zhao)

He was working for an IBM research lab in Switzerland when the lab won the Nobel Prize for Physics consecutively in 1986 and 1987. During the same time he started the romance with his future wife, a Hong Kong local working for IBM Hong Kong at the time, through online chatting, even before the age of the World Wide Web came in 1990.

He soon moved to Hong Kong for her and later was hired to build DiscoverHongKong, the city’s official tourism Web site. He made the site into an award winning success, and thus was headhunted away by a company owned by Li Ka-shing, an Asian business tycoon.

He would not have turned down the offers from another two headhunters – both confirming him an annual salary of HK$1.5 million – if he knew he would become unemployed a few months later, joining the legions of the dropouts in the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

After a year of unemployment, he moved to Lamma Island, one of Hong Kong’s Outlying Islands, for cheaper accommodation.

“There’s no pressure, no high expectations, no need to show off, no pressure to look rich or important, no shame in being poor, old and ugly – like myself,” he said and laughed.

Now he is the managing editor of Lamma-zine, a bilingual Web site established and run by himself, containing the local news, photos, weather information, event announcements, tourism guide, forum and so on. It is the island’s only local medium so far.

He is also the reporter, photographer, public relations officer and advertising manager for the site, although there have been some 100 volunteers contributing to the content of the website – that is why he calls himself a managing editor.

He does not earn much from the site, so he has to do some other jobs like Internet marketing consulting, photographing, or building Web sites for companies. 

“You will not get rich, but it’s enough to make a modest living,” he said.

A distant view of Yung Shue Wan, Lamma Island's most populated village. (Photo: Shirley Zhao)

Hermann is among the thousands of expatriates living modestly on Lamma. Over the decades, the island has become a haven to artists, freelancers, activists, dissidents and many others. Besides cheaper rent compared to the highly developed and expensive Hong Kong Island, the tranquility and laid-back lifestyle on the island are perhaps what attract them the most.

The third largest island in Hong Kong with an area of 13.5 square kilometers, Lamma Island is home to some 6,000 people, a rather small population compared to the population of over 30,000 on Cheung Chau, another outlying island in Hong Kong whose area is nearly five times smaller than Lamma. Buildings higher than three stories are prohibited here, motor vehicles too, except for a handful of mini sized fire trucks and ambulances, which are at least twice as smaller as the regular ones, and some diminutive open back trucks used to transport commodity and building materials. The locals call these trucks VV, short for Village Vehicle.

The Yung Shue Wan pier with hundreds of bikes. (Photo: Shirley Zhao)

Lacking public transportation, people here either walk or bike, resonating with the leisure lifestyle. On the ferry pier of Yung Shue Wan, the most populated village on the island, hundreds of bikes are spreading up from both sides of the pier to the entrance of the village, lining tightly competing for a tiniest space, attaching their heads to, or even riding their front wheels over the rails.

Most of these bikes belong to the commuters, who take ferries every day from Lamma to the downtown districts for work or school.

“Many people think it’s inconvenient,” said Hermann, “but they are wrong.”

People who live in the downtown districts take trains or buses for work or school, which are cramped during the rush hours. The commuters, he said, have a relatively comfortable time on the not so crowded ferries. They have enough space to have their breakfast, read newspapers or take a nap.

Most of them work or study on the nearest Hong Kong Island, he said, and it takes 30 minutes there by ferry, which is not a very long time.

In the mornings, some commuters get up late. They scurry to the pier by bike, jump off and toss their bikes recklessly on the pier, then hop on a ferry hastily.

Such recklessness, according to Yu Lai-fan, the district councilor, has caused troubles to the public. She said once an ambulance was hurrying a patient to take a ferry, but blocked by the bikes, and firefighters were sent to clear off the pier.

“It’s very dangerous when you have emergencies,” she said.

A project of building a bike park near the pier was permitted by the government, but has been halted since 2008, because there are people on the island opposing the project.

According to Hermann, some of the opponents think the pier with bikes has been a favorite photo spot for the tourists, and others think that even though there is a bike park, those who are in a hurry will park their bikes randomly just as well.

He would not tell his own opinion on the project. “I’m a journalist, not an activist,” he declared repeatedly, explaining he will only report others’ opinions without taking any side.

Yu, apparently frustrated with the halt, said half-jokingly, “Lamma people are very strange. They tend to oppose everything.”

She could not tell exactly the reason why, but she thinks it may be something related to the coexisting of diversified cultures.

Emily Ho, an ice cream seller in Yung Shue Wan village. (Photo: Shirley Zhao)

Emily Ho, an ice cream seller on the island, shares similar feelings as Yu.

Almost a decade ago, like many others, she was attracted to the island from another part of Hong Kong by its peaceful and rustic beauty.

As a newcomer, she experienced a culture shock here. “People in Hong Kong proper do things under set regulations, but the indigenous people here have their own rules,” she said. “People from different cultural backgrounds have conflicts too.

“Everything appears peaceful on the surface.”

After she opened her ice cream parlor on the island in 2002, she started to meet all kinds of people, and her feeling of this ostensible peace became stronger. She rolls these experiences and feelings into her on-going series of articles published online called Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady, described as “semiautobiographical anecdotes blending facts and fiction.”

