Origin
About 30 to 40 years ago, the Fairview Garden next to Tai Sang Wai was a fish pond area. Due to construction works, local residents were arranged to live in Tai Sang Wai next door. There are currently about 70 residences in Tai Sang Wai, and the elderly also account for the majority. Among them, only 3 to 4 households are engaged in fish farming.
The Tai Sang Wai Fish Pond is located within the Ramsar Convention Wetland and adjacent to the Mai Po Nature Reserve. The buildings here are strictly regulated by the government. The government often sends inspections. If fish farmers need to build new sheds to store their utensils, It needs to apply to the government and is strictly supervised by the government.
There are currently about 40 fish ponds in Tai Sang Wai with a water depth of about 2 to 6 meters. The famous fish pond in Deep Bay is Yuen Long Aconitum, which accounts for about 5% of the Hong Kong freshwater fish market supply. As early as the 1940s, the fish farming industry in Hong Kong mostly operated in the form of kewai. By introducing seawater with shrimp fry and fry in the Deep Bay, seafood was raised in the coastal kewei. However, due to the pollution of the Deep Bay water, fish farmers have switched to fish ponds. There are some containers or bamboo sheds around the fish ponds for storage of supplies. Many of them used to be like the common water sheds in Tai O. In the fish pond, we can see different fish farming equipment, such as aerators, feed machines, fish nets, wooden frames for placing food, etc.
Fish ponds regularly have a shoveling process to eliminate bacteria that accumulate in the water and soil. Generally, after harvesting in autumn and winter, the fish ponds will be drained and dried, and then bulldozers will be used to shovel the ponds. Migratory birds will take the opportunity to forage during this time. With the change of seasons, birds often come to forage in Taishengwei. Chi-heron and Great Egret are common birds in Taishengwei.
In order to improve the economic benefits of fish ponds, fishermen will also use the fertile pond mud to grow fruit trees, such as big pineapple, yellow bark, mulberry, etc. The tea fruit wrapped in mulberry leaves is a specialty snack for the villagers in Dashengwei.