Walking in Kam Tin and Kat Hing Wai: One of the last walled villages in Hong Kong | 4K 60FPS

Kam Tin in Hong Kong's New Territories is a village full of history and character. It's at once both fashionable and traditional, and occupies a quiet space in northern HK that's a stone's throw from Yuen Long. It's a great example of Hong Kong's villages with plenty of unique charm, and well worth a visit if you're in the New Territories. If you aren't, or you can't, then this video walking tour might be the next best thing. This video begins at Kat Hing Wai, a storied walled village which was built to protect its residents from invading pirates and rebel clans. There's a lot of stories about this place, which, among other things, was the site of a rebellion against the British, who later responded by taking the village gate after they defeated indigenous clans in the six-day war of 1866. Eventually efforts were made to track the gates down and return them, with just the right-hand gate being returned after it was found in Northern Ireland(!). While today the moat is dry and the Qing-dynasty era gun emplacements are long gone, you can still feel the history of the place just by looking at it. We'll move down Kam Tin Road and explore the backstreets of the town, with some extremely old architecture. There's some neat details, such as secluded family shrines and a now-disused well (11:53). Colorful murals abound, and feel truly organic — as Jason Wordie put it in the SCMP ( https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-m... ), what once might have been dismissed by the Instagram crowd now draws those same people in, and has done so without some task force being contrived. Amazing what a fresh lick of paint can do, because what we have now is a place where one of the last fortress villages can coexist with a fancy Japanese coffee shop (19:35) like it's nothing at all. Locations featured: 00:00 Intro 00:16 Kat Hing Wai exterior 02:30 Kam Tin Road 05:17 Backstreets 15:35 Commercial area 20:21 Po Tei Road 24:30 Kam Sheung Road 28:04 Back to the backstreets 32:59 Leaving Kam Tin 40:26 Outro This video was filmed in May 2023 on the Panasonic GH5S using a DJI RS3 Mini gimbal. If you liked this video, please consider subscribing. It is the best way to support the channel, and it costs nothing but means a lot! For enquiries including privacy requests and licencing, please see the channel description. Postscript: Originally, my plan was to enter Kat Hing Wai and film it. But there's now a sign saying that only invited guests and residents can enter, which is fair enough as there's probably lots of idiots with cameras like me who kept treating people like zoo animals. I remember going there in 2017-2018, and back then there was a donation box where you could contribute to the village's upkeep if you wanted to visit. I expect that it just all got a bit much in the end, as, architecturally and historically significant though it may be, people still have to live their lives here.