In these articles, the main character Emily has met a jealous wife, an eccentric artist, a drug user, male admirers, housewives who spread rumors about her, an anonymous person who complained to the police about her fundraising for charity, and other crazy, annoying or friendly people.

“But I still love this island,” she said, “or I would not have moved here.”

From all the happy and bumpy moments she has had on this island, she feels a sense of community, the same one that Hermann also feels and has been trying to reflect through his Web site.

The tent of Ah Por Tofu Fa, one of tourists' most favorite spots on Lamma Island. (Photo: Shirley Zhao)

Those who have bought ice cream from Emily might also have had a taste in the famous Ah Por Tofu Fa, or Grandma’s Tofu Fa, in a hardly attractive tent with about 10 shaky rectangular tables and dozens of long-legged plastic stools near Yung Shue Wan.

Tofu fa is a popular traditional Chinese snack made from very soft tofu, and Grandma’s Tofu Fa is one of the most popular stores here on Lamma, if the tent can be called a store.

During the weekends, when the island enjoys – or in some opinions, suffers – a tourism boom, the tent will always be jammed with people, plus many more waiting in line outside – all for a bowl of soft and silky tofu fa so delicate as if it will melt in the mouth.

Ching Po, the grandma, 75, has been selling tofu fa here with her husband for 37 years. The couple illegally immigrated to Hong Kong from the mainland in 1966, and came to Lamma immediately. Starting off as farmers, they found selling tofu fa more profitable, as vegetables from the mainland gradually took over the local market.

The way Ching makes tofu fa today is not much different from that of 37 years ago, except that a grinding machine is used instead of a stone to grind the soybeans.

She wakes up in the morning at 3 to soak the soybeans into water, goes back to sleep, and wakes up again four hours later to grind the soybeans into crude soymilk containing bean mush. The soymilk produced at this time is the best for making tofu fa. She boils the crude soymilk in a huge wok, and pours it into a tightly knitted cloth bag to filter the mush.

“The texture of the cloth must be tight enough to filter the mush completely, or the tofu fa will not be smooth,” said Ching. “Machines can’t do it well.”

She boils the filtered soymilk again and dashes it into a big aluminum pot with edible gypsum paste. When the mixture coagulates, it turns into Ching’s signature tofu fa.

Ching is satisfied with her life on the island. Having been here for more than 40 years, she only left the island several times.

“A few years ago my husband took me to Central (Hong Kong’s business center, a district on Hong Kong Island) once. It was no good. So noisy, so many people. It made me feel dizzy,” she said. “Here is the best place.”

The couple has a son, who also lives here in Yung Shue Wan with his wife and kids, and a daughter, who got married and moved to North Point, a district on Hong Kong Island. Ching and her husband stay in their old house, almost standing together with the tent, with only a narrow hiking path between.

“I’m over 70 now. I don’t know how long I can keep doing this. It’s such a good business, but my son doesn’t want to take it,” she said and smiled slightly, looking down at her bowls of tofu fa.

Twenty minutes walk from the tofu fa tent, beside the Hung Shing Yeh Beach, the most famous beach on Lamma, two young men are picking up the tofu fa couple’s long abandoned profession, in a much more modern way – they are organic farmers growing herbs.

The entrance of Herboland, the only organic herb garden in Hong Kong. (Photo: Shirley Zhao)

Gary Tse Yau-chit and Gavin Yu Ka-fai owns Hong Kong’s only organic herb garden called Herboland. The garden is a lustrous fusion of over 40 types of herbs with their names written in Chinese and English on colorful recycled glass bottles, a black rabbit and a white rabbit and a brown rabbit lounging or digging or climbing up a big tire in a huge long cage, a tent displaying all kinds of herb products like dried herb tea bags and seasonal herbs in pots in varied sizes with prizes ranging from HK$20 to HK$60, and a tea tent for customers to enjoy a short escape from time with a cup of hot herb tea or a glass of cold one, sitting on a very low box-shaped stool made of bamboo at a square bamboo table not much higher; The tea tent is decorated with numerous sparkling handicrafts and an old refrigerator-turned bookshelf and pots of herbs clustering on the center of the tables. As if framed into a still life painting, the tent shimmers with a piece of soft, soothing piano music flowing and murmuring in the air.

Gavin Yu Ka-fai, one of the founders of Herboland, formerly an industrial designer. (Photo: Shirley Zhao)

Before they started the garden in 2003, Gary and Gavin were designers living and working in the hustling and bustling part of Hong Kong, but they did not like the life there in the office. They were Sunday farmers who volunteered on an organic farm only on weekends, and developed their love in farming. Then they thought why not start their own organic farm.

They were fascinated by the multiple uses of herbs, and nobody was growing organic herbs back then in Hong Kong. They thought Lamma, with so many westerners, has the proper cultural soil to plant their farm.

“The atmosphere here is interesting,” said Gavin. “I’m leading an open and healthy life.”

Sitting on a stool in the tea tent, meditating, Alice Giusto, an Italian working and living in Shanghai, did not want to leave.

She came to Hong Kong for a weekend trip, and believes it is destiny that she met the island.

“Shanghai is crazy. Hong Kong is crazy too,” she said. “But this place is different.

“It is like going back to the root. It reminds me of my home.”