The Boat Girl and the Magic Fish is a tender introduction to one of the lifestyles that has long identified Hong Kong as a place unique in the world. Kum-choi, a boat girl who has grown up on a Chinese junk at sea, must join in the progress and go ashore to school. There she experiences the shock of seagoing fisherfolk as they resettle on shore to learn new ways that will forever separate them from the old ways they know and love.The sea gypsies' junks and butterfly-wing sails are disappearing and a time-honored way of life is passing. But Kum-choi has a friend - The Magic Fish - to whom she can beckon for help in her saddest times. With the help of the Magic Fish, Kum-choi heroically uses her knowledge of the sea to save her schoolmates and in so doing rediscovers herself and her heritage. She cannot again give up the sea and elects instead to stand forever at the shoreline - a kind of goddess for the fisherfolk and their way of life.