Aberdeen - Water People

Only a few years ago more than 30,000 "water people" lived on 5000 or so junks and sampans (small boats) in the bay, protected from typhoons; most of them found work as fishermen, boat-builders or laborers on the surrounding wharves. Their number has diminished drastically since the government introduced its rehousing program. In addition, two devastating fires in 1987 and 1988 destroyed more than half the boats; this was rather convenient as far as the government was concerned as it enabled them to speed up the move to more permanent quarters, although the main reason for doing so was the lack of hygiene on the boats, where the ebb and flow of the tide formed the only means of disposing of human waste in the absence of expensive sewage