The Peace Correspondent (11 page)

“You have a big nose,” Miss Lam announces. True, but I don't need a physiognomist to tell me that. And she has more bad news: I am actually a year older than I thought. According to Chinese tradition, the smiling soothsayer informs me, age is counted from conception, not birth.

And I am paying to hear all this.

This disconcerting information is being delivered in the boisterous, earthy, aromatic precincts of Hong Kong's Wong Tai Sin Temple, a conglomeration of Eastern religions located about a 20-minute subway ride from the city's deluxe hotels.

The business of worship starts right in the Wong Tai Sin Mass Transit Railway station, where a temple entrepreneur sells red packages of joss (incense) sticks to burn as offerings. At the approach to the temple, right at the subway exit, mendicants and mercenaries, who charge HK$10 (about $1.30) for joss sticks and $5 for pieces of red paper with auspicious gold Chinese script saying things such as “luck” or “wealth,” converge on all new arrivals.

Gold-painted plastic amulets dangle from hawker stalls, and
a profusion of bright, temple-red paper prayers, cards and packages of joss sticks clutter the shelves. Nearby, the appropriately named Sik Sik Yuen Clinic provides care to parishioners. The rich scent of incense and the smoke from burnt paper offerings hovers in the air along the stone steps lined with a bamboo thicket.

In the temple compound, worshippers gather around taps of blessed water, believed to cure many illnesses, while others light incense sticks, bow and set them in the sand in big brass urns. The rhythmic clickclickclick of people shaking bamboo cups with chim (oracle sticks) comes from the temple. While many worshipers kneel and pray, others gossip or take family snapshots and children run around playing. Wong Tai Sin, by far the busiest, most boisterous of Hong Kong's 600 temples, illustrates the Asian custom of combining piety with socializing, worship with sightseeing.

The temple and the district are named for Hong Kong's most popular Taoist deity. Built in 1921 and now dwarfed by high-rise housing estates, the compound is a classic example of traditional Chinese-style architecture with vermilion pillars, two-tiered golden roof, yellow lattice-work and an array of multicolored carvings. Under a green and gold pine ceiling, the deity Wong sits on a raised marble platform surrounded by carved and gilded ornaments, while several wishing ponds and a pagoda are dedicated to Buddha. Buddhist and Taoist gods are worshipped here, while Confucius is revered in the Confucius Hall.

To the left of the temple, the multi-tiered Fortune Telling and Oblation Arcade is probably the largest single collection of fortune tellers in Asia, with about 160 cubicles for freelance soothsayers, chim stick readers and palm and face readers. A woman waiting for customers spots the approaching foreigner, and leads me to another alley of stalls, to one that says “English.” The cheery man behind the desk proffers a card written entirely in Chinese characters, and answers all my questions with a smile, and a price. I walk on.

Along the arcade, locals window-shop for the right oracle:
young couples anxious about their love, stockbrokers worrying about their future, gamblers looking for something to give them an edge, housewives and occasional tourists all looking for answers of some kind.

A few stalls away, I find Priscilla Lam, who speaks better English than most of the other seers and tellers. Diagrams of faces and hands written over with Chinese script decorate her cubicle, along with drawings of different types of chins, noses, eyes and lips, and photos of a minor guru in gown and beads, squatting cross-legged before a temple. A can of bamboo chim sticks sits on the counter along with a half-dozen porcelain statues of Tin Hau, the Goddess of the Sea, and a giant Chinese tea thermos.

There are several ways to look into the future in this celestial bazaar. Pay a deposit for a cupful of chim sticks, take them to the altar, kneel and shake the canister. Return with the first one to fall out, and the soothsayer will read and interpret the significance of it for HK $30 (about $4), and negotiable, especially for someone speaking a little Chinese, or on a slow day, to half that. “But that is just story telling,” Lam sniffs, clearly favoring the more detailed (and expensive) palms-and-face package.

It is about $26 each for face and hand reading, or $40 for both, but Lam agrees to do both for $37. (I later hear that these psychics can be bargained down to $13 for just face or palm reading, but at that price, she would probably read stinginess in my character among my other failings.) So, opting for the full face and hands treatment, I squat before her on a little kitchen stool, like those used in the roadside tea shops.

In her gold necklace with a jade pendant, Lam, looking more like a Hong Kong office worker than a Gypsy palmist, has been reading the future for 10 years. She asks me my date of birth and where I was born, translates it into Hong Kong time, and consults a book to transpose the date from the Gregorian to the Chinese calendar.

“Chinese think when you are in the womb that counts as part of your life, so you are almost one when you are born,” she says,
writing down the date, and informing me that I am a Snake. In the Chinese zodiac, that is.

“We believe that the palm tells about 60 percent of your life, and the face 40 percent,” Lam says, grabbing my two hands and staring at them intently. “You have a square face and square hands. Palms and face match. That is good.” Finally, something positive.

“You do what you want.” Meaning I am stubborn. “You are practical, don't trust things of the imagination.” Not exactly desirable qualities for a writer.

“Your nose is very long,” she continues. “Most negotiators have a long nose. They are very patient, they keep insisting on hearing what they want to hear.” My eyes are deep, so I plan more than other people. My ears are close to the head, so I play safe and don't take chances. And I have thin lips. “This gives the impression of being sincere and honest,” the chirpy diviner continues, without actually saying I possess these qualities.

“Your career line is strong. You can work all your life, without retiring.” A lifetime of drudgery. “This is not a good year for you. Play it safe, other years will be better.” And finally, the stock in trade for all fortune tellers; “You will lead a long life.”

At this point, she starts to sound more like the American Medical Association. “Your face is hot, even though it is not summer. Take care of your high cholesterol. Your blood is too concentrated.” Now she is like a school counselor. “Donate blood, then don't eat so much meat and oily food. Eat less chicken, pork and McDonald's and more green vegetables and fresh fruit.” She continues: “As a writer, your spirit is important. Get fresh air. It is good for the brain and bright ideas.”

And finally, with a last glance at my face, she announces firmly, “You will be fatter in the future.” No one can accuse Cantonese fortune tellers of only telling you what you want to hear.

For my $37, I've been aged a year, had a character analysis and a frank, if not flattering, evaluation of my appearance, received health advice and been given a disquieting look into the future. It is, I suppose, quite a bargain.

A herd of black cows grazing in the grassland seems an unlikely obstacle for a leisurely walk in Hong Kong, but there they were, a dozen ruminants chewing and mooing in the field ahead. The beasts were placid, though, calmly returning to their feeding on the appropriately named Grass Island (Tap Mun).

Many of Hong Kong's more than 260 outlying islands scattered around the South China Sea are tiny, unpopulated islets or mere rocky outcrops accessible only by private boat and known only to yachters and scuba divers. Others have substantial communities, an hour or less away by frequent ferry service from Central District. So weekends head to Cheung Chau and Peng Chau for the Chinese village atmosphere, to Lantau for beaches, hiking and to see the Big Buddha, or to Lamma, for the seafood served in basic, open-air waterfront restaurants.

More remote, sparsely inhabited islands such as Tap Mun, Ping Chau, Po Toi and Tung Lung Chau, which require more effort to reach, are unknown even to most Hong Kongers. These isolated places (none with vehicles) retain traditional rural Chinese culture, along with fine beaches, mountains and open spaces. And each island has its own character.

Po Toi

On an already hot Hong Kong mid-morning, a small, slightly battered blue-hulled ferry docks at the St. Stephen's Beach pier near Stanley, on the south side of Hong Kong Island. Savvy travelers
board quickly and rush for the top deck or the stern on the main deck, competing for outside seats with former residents returning for a visit and with excitable Hong Kong teenagers.

Right on time at 10am, the ferry departs for tiny Po Toi, Hong Kong's southernmost island. In popular Stanley Bay (Chek Chue Wan), the ferry passes weekend windsurfers, sailors in small boats and sea kayakers before heading into the choppy open sea. On the four-mile (6.4 kilometer) journey, we follow the rugged southern coastline of sheer cliffs, then pass uninhabited islands and rocky outcrops. A crewman in a broad straw hat collects HK$38 for the return trip. The crew speaks only Cantonese, so foreign travelers have to point to the ticket for the 3pm, 4:30pm or 6pm return ferry.

The waters here can be rough, and not for landlubbers, but it is a short trip. Just 35 minutes after departing, the ferry enters Po Toi's picturesque, sheltered Tai Wan Bay, home to the island's 30 or so remaining residents. By mid-morning, sleek, flashy yachts and private pleasure junks - their hulls the shiny dark brown of roasted duck skin - are already anchored here, their passengers enjoying a seafood lunch at the beachfront restaurant.

The island is so rugged and remote, John LeCarre used it as a setting for a dramatic scene in his 1977 spy novel, An Honorable Schoolboy, but today it has well-marked and maintained hiking paths.

A short, paved path leads left from the jetty past a sandy beach with restaurants to a picturesque, seaside temple for Tin Hau, the Goddess of the Sea. We head in the other direction, along a longer, but easy, path running through bush and along the craggy coast past prehistoric rock carvings. Beyond that, it leads to such unusual, colorfully titled rock formations as Buddha's Palm Cliff, Monk's Rock and Tortoise Rock, and to a hilltop lighthouse. Those who like to go to extremes can walk on to Nam Kok Tsui, the southernmost point of Hong Kong. The rounded shapes of Chinese islands are visible on the horizon, and ghostly outlines of container ships sail past on the open South China Sea.

From this southernmost point, we return the hard way, climbing steep steps to the top of 188 meter-high Ngau Wu Mountain. From here, an alternate path back to the beach passes by Mo's Old House, supposedly haunted. “You're not going to Po Toi,” apprehensive Hong Kongers said earlier, when we mentioned our plans. “That's the ghost island.” Unlike the ornate haunted castles of movie sets, with their towers, turrets and dormers, Mo's is just an abandoned summer house built about 50 years ago, but never occupied. Yet this crumbing relic is the source of tales that the island is haunted.

Hikers and boaters alike end up in Po Toi's main attraction, the basic, open-air Ming Kee Seafood Restaurant, set on stilts on the beach near the pier. Passing the chaotic kitchen with its flaming gas stoves and a large, plain room with plastic chairs, concrete floor and plastic awning, we grab a table set out on the sand. Island chic includes waitresses in T-shirts, jeans and black rubber boots, hikers in T-shirts, shorts and bare feet, and elegant yachties in designer boating wear. Some stylish ladies are even decked out in fancy hats more suited for the Ascot races than a South China Sea outdoor diner.

For Hong Kongers, food counts, not decor, and the Ming Kee is known for its fine fare, especially seafood. Prawns, crabs, clams, scallops, lobster and fresh fish come steamed, fried, or with delicious sauces such as garlic and black bean, black pepper and chili, or ginger and onion. Carnivores indulge in stir-fried or sweet-and-sour chicken, or pork and beef dishes, vegetarians in seaweed soup and steamed vegetables and drinkers in cold beer or wine.