An Easy Half-Day Trip in Yim Tin Tsai
I have plans to venture out to all the walkable islands lying in Sai Kung’s eastern waters. Since the weather turned somewhat cooler, I have visited the Sharp Island twice, once to hike and another time to visit its Kiu Tau Islet at low tide. This time I am visiting Yim Tin Tsai, and Kau Sai Chau is in the plans.
How to Get there
At the Sai Kung Pier, seek out the ferry carriers that offer service to Yim Tin Tsai. I found the Salt and Light Preservation Center, and its $80 return ticket to Yim Tin Tsai includes the entrance fees for the Heritage Center and the Salt Pans. Remember to keep the heart sticker with you for free entry, otherwise you will be charged $20 each to visit those sites.
A trip in Yim Tin Tsai alone will take about three hours or so. You must plan ahead if you would like to also go to Kau Sai Chau from Yim Tin Tsai (the two islands are walkable in one visit via the connecting Jade Girdle Bridge). At both locations there is a last departure time for ferries back to Sai Kung before sunset, perhaps the very latest at 5pm.
For an island of this size, Yim Tin Tsai has a good list of exceptionally interesting features to offer tourists. I will walk through these spots in the island in this entry.
Photo: Quite a number of old Hakka Houses lie in ruins. This one shows beautiful artwork.
Yim Tin Tsai, meaning “little salt pan,” is just what its name suggests. The Salt Pans were certainly the highlight of this outing for me. Otherwise the island has had a long history of settlement, industry and religious heritage.
The History of Yim Tin Tsai
The first inhabitants in this small windswept island on the eastern waters of Hong Kong were of Hakka origin. The ancestor Chan Meng-tak came from Changle in Guangdong and first settled down in the salt fields of Sha Tau Kok. He then came to Sai Kung. The early villagers have inhabited this island as early as 1670. They took on farming, livestock rearing, fishing and salt-making as their trade. The Chinese character “tsai” in the island’s name means “homeland,” eliciting the idea that one must not forget his roots.
During the mid-19th century, foreign missionaries set foot in the island. They established the church in the island and the islanders all turned to Christianity. This explains the absence of a Tin Hau Temple (or ancestral halls) on the island, and instead the existence of the St. Joseph’s Chapel. In this respect, Yim Tin Tsai’s conversion to Christianity is similar to the experience of the Christians of Ap Chau (the residents of which turned to Christianity much later, in the 20th century).
Photo: A Former Home of a Father
It was a general trend that the rural and island dwellers in Hong Kong would eventually leave their rustic homes to work in the cities. A lot of them also went abroad. That was a natural result of the economic takeoff during the 1980s and 1990s in Hong Kong. By the 1980s, there were only four residents still living in Yim Tin Tsai. When the very last family also moved out in 1998, the island became wholly deserted.
But the villagers of Yim Tin Tsai remembered their roots. In 1999, the newly-elected village head Chan Chung-yin led the efforts with some other villagers and Father Chan Chi-ming to revitalize the island. They restored all the key structures on the island, most notably the St. Joseph’s Chapel. Since 2004 or so, they have organized tours with heritage, religious and industrial themes on the island. Their efforts are truly laudable.
A Walk in Yim Tin Tsai
St. Joseph’s Chapel
The St. Joseph’s Chapel was built in 1890. It has a simple, humble and minimalist appearance, a very basic kind of Italian Roman Catholic style. It stands in a very picturesque location, at a relatively high point of the island.
The interior is also minimalist and peaceful.
The Heritage Center
The building that now gives home to the Heritage Center is the former school grounds of Ching Bo School. It has provided education for the children of Yim Tin Tsai beginning in the 1920s. It finally closed its doors in 1997, like so many other rural schools in Hong Kong. The revitalization of Yim Tin Tsai has found a very good way to renew the spirit of education in this very site.
The Heritage Center shows the traditions of Hakka by exhibiting a large and interesting collection of daily goods. Furniture, tools, cooking utensils, clothing, and excavated archaeological artefacts—all came alive as testaments of Hakka life in this showroom.
Do note that both the St. Joseph’s Chapel and the Heritage Center close between 12:00 to 1:30 for lunch.
The Pavilion Lookout on Kau Sai Chau
Photo: On the way to the Pavilion, the Living Water Well used to supply fresh water to the islanders.
At this vantage point, looking north you will see the St. Joseph’s Chapel and the Catholic Cemetery. Looking south, you will see the only public golf course in Hong Kong, run by the Jockey Club. The golf course is in Kau Sai Chau’s northern section.
