Richard Peters -in the Sai Kung Country Park

Pak Sha O

It may be that you've visited a beautiful place or two on your holidays. It may be that you've had to struggle a little to get there, by road or by foot. It may be that you've spent a little time wandering and wondering -who lived here, when was it built, what was life like for them back then? It may be that these questions remain and re-emerge when your photos of this beautiful place are seen again. If this is so, then you've experienced what can only be termed a romantic association with a place and, as with all romances, it's something about which you fondly care –even if you're no longer together.

Such is the case with the hidden village Pak Sha O (白沙澳). Peacefully nestled in the bountiful and verdant hills of the Sai Kung Country Park under the watchful gaze of Mount Hallowes (柦柴山), the sleepy village is hidden from most eyes. Many visitors to the park head on down for a mooch upon the soft sandy beaches of Hoi Ha (海下), grab a quick ice cream and whiz back to fishy fleshpots of Sai Kung without even knowing they have passed an architectural jewel modestly nestling within an exquisite natural setting. They will not have heard the cacophony of frogs and crickets in the marshy fields, nor seen the abundance of butterflies in the flower gardens, the old tiled roofs, the watchtower and the reinforced wooden-barred