morning tea

Two days before Chinese New Year in 2020, Paula and I went to our local restaurant, Sun Ming Yuen, for yam char (‘drink tea’). We’d been regulars there for many years, originally when it was located in Fanling Centre, next to Fanling station. We were gutted when it appeared to close down a few years ago, but disappointment turned to delight when it reopened in Green Code Plaza, a shopping mall that forms part of a new private housing estate on the eastern edge of Fanling, a mere 15-minute walk from the village where we live.

At that time, we were in the habit of going for yam char two or three times a week. We used to go early—before 8 o’clock—which meant that we could simply walk in and pick an empty table (once all the ninety-plus tables are occupied, we would have had to wait for the door staff to allocate us empty seats on an already occupied table). However, on this particular occasion, even though we were early, the restaurant was already crowded. I wasn’t surprised by this though. The additional diners were probably from China and were visiting family members in Hong Kong for the new year.

So I didn’t think anything of it at the time. However, a couple of days later, I came down with an especially nasty cough and was out of action for the next two weeks. I’d heard about a mysterious illness that had recently emerged in China, but it hadn’t yet made the headlines, and I’ve often wondered whether I was hit by covid-19. Whatever is the truth of this situation, we stopped going for yam char for more than two years, but we’re back again now.

One thing in particular that I like about Sun Ming Yuen is that we don’t need to order tea. The staff know what kind of tea we drink and bring it without asking. They also know that we like chili sauce with our dim sum, so they bring that too. On this subject, I’m sometimes reminded of my experiences eating in Chinese restaurants in town. I lost count of how many times a waiter brought us a pot of tea without first asking what kind of tea we wanted. When I asked what kind of tea was in the pot, the invariable reply was heung pin (jasmine tea), presumably because they think that this is what gweilos drink. I happen to detest jasmine tea—Paula and I both drink sau mei.

Meanwhile, I’d been meaning to photograph the dim sum here for ages, and I finally got around to doing so a couple of days ago. We tend to order the same dishes every time, and the first to arrive at our table is always the cheung fan:

These are steamed rice-flour pancakes with a savoury filling, in this case char siu (a special kind of roast pork). They provide a stern test of one’s skill with chopsticks. I’ve always taken a certain amount of pride in being able to use these implements better than most Chinese. Whenever someone on a nearby table orders cheung fan, I watch to see how they will cut up the pancakes into bite-size pieces. Common methods include using one chopstick in each hand; holding the chopsticks in one hand and using the other hand to squeeze the chopsticks together; and using one’s spoon. I’ve even seen people pick up a pancake by one end and take a bite off the other end. I’ve never seen anyone cut up the pancakes with just the chopsticks in one hand, which is what I do:

A few years ago, when we still went to the restaurant in the afternoon, we were allocated space on a 12-seater table along with three other couples. We knew what we wanted and thus placed our order before the others, and when the cheung fan arrived, I set about cutting it up as usual. I didn’t realize at the time, but Paula told me afterwards: the other couples were sat there in open-mouthed amazement as they watched me dismember the pancakes.

Our remaining order usually arrives all at once, but for some reason we just got two dishes to start with on this occasion:

On the left is a basket of shrimp/veg dumplings (I don’t know the Chinese name), while on the right is a basket of char siu bao, steamed rice-flour buns with a filling of char siu in hoi sin (plum) sauce.

We’d polished off these two baskets before the last two arrived:

On the left is a basket of siu mai (minced pork with a prawn on top, while on the right are three fish balls. This photo also shows the small dish of chili sauce, for which we are not charged extra!

One thing that I regret about the restaurant’s move from Fanling Centre to Green Code Plaza is the ‘combination basket’:

In addition to the two siu mai and two shrimp/veg dumplings, there were two har gow (prawn dumplings), one char siu bao and one siu lung bao (which contains minced pork and hot broth and isn’t on the menu nowadays in the early morning).

Whenever I went cycling by myself, I could go to the restaurant afterwards and order this basket, but it has been discontinued since the move.

Finally, a word about the title of this post. A while ago, I was talking about our eating habits in Hong Kong with friends back in the UK and used the phrase ‘morning tea’. I was accused of being pretentious, even though I did so because nobody would know what I meant if I said that we went for yam char, which is what I would always say to Paula:

“Do you fancy going for yam char tomorrow morning?”

simply the best

My favourite floral displays of the year, firecracker vines, have been a little later than usual this year, and they’re fading now. And because I’m still unable to ride a bike, I’ve been restricted to areas within walking distance of our house, so I haven’t found many new sites. Consequently, I’ve decided to confine this post to a discussion of which of the many examples of firecracker vines that I’ve seen over the years is ‘the best’.