The Jade Girdle Bridge
The Jade Girdle Bridge has existed since the 1950s. It provides a throughway between Yim Tin Tsai to Kau Sai Chau. It took a whole village mobilized to build this connecting bridge, originally intending to serve the interests of Yim Tin Tsai villagers by providing access to the markets in Kau Sai Chau.
The Salt Pans of Yim Tin Tsai
The Industrial History of Hong Kong Group claims that salt production was Hong Kong’s oldest industry. It is far older than the first settlement of Hong Kong’s indigenous clans. It is also far older than the other two ancient industries that Hong Kong was known for, incense wood production and pearl fishing.
The salt trade was the lifeline for Yim Tin Tsai’s villagers for two hundred years. However, about one hundred years ago, the village’s salt trade slowly declined. They faced intense competition from cheaper salt exports from mainland China and Vietnam. With the advance of better transportation, the tax collector was able to visit the island to collect tax. The salt trade was no longer profitable. By the 1920s, the salt pans in Yim Tin Tsai have all but disappeared.
If you follow my route, the Salt Pans would be the very last point of interest in Yim Tin Tsai. Perhaps the first thing to note about the Salt Pans is that the salt that they produce is of edible grade.
Then the rest of the learning is about how sea water is channeled into the salt pans and eventually turned into salt. During high tide, sea water rises, and passes through the mangroves into the north gate. It is then channeled through the ducts into the storage and drying pools. The staff there said that the mangroves act as a natural filter for the water. By the time the water gets to the ducts, the mangroves have already filtered out some of the larger impurities in the water.
Once the sea water reaches the storage pool, it sits there and the slow process of sun and air drying begins. Only when the saltiness of the water reaches 25-28 Baume degrees (of saltiness) does the salt crystalize and form.
The most amazing is the illustration of the salt’s crystalline structure by the staff. When you look closely at the salt, you see clearly that it comes in an interesting two-square structure. There are diagonal lines connecting the four corners of the outer square and the four corners of the inner square.
There are two pieces of artwork on the island that drew inspiration from this very special crystalline shape of the salt. One is right at the Ching Bo School Heritage Center, the other is at the Salt Pans.
The staff has to be very mindful of the weather. For the salt that has already been crystallized but not yet completely dried, they must store them in the big blue rubber barrels on rainy days to prevent rain from diluting it. One way to test whether the salt is completely dried is to shake the salt on the rectangular containers. Signs of the crystals sticking to the pan indicate that there is still moisture.
I asked the staff there whether I could purchase this salt. He told me that because this current setup is for demonstration purposes only, the amount that they produce is only about enough for little tubes of salt souvenirs that they sell at the reception office, which is located right off the pier. This salt is certainly not meant for making my pasta, although the products here do go through testing (and pass) for the level of heavy metals. Finally, surely that this salt pan is for the sake of heritage preservation, but it is still the only salt-producing venue remaining in Hong Kong now.
Beginning in 2010, there were plans to revitalize the salt pans of Yim Tin Tsai and to bring back this industrial heritage that once thrived in the island. The whole process of reconstructing the salt pans with all the working facilities took five years. In 2015, the Salt Pans came back to life, although in a much smaller scale than originally envisioned due to the enormous costs involved. It took millions.
According to the Hong Kong Tourism Board, “in 2015, the historic salt pans earned a UNESCO distinction for conserving an important piece of Hong Kong’s industrial heritage.”
An Afternoon Coffee at Chef De Yim Tin
There are two restaurants on the island and they are both very close to the pier. I wanted coffee so I chose to sit in the air-conditioned dining space in Chef De Yim Tin. There is another restaurant operated out of a tent, in a half-open setup. There you will find traditional Hakka tea cakes (sort of like a mochi), silken tofu dessert and other Hong Kong styled drinks.
The Sai Kung Arts Festival
This year, the Sai Kung Arts Festival takes place between November 15th 2023 to January 4, 2024 in the various islands of Sai Kung, including Sharp Island, Yim Tin Tsai, Kau Sai Chau and High Island. I was told that there will be new pieces of installations coming to the islands for this arts festival. Please check this website for more information.
For now, there are already a number of interesting artworks in the island from the last festival.
Sources
Descriptions on site in Yim Tin Tsai.
Hong Kong Tourism Board, Yim Tin Tsai: Hong Kong’s Little Salt Pan.
The Industrial History of Hong Kong Group, Salt Production, Oldest Industry in Hong Kong, Tai O.