The Jackfruit Festival of Kwong Ban Tin Village in Tsuen Wan has become a popular event amongst the Hong Kong locals as a family-friendly occasion to celebrate the jackfruit harvest in the fall each year.  In October 2016, I went there to learn the story of the village and its people.

The villagers set up a bazaar at the community square to welcome visitors.  They offered delicious foods, many of which featured the jackfruit.  I tried a very simple sticky rice wrapped in jackfruit with lettuce and it was refreshing.  The sticky rice was a perfect match with the natural sweetness of ripe jackfruit, and the lettuce gave the texture a crisp that was a pleasant surprise.  There was also jackfruit with chicken, which was creative, rich with sweetness and delicious.

The Kwong Ban Tin Village used to be a squatter settlement.  Most of its residents were refugees and immigrants from China and the long-time residents came mostly during the 1950s.  There were about 200 families in the village.  Many were seniors, and some were new immigrants from China.  In the past, villagers raised pigs, chickens, and ducks for food.  Now the only animals that could be seen were the dogs and cats that the villagers kept as pets.

A resident Sam told visitors about his childhood in Kwong Ban Tin Village.  About 50 years ago when he was a child, there were no jackfruit trees in the village.  The village was just like any other, and people raised livestock for a living.  He would play war games throughout the hills with a group of friends.  Other entertainment were marbles and cartoon cards.  He said he used to dig yam as well.

The natural question was, then how did the village earn its fame for jackfruit?

I learned from the newspapers that the villagers simply put the seeds of the jackfruits into the soil after eating them. They never thought that the trees would grow.  The seeds sown in the 1970s blossomed into trees, its fruits drawing hundreds of visitors each year to the village now.

It was the first time I saw jackfruit trees.  To be able to carry such a heavy fruit (the jackfruit is the heaviest tree-born fruit in the world), these trees were naturally very tall with a large trunk.  Mr. Yim showed us how to pick a ripe jackfruit.  He said we should look for large bumps on the surface of the skin.  Then gently pat the fruit, if it is soft, that means it is ripe.  He would climb up two stories on the tree to pick the jackfruits.

Apparently, of the few decades that the jackfruit trees were growing, these large fruits have never fallen and injured anyone in the village.  That itself was really quite amazing to me.

I saw people at the walking tour dressing in spacesuits.  The villagers also kept hive colonies for honey.  Indeed, the village has preserved the natural environ that was still suitable for some farming activities today.  Besides the jackfruit trees, the village also prides in its bananas, papayas and starfruits.  Mr. Yim told me that he still used water from the stream for washing.  Other villagers told me fascinating stories of their lives as new arrivals in Hong Kong during the 1950s.  While the jackfruit might have sown an unintended fortune for the village, its people remain as authentic as ever in living through Hong Kong’s struggles well before my time.

To visit the Kwong Ban Tin Village, take a taxi from Tsuen Wan MTR station.  The taxi should drop off close to the community center.  Do watch out for newspaper or facebook announcements for the date of the Jackfruit Festival each year, sometime around October.  For 2018, it will be held Sunday, October 7.