Wedding in Hong Kong

Do you know that the weddings in Hong Kong are complex because they are usually a mix of Chinese and western one and they can cost up to HK$300,000 (around US$38,461)?

The groom’s family would have to pay for the “bride’s price”, which is usually over HK$10,000 (can be up to HK$100,000). Even though “the more the merrier”, the bride’s family usually won’t ask for too much (or it will look like they are selling the daughter). The money can be paid in the form of gold, jewelry or other valuables.

On the day of the wedding, the groom will have to visit the bride’s family and “pick up” the bride, which is where the real war begins. The “sisters” (the female friends and relatives of the bride) will try their best to stall the groom (in a playful way, of course) and ask for lai see. They will usually ask for an amount like HK$99,999 (because “9” sounds like “longevity” and “ever-lasting” in Cantonese, in hope of what the marriage would be), though it’s up to the groom’s side to decide whether they would pay that amount. And after all those groom-teasing games/tortures, the groom would finally reach the bride.

The game’s over, so it’s on to the serious business. The elders from both families will sit and the couple will serve tea to them. Usually the elders would give them some lai see or gold jewelry and ask the groom to take of care of the bride for the rest of his life. And the groom, in return, will thank the bride’s parents for taking care of their daughter and claim how meeting the bride is one of the most fortunate things in his life…

Yeah, pretentious stuff…but they love it, so…anyway, the tea ceremony is done.

And now the couple can choose between a westernized church wedding and traditional Chinese banquet. People who can afford would go for both, one at day and the other at night. As for people who can’t…Well, there are even people who don’t arrange banquet. They simply participate in some religious ceremony and small meals afterwards. This seems to be the trend over these few years since the “complete” wedding takes too much time and money.

Zyu Ji Sing in Hong Kong

Do you know that the Cantonese term 朱以盛 [zyu1 ji5 sing6] is used to describe fake goods?

It was said that 朱以盛 was originally a merchant who worked in Guangdong Province during the Qing Dynasty. He set up a shop (which named after himself) selling replicas of gold jewelries. No, he was not trying to scam the customers. In Chinese culture, people who attend important ceremonies (like marriages and banquets) should carry some valuables to show their respects, otherwise they would be deemed as an embarrassment. Therefore, he sold cheap replicas so that poor people could afford them in those situations (or just for the vain people to show off…) and the customers knew very well that the jewelries were only replicas.

While the jewelries were fake, the craftsmanship was said to be of a really high quality. The shop got popular and the owner opened many branches. As a result, 朱以盛has become a famous metonymy for referring to fake / knock-off products.

But the story about this legendary shop doesn’t end here.

One of the branches was opened in Hong Kong in 1926, selling not only gold jewelry replicas, but also silverwares and accessories used in marriages. What’s interesting is that, the doing of informing customers that they were selling fake goods actually earned them the title of “honest company” (老實公司). It’s a pity that their sells declined and the nearly century-old shop has to be closed in 2010. But with the help of some non-profit organization, they are able to open an online shop, thus aiding the shop to live on in another form.

You see, kids?

If you were selling fake goods, always tell the customers.

That’s how you do business…as long as the customers are not going to sue you.

Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market in Hong Kong

Do you know that the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market (油麻地果欄) has a history of over 100 years?

The market was founded in 1913 (yes, pre-WWI!), being a traditional market. The marketplace located between Waterloo Street, Ferry Street and Reclamation Street, and used to consist of only straw pavilions. There were no solid buildings until 1920s and 1930s.

The market was originally called Government Vegetables Market, selling not only fruits, but also fish and vegetables. Later, after the Cheung Sha Wan Vegetables Wholesaling Market and Cheung Sha Wan Fishery Wholesaling Market were established, the vegetable and fish stalls moved out, leaving only the fruit stalls behind. The market has become the specialized place for fruit wholesaling since then.

