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DESTINATION HONG KONG

The last of Hong Kong's original wooden junk boats is still afloat

The junk boat — tall and wooden with its three bright-red sails glowing in the Victoria Harbor sunlight — is one of the most iconic visual symbols of Hong Kong.
These vessels are commonly depicted on postcards, retro travel posters, keychains, T-shirts, ceramics and even the logo of the city’s tourism board. But when it comes to finding a junk in present-day Hong Kong, you’ll have to look a lot harder.
Dukling is the last remaining Hong Kong junk boat available for public use. In her first life, Dukling was built in 1955 and was home for a seafaring local family.
She is 18 meters long and weighs 50 tons, offering locals and visitors alike a chance to experience Hong Kong’s man-made and natural beauty from the water.
It can be easy to forget that Hong Kong isn’t a single island — it’s an archipelago. While getting out on the water is a great way to feel the wind on your face on a hot day, it’s also a way to understand the shape and scope of this wildly varied city.
Like so many tourist attractions around the world, Dukling is at risk of closure due to low visitor numbers amid the pandemic. Currently, she is only available for private charters due to Hong Kong’s virus restrictions.
Before coronavirus, there were three sailings a day on weekends with a maximum of 40 passengers each. The Saturday itinerary made multiple stops in Kowloon including Tim Sha Tsui, while Sunday’s went from Central to North Point. The evening sailing was timed for watching the Symphony of Lights, a nightly show where skyscrapers along the harbor light up their windows in fun designs and colors just after dusk.
Bookings can be made online in English, Cantonese or Mandarin.

When the harbor was full of red sails

Libby Chan, Assistant Director (Curatorial and Collections) at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, explains that many of the early residents of Hong Kong came from two groups — those who lived their lives on land (Hakka) and those who lived their lives at sea (Tanka).
As recently as the 1970s, many Hong Kongers lived, worked, ate and slept on board these wooden boats, periodically pulling into typhoon shelters or docks along the city shoreline to sell their wares and stock up on supplies. Beginning in the 1970s, many locals traded in their boat homes for apartments in Hong Kong’s now-famous tall housing estate blocks, giving up their lives at sea for more reliably paid work in factories or offices.
The Dukling sails on Victoria Harbour.
Dan Hodge/CNN
But how did junks become synonymous with Hong Kong?
Chan says it all started when Westerners first came to the Pearl River Delta — invariably, they arrived by sea.
«The first group of people who met traders were boat people. You can see lots of depictions of boat people in a very beautiful way by Western artists. Starting from that day, the junk became the logo of Hong Kong.»
Even the name «Dukling» is a mix of modern and classic Hong Kong. Her Chinese name is Ap ling ho: Ap means duck, ling means soul or spirit, and ho is a way of indicating a «the» in front of a name. So a rough English translation could be «the holy duck.» Her original owner thought the front of the boat looked like a duck’s head.
However, If you google «junk boat,» you get pages upon pages of pictures of vessels covered in trash. Search «duckling» and you’ll get cute pics of downy baby ducks. «Duck boat» conjures up those hybrid water-land crafts that tourists take through San Francisco and Seattle.
So the present owner, local businessman Hazen Tang, opted to intentionally misspell the name Dukling in order to better game the search engine machine.
Junk boats were once ubiquitous not just in Hong Kong but throughout the Pearl River Delta.
Dan Hodge/CNN

Restoring a historic vessel

Dukling’s history parallels that of Hong Kong’s.
The boat’s original owners, local shrimpers, sold her to a Frenchman who used the boat for recreation, not full-time living. Next, the Frenchman sold Dukling to a British expat who ended up moving back to his homeland and abandoning the boat, where she sank during a typhoon in 2014.
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Rescuing Dukling from the South China Sea was a complicated, multi-year ordeal. First, the city had to track down the erstwhile owner in the UK and get permission to bring her up. Then she was repaired in Zhuhai, which required additional permits as the city is part of mainland China. The next step was finding carpenters and repairmen who still know how to care for wooden boats.
Current owner Tang is a Hong Konger who was keen to get her back into local hands — and into Victoria Harbor. His business, HS Travel International Company Limited, is a tourism company based in Hong Kong but with offices throughout Asia.
The finished product is a beautiful, living piece of history that began plying the waters for tourists in 2015. Charlotte Li, director of business development for Dukling’s parent company, says that 80% of the boat is original.
The original wooden wheel is still used to steer the boat, but it’s so heavy that crew members can only operate it for two hours at a time before getting tired.
It is traditiional for Dukling crew to pray to the sea goddess Matsu (also spelled Mazu) to ask for luck and safety on each sailing.
Dan Hodge/CNN
 