An obvious candidate is the car park on the eastern edge of Wing Ning Tsuen, which is a relatively short distance from our house but south of Sha Tau Kok Road. This is a general view of part of the surrounding hedge on the north side of the car park:

There is an alleyway behind this hedge, and the next two photos show part of the other side of the hedge:

There is also a path behind the hedge on the south side of the car park:

Finally, there is a short hedge that projects into the car park on the north side. I took this photo on 9th February:

…and this one on 15th February:

I don’t often walk through the grounds of Lung Shan Temple, mainly because it’s located at the end of Po Kak Tsai Road, which means that such a walk doesn’t lead anywhere, and I certainly hadn’t passed through during firecracker vine season before. However, I’d been exploring a new path that led into the grounds, and I took this photo next to the temple:

It doesn’t look particularly impressive, and as I was leaving, my view was obscured by the trees below the road. However, I did manage to take this telephoto shot through a gap in the foliage:

Although an unobstructed view of this vine would certainly be spectacular, and the car park vines probably have the most flowers in total, I think that the firecracker vine at the top end of the village of Fu Tei Au provides the most impressive view in a single shot. I took this photo while walking along Fu Tei Au Road on 6th February:

…and this one on 17th February:

To emphasize the quality of the display here, this is a trimmed version of the previous photo:

So that’s my nominee for ‘the best’. Next year, hopefully, I will have some new locations to photograph.

more photos of firecracker vines
Jeepers Creepers #4: Part 1

graffiti grotto: postscript

One day last week, Paula had things to do in town, so I walked with her into Luen Wo Hui, the district of Fanling that is nearest to the village where we live, where she could catch a minibus to the station. I continued westwards, with the intention of revisiting the area around the river system where we had discovered a lot of graffiti recently. The route that I chose to take took me through a pedestrian underpass, where there had once been a lot of graffiti that has subsequently been painted over:

This, as I’ve explained in several posts, is the eventual fate of graffiti in Hong Kong, where this form of artistic expression is viewed as vandalism. However, there was one graffito on the exit ramp from the underpass:

CREW is quite a common tag in Fanling’s industrial district.

I eventually arrived at the upper reaches of the Shek Sheung River, which I walked alongside until I reached a footbridge. I intended to cross the river here, because I wanted to take a closer look at the full length of the water pipelines that I described in Graffiti Grotto. I immediately noticed two graffiti on the concrete sidewall of the river:

I wondered whether I could get down to take close-up photos. Notice the ramp in the distance in the previous photo. There would be a gate at the top, but if it was no trouble to climb over, my problem would be solved. In fact, the gate was not locked, but the graffiti that I thought I could see in the distance had been painted over:

However, I was able to photograph the graffiti that I’d seen from the footbridge:

The first features the glinting-light motif that I’d often seen in Europe, while the second seems to me to be unfinished.

I finally crossed the river to the eastern side, where I took this photo to show where more graffiti had been painted over:

The footbridge on the left carries the recently completed cycle track that runs from Sheung Shui to Yuen Long in the far west. Even though I cycle to Yuen Long regularly, I don’t use this facility, the design of which is a dog’s breakfast, but that’s a discussion for another post, and here I will continue with a tour of the graffiti in the area.

I continued northwards along the Drainage Services Department (DSD) access road until I reached the point where the water pipelines disappear underground. There was a simple but elegant graffito on the concrete support for one of the pipes:

Notice the dark area at the top of the photo. When I took this photo, I suspected that this area was an overpaint of an earlier graffito, and my suspicions were probably confirmed today, when I repeated the route that I’m describing here with Paula. The graffito in the previous photo has now been painted over!

However, I ducked under the huge pipe and found a flight of stairs leading down to a road between the pipes that I already knew existed but had never walked along before. Perhaps I would find more graffiti along this road.

And I did, almost immediately:

Both FLG (twice) and RZa appeared in the graffiti grotto. And here are closer views of the two:

There was also a third graffito around the corner to the left:

I consider this to be one of the best examples of graffiti in this area. The stylized Chinese writing on the right translates as ‘delusion’ or ‘ignorance’ and is probably related in some way to Buddhism.

This is a photo that I took of this wall looking back as I started out along the road:

You can see the stairs coming down from the right.