Yes, “since then”. The market is still a to-go place for most of the fruit vendors to get their goods nowadays. While the wholesale market looks kind of dead during daytime, it’s a completely different story at night! As midnight approaches, the place truly comes to life: workers busy dragging and transporting cartons and cartons of fruit, buyers diligently checking the quality of the fruits, vendors and wholesalers shamelessly bargaining for the price in order to strike the best deal…a once torn-down and deteriorated looking old market become a ferocious battleground of wit and sweat as the city sleeps…ahh, such is the romance of real men…

Nah, they are just working hard to earn their living, nothing is romantic here.

Still, the scene really is a manifestation of Hongkongers’ “work hard” and “do the impossible” spirit…OK, that’s too hard-selling.

The market is now a Grade II Historic Building, and you can find a considerable amount of pre-war structures at the site. It may not be a famous tourist attraction, but foreigners seem to be interested in it, not to mention the nostalgia-seekers visiting for the old-school architecture style and layout.

It’s also a good place for us, the customers, to buy high-quality fruits imported from different parts of the world…if you don’t mind paying a few more pennies, that is. 

TSA in Hong Kong

Do you know that in order to improve the effectiveness of learning and teaching in Hong Kong, students of Primary 3, Primary 6 and Secondary 3 have to attend a test called “Territory-wide System Assessment” (TSA)?

The assessment was first introduced in 2004, administered by the Education Bureau. It is compulsory for government-subsidized school (unless students have been proven to have intellectual disabilities) and aims at collecting data about students’ learning capability so that education policies can be reviewed.

So in other words, the test is not meant for the students, but the schools in Hong Kong (and the Education Bureau itself). The assessment itself is not wrong, but the problem lies in how the school prepare for the assessment.

While the assessment tests originally tries to measure students’ learning competence and students don’t have to intentionally study for them (to test their general understanding and use of knowledge), lots of schools are afraid that they would get a poor ranking and reputation if the students’ results are bad. Consequently, the schools forced the students to take drills and mock tests for the assessment, which put a lot of unnecessary pressure on the students, especially those of Primary 3 (who are only 9 – 10 year old).

This, of course, makes the parents angry and they demanded cancelling TSA for Primary 3 students, while at the same time reviewing the overall capability of it (they even formed a “TSA Concern Group” on facebook with over 47k people joining). Then our useless as ever government respond with changing the assessment format and making the tests shorter. But the parents felt insulted by this brush-off attitude and refused to accept the assessment until they are allowed to opt out of it. And the debate / struggle / conflict continues…

Forcing students to memorize model answers, asking students to take tests so that the Education Bureau can know “what to do next”…How are these going to help them?  Seriously, education (especially in Hong Kong) is never fun to begin with, why make the students suffer more because of this bureaucratic nonsense?

Tuen Mun Rapist in Hong Kong

Do you know that Lam Kwok Wai is one of the two known serial killers in Hong Kong?

His name may not ring any bells to many Hongkongers, but his nickname would probably do.

Ever heard of the “Tuen Mun Rapist”?

Lam grew up in Tuen Mun, which many considered as a poverty-struck and insecure district, with his broken family. His mother left him when he was only 3; his stepmother was horrible; his father was an alcoholic and a gambler; his sibling had almost no interaction with him.

When he was 15, he started hanging around with others in gangs, beating people, abusing animals, stealing things and taking drugs. Everything he did served only one purpose: to rid of his boredom. He also had a girlfriend, but Lam broke up with her because of his poor self-esteem. He began to seek excitement through drinking, prostitution, and even street racing. It seems his life had no goal but only to look for these kinds of short-lived gratification.

You want to give him a hug? Too bad no one ever does.

This tragic life style drove Lam to seek love and satisfaction through a really extreme method: rape. Lam’s favorite way of assault was to tail his victims, burst into the elevators with them, drag them to somewhere secluded, grip them in the neck until they faint and rape them… And he was only 21 when he committed his first crime.

It is reported that he has raped a total of 13 women and accidentally killed 3 of them. His doing led to widespread panic in Tuen Mun. The police even use female cops as baits to lure him out, but to no avail.