Dukling’s makeover didn’t only extend to infrastructure. It turns out that the famous red sails aren’t so red — they’re actually an orangey-brown color that looks more red in the bright Hong Kong sunlight.
There is still a small shrine to the sea goddess Matsu near the front of the boat that crew members bow to and put incense in front of in order to wish for a lucky voyage, but in this era women are allowed to go into this front section of the vessel, while in fishing times it was strictly forbidden.
Besides Dukling, visitors to Hong Kong may spy two similar boats in Victoria Harbour.
Aqualuna is a local tourism company that built two replica junks, both of which will ferry visitors up and down the harbor multiple times per day, most notably at sunset when skyscrapers along the waterfront light up their exteriors for a show.
Related content

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Though the two companies could see each other as competition, Li insists that there is no rivalry since the owners of Dukling and Aqualuna want the same thing — to preserve the city’s maritime heritage.
«They have the heart and they want to keep junk boats in Victoria Harbour,» she says. «There is no ‘real’ or ‘unreal’.» Li notes that Dukling is only capable of carrying 40 passengers at a time, while both Aqualuna boats can each fit up to 90.

Where to find boat culture today

As Hong Kong continues to grow and more than half its land is protected for city parks and public green spaces, finding spots to build new homes is always a challenge. One of the most common tactics is land reclamation, usually along the harborfront. Like the tourism industry since the pandemic, Victoria Harbour has literally been shrinking.
But while many Tanka people moved onto land, there are still traces of their way of life throughout the city that complement a journey on Dukling.
Hong Kong’s name means fragrant harbor, which was inspired by the red incense burned in temples dedicated to Tin Hau, the goddess of the sea. (She and Matsu are interchangeable — Matsu means «mother of the sea.») To this day, dozens of Tin Hau temples dot the islands of the Hong Kong archipelago.
In some neighborhoods where Tanka people resettled — like Tai Po in the New Territories — it is still possible to see bits of the «old way» of life at major events like weddings and funerals. Many boat people communicated through traditional songs, known in English as saltwater songs.
Sail colors indicated a family’s status. Wealthier fishing families could afford brown or red fabric sails.
Dan Hodge/CNN
«The dialect of the boat people is different from Cantonese, but they have some overlaps. It’s a very old dialect. It’s a very complex sound and it’s easy to sing,» says Chan.
Some songs were about navigation — best routes to take to avoid storms, for example — while others were about courtship or family. «It’s part of our intangible heritage,» Chan adds.
The Maritime Museum has been able to film some elderly people singing these songs and talking in their dialect in order to ensure this «intangible heritage» is not lost forever. It’s part of the permanent collection of the museum, which is located — appropriately — at Central Piers on Hong Kong Island, the same place where you can board ferries to Lamma Island and Cheung Chau.
Despite all the changes that have taken place in and around Victoria Harbour, the waterway still has room for traditional junk boats — as long as there’s water to sail on, Dukling plans to sail on it.
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Insurance SOUTH KOREA

어린이보험 꼭 가입해야 되는 이유

어린이보험 은 생활위험(골절, 화상, 교통사고 등)과 암, 질병, 사고 등 성장기 자녀의 위험을 종합적으로 보장해주는 보험입니다.
아이들은 커가면서 다양한 위험에 노출되며 또한 미세먼지 등의 환경문제로 인해 아이의 면역력이 떨어져 질병에 취약해 지기 때문입니다.
2019년 한국소비자원 통계에 따르면 최근 5년간 어린이 안전사고 비율은 매년 30% 이상으로 우리나라 총 인구 대비 어린이 인구 비중(12.8%)에 비해 매우 높아 안전사고에 취약하다는 것을 알 수 있습니다. 특히 생활 속에서 사망/사고 위험이 계속적으로 상승하고 있어 자녀를 위한 어린이 보험은 필수적 입니다.
준비가 안되셨다면 똘똘한 어린이보험 한개는 필요합니다.

Social media

5-foot-3 mom and her 21-pound twin babies go viral on TikTok

Social media users can’t seem to get enough of Alexis  and her fast-growing babies.

LaRue, 22, has been posting TikTok videos of her identical twin daughters, Camila and Elena, since their birth in March 2021, and fans can’t help but notice how big they’ve gotten in less than a year.

WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO 14-POUND BABY IN ARIZONA: ‘A LITTLE CELEBRITY’

At seven months, Camila and Elena weigh nearly 21 pounds each. They’re also in the 98th percentile for height – which stands out whenever LaRue holds them in her arms.

Social media users can’t seem to get enough of Alexis LaRue and her fast-growing babies, Camila and Elena. The identical twins have amazed people with their size.

Social media users can’t seem to get enough of Alexis LaRue and her fast-growing babies, Camila and Elena. The identical twins have amazed people with their size. (Alexis LaRue/The Mejia Family)

«Going viral has been a surreal experience for my family and I,» LaRue told Fox News. «We never would have imagined this could happen to us.»

Most videos LaRue and her family share have a view count that’s larger than any football stadium in the U.S. Their account, The Mejia Family has gained more than 716,000 followers in the short time that they’ve been on the app.

MORE COLLEGE-EDUCATED WOMEN ARE HAVING BABIES BEFORE MARRIAGE: STUDY

Their highest viewed video is from Sept. 27 and it’s been seen by more than 48.7 million people.

At birth, Camila weighed 6 pounds and 6 ounces while Elena weighed 6 pounds and 7 ounces. Since then they’ve more than tripled in size. Baby girls in the 50th percentile for weight are typically around 16 pounds and 14 ounces at month seven, according to Medical News Today.

LaRue says her twin girls’ likely look bigger than they are because of the angle she has to film. She admits her petite frame probably plays a role as well since she’s around 5 feet 3 inches tall and 115 pounds.

1955 HOSPITAL BILL GOES VIRAL FOR $60 COST OF BIRTH, 3-NIGHT STAY

Her fiancé, Leo Mejia, is 5-foot-11, and their girls look noticeably smaller when he holds them.

Some commenters have refused to believe that height and camera perspective can change how big LaRue’s babies appear, and have tried to allege that filters are at work. But, LaRue has posted multiple videos disproving this theory. 

«If I knew how to edit my babies’ size this good, I’d probably have a career in film or editing,» LaRue said in a video she shared on Oct. 2.

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Outside of the few naysayers, most commenters have responded positively to the Minnesota-based family.

SPECIAL EVENT

MEMORIAL DAY 2020

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begin your next discovery
Royal Caribbean has two trips scheduled to depart from the port in October

Cruises from Port Tampa may start again in October

The fall might be looking good for cruises.

The cruise industry has been hit hard by the pandemic and resulting lockdowns. The major cruise lines were forced to temporarily halt all trips and have only just recently started to head back out on the water.

Port Tampa officials are hoping to have cruises return this October. (iStock)

Normal cruise operations still haven’t fully returned and some ports that were once busy hubs haven’t seen any ships arrive or depart.

CARNIVAL CRUISE COVID OUTBREAK: 27 PEOPLE ABOARD SHIP TEST POSITIVE

Port Tampa officials are hoping to have cruises return this October, the Tampa Bay Times reports. The first cruises scheduled for the port are from Royal Caribbean. One, scheduled for Oct. 16, is headed to the Bahamas and the other, scheduled for Oct. 21, is headed to Mexico.

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Wade Elliot, vice president of business development for Port Tampa, said at a recent board meeting, «We are encouraged to see the cruise industry slowly starting back up across the county. We anticipate that we will begin to see regular sailings from Port Tampa Bay starting again in mid-October, so we’re excited about that.»

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In a statement obtained by WFLA, Port Tampa Bay President and CEO Paul Anderson said, «Port Tampa Bay enthusiastically welcomes back our cruise line partners. Beginning in mid-October, Royal Caribbean International will resume sailing from our port, followed by Celebrity Cruises and Carnival Cruise Line in November and Norweigan Cruise Line in December. Tampa has long been regarded as an attractive homeport thanks to the variety of quality hotel and dining options, our world-class beaches and nearby attractions. The return of the cruise industry will have a far-reaching economic impact on our region.»

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