And this is a photo of the road ahead:

The high-rise buildings in the distance are in Shenzhen, and you can see the railway into China on the right. The pipe on the left is close to 2 metres in diameter, and as you can see, there are no concrete supports on which graffiti artists can paint their tags. However, at the start of the road, I did find more graffiti:

…and another CREW:

When I came this way today with Paula, we found that all three had been painted over! This immediately made me wonder why the graffiti on the wall at the end of the road remained untouched. Answer: if you look at the photo of RZa above, you will see a small notice on the right. When I blew up the image, I could read that the slope on which the wall is built is the responsibility of the DSD, and the painted-over graffiti had been on parts of the infrastructure of the Water Supplies Department (WSD).

Today with Paula, I began to wonder whether the graffiti that I’d recorded in Graffiti Grotto would still be there.

However, on my visit last week, I took a couple of additional photos. I climbed up onto a WSD walkway to take this photo, which illustrates why I couldn’t get better photos of the graffiti here that I’d described as being in a cul de sac:

I was also able to find a way into the area where I’d been forced to shoot from distance for the image that I used in my earlier report:

It actually looks better from distance.

I should also mention that while I was here last week, there were several men walking about, seemingly aimlessly. My first thought was that they might be graffiti artists, and I could interview them about their work, but it soon became obvious that they were WSD employees. And they were merely milling around waiting for me to clear off.

Because, today, to my horror, we discovered that almost all the graffiti that I’d featured in Graffiti Grotto had been painted over. The only work to survive is the image in the last photo and the graffiti on the wall that was the subject of the first photo in my earlier report. I conjecture that this wall is the responsibility of the DSD, which, judging by its treatment of graffiti along the river, will probably wipe out the artwork on this wall once its existence has been brought to its attention. Bloody heathens. And I thought that the graffiti fraternity had found a safe haven for their work. I was wrong.

inside the forbidden zone

Ha Shan Kai Wat, which is located 5–6km northeast of the eastern edge of Fanling, is a distinctly unfriendly village. During the past three years, many of the villages that I pass through when cycling have displayed polite notices asking visitors to wear a mask, but Ha Shan Kai Wat has this:

This photo was taken from the end of an unnamed road that branches off Ping Che Road. I didn’t come this way until 2016, when I learned that the ‘frontier closed area’ status of a region to the north had been rescinded, and I started the development of a bike ride that I named ‘the final frontier’. The route that I initially worked out passed through this village, ignoring the ‘no cycling’ sign by passing to the right before reaching the sign and continuing across the front of the village to reach a good path that led to another road after about 200 metres.

However, another hazard that I had to contend with here was a psychotic dog that attacked cyclists, including me on several occasions. The village must have received complaints though, because after a while it was always tied up whenever I came this way. It was tied with a long rope, about 15 metres, and it would launch itself at full gallop towards me whenever I cycled through the village. Of course, I knew how long the rope was, and I made a point of being just out of reach. It may have been an out-and-out psycho, but it was also stupid. It must have been seriously uncomfortable to be pulled up by the rope, attached to its collar, when running at full speed.

Anyway, a couple of years ago, I worked out an alternative route that avoided Ha Shan Kai Wat completely. Not because of the dog, or the general unfriendliness of the villagers. My alternative, which involved a succession of narrow paths, was simply more fun! So why have I bothered to describe a place that I no longer cycle through? Well, as part of my attempt to maintain my fitness level while I’m unable to ride a bike, Paula and I have been going on regular long walks, and some of those walks have taken us through Ha Shan Kai Wat. And in addition to the road and the exit path that I described above, there is a third way into the village that brings you into the ‘private area’, with no sign that tells you to keep out.

And in order to reach the road if you enter the village from this direction, it’s necessary to walk along quite a narrow alleyway (the one behind the blue sign in the photo above). This alleyway has a row of three traditional vernacular houses, which still retain the traditional painted plaster mouldings that I’ve seen above the doorways and under the eaves of similar buildings elsewhere. Naturally, I took photos—surreptitiously, fully expecting someone to see us, although no-one did. The following photos were taken from right to left as we walked along:

Although this mural is in poor condition, it appears to show a traditional Chinese rural scene.

This is the moulding above the right-hand door:

The dirty area above the images appears to be a poor attempt at repair, so I’m pleased to have captured this before it deteriorates further.

The next image appears to be a mixture of painting and moulding (the trees on the right are definitely moulded):

The three-storey building appears to have been painted over a group of horsemen.

And this is the wall above the central doorway:

It is clearly in much better condition than the mouldings above the other doors, and the wall below has been plastered and overpainted with fake brickwork.

The third mural is in a poor state, although I can still identify a small building at the top, left of centre:

The left-hand doorway also shows the signs of a clumsy repair job:

…although the painted images are still in quite good condition.

And that’s the hidden secrets of Ha Shan Kai Wat. I don’t expect to find myself venturing down any more alleyways here, although there could well be more traditional houses elsewhere in the village.