What’s legendary about Lam’s arrest is that Lam actually asked his last victim out for a date.

The police thus ambushed him during his meeting with the victim. The Chief Inspector responsible for the case said it was as if Lam wanted to be caught. He even stated that Lam was actually a very lonely person who cried a lot and would ask other police officers to visit him in prison.

But boredom and loneliness is never an excuse for committing crimes, let alone so many crimes.

I wonder if Lam would come to that conclusion during the rest of his life in jail.

Wet Market in Hong Kong

Do you know that the wet markets in Hong Kong are called 街市 (“street market”) because in the past, most of them were set up along the streets?

Allow me to explain what a “wet market” is, my good sir, if you come from a highly modernized / urbanized region and never been to place like this before. It is a marketplace which sells variety of fresh meats and products, like fish, chicken, pork, vegetables, fruits, dried goods etc. Unlike supermarkets, wet markets provide fresh and unprocessed goods that usually come directly from the farms.

That is correct. Fresh. So fresh that lots of them are still alive. You can still hear the chicken squawking and see the fish swimming. You even get to see how the butchers kill them and cut the...

What? That’s disgusting?

I concur. And it’s very unhygienic. It’s “wet” mostly because of the water the shopkeepers used to store fish, or to flush away the trash, or to clean the blood stain…It’s obviously not an ideal place go, especially during the moist summer…

However! It’s welcomed by the older generation and the grassroots mainly because the stocks they have there are cheaper. And you know how the elders enjoy checking the status of their food first hand? It would be easier to tell if the meat is tender, or if the poultry have been fed with chemical products. Moreover, people love visiting the wet market because they can bargain for a better price and, more importantly, they get to develop a bond with the shopkeepers. It sure is comforting to have the acquainted owners to greet you like a friend and provide what you want every time you arrive. Sometimes they may even give you some goodies for free! Not a scene you can find in those chained supermarket, right?

While those big corporations claim how bad the environment is in the wet market and how wet markets should give in, not everyone think the same. In recent years, more tourists and nostalgics tend to visit wet market deliberately because they feel that “this is what the REAL Hong Kong should look like”.

What is Hong Kong?

A modern and international city of finance? Maybe.

But let’s not forget the unique local element: messy, noisy and crowded wet market where even the poorest can afford, and the loneliest can find warmth.

“Transport head” estate in Hong Kong

Do you know that Wan Tau Tong Estate (運頭塘邨) is rumored to be one of the burial grounds in the past in Hong Kong?

…Actually lots of places in Hong Kong are rumored to be burial grounds in the past. People who spread the rumor probably just wanted to scare the others, or simply to look for fun, though.

Anyway, Wan Tau Tong Estate is the latest public housing estate in Tai Po, completed in 1991. This place holds so many residents and is so lively that you will think it has nothing to do with ghost stories…but it does. I mean, the name of the estate itself is spooky enough (運頭 literally means “transport head”)…

There were two versions of the story: one has it that in early 1900s, lots of natural disasters happened and killed many people. In order to prevent the spread of disease, the corpses had to be burnt, leaving the bones behind. Undertakers therefore had to transport the bones and skulls to the burial ground in Tai Po (which is supposed to be the Wan Tau Tong Estate today, hence the name) and had them buried.

The other version is that many civilians were killed and had their heads chopped off during Japanese occupation in 1940s. For some reason this yet-to-be estate became an excellent choice for the Japanese soldiers to ditch the heads.

Whatever the reason was, many people died and have to be buried in this place. Then there started to be rumors about how people would see headless figures pushing a wheelbarrow carrying many heads at night. There was also a spookily hilarious story about a construction worker finding out the headless ghosts using white glue to glue their loose heads on their necks…

If you really are interested in this spooky-name estate, you can give it a visit, preferably at night.

But you would definitely be disappointed. You would only find a modern yet peaceful residential area there. No burial grounds, no headless ghosts, no wheelbarrow carrying heads either.

…We already have them glued up, after all.

What? No, I didn’t say anything.

Don’t mind me…