To many tourists, Choi Hung Estate is a new should-see spot for its image’s best rainbow-colored walls.

For Tiffany Chen Ho-ting, however, the vintage public housing property is a part of Hong Kong that can speak volumes approximately the city’s ordinary people.

The 26-year-antique Chen, a third-technology public housing resident, hopes to show travelers an exclusive view of the “Instafamous” residential estate and others like it – and display characteristics of those houses that pass beyond their aesthetic cost.

“Most folks that come here most effectively care approximately taking pix of this rainbow-colored wall, but they recognize – or are – not anything about the folks who live right here,” Chen stated.

New era of Hong Kong excursion courses takes 1

“Not handiest do I wish those here can learn about the metropolis’s housing troubles. However, I need to share my non-public reports and memories with them as someone who lives in public housing,” she stated.

The 4-hour excursion expenses HK$ hundred ninety in step with character and incorporates a maximum of 8 human beings on every journey.

At one of the first stops, Chen explains how commonplace Cantonese dishes are made with exclusive fish elements by journeying a fishmonger at the traditional Ngau Chi Wan moist market.

At Choi Hung Estate, she points out the rows of blankets draped over chairs in public regions, putting dry underneath the blazing solar.

“It’s because the residences are too small to dry them interiorly,” Chen told a couple who joined her tour. She then rattled off facts about the gulf between the public and personal housing condo charges.

Her private testimonies about developing public housing – wherein almost half of the town’s 7.3 million population live – are vital to the excursion.

From a stack of images, she suggests one from the library records of Queen Elizabeth’s go to the Oi Man Estate in 1975, wherein her grandmother and mother used to stay. Chen factors up at the identical spot where her mother peered down among the building’s railings to seize a glimpse of the British monarch.

Another photograph shows her extended family’s annual hotpot Lunar New Year birthday party. In this photograph, approximately 30 people packed themselves in a four hundred square toes flat – the equal balanced her mom and eight siblings shared long ago.

“It became so cramped, the guys used to decide upon dozing on makeshift beds out of doors within the hall,” Chen stated.

Sarah Zhou Xuecheng, an American on tour, wanted to see the metropolis this way.

“It’s like having a friend show you around; it’s greater private than joining an excursion organization,” stated the 21-12 months-old Zhou.

An Australian vacationer, Laura Prosser, 30, said Chen’s stories of her adolescent life in public housing – complete with images – made the experience much more private.

Chen’s excursion is certainly one of approximately 200 indexed “Airbnb Experiences” in Hong Kong, along with trekking adventures and meal walks designed and led by locals.

Trips led by locals provide a more “genuine” aspect of the town, and they’re becoming greater commonplace as travelers shun the idea of just seeing Hong Kong as a shopping paradise or foodie nirvana.

The authorities-subsidized Tourism Board hopes to sell much less touristy areas such as Sham Shui Po, a low-income neighborhood famed for its avenue meals and traditional arts and crafts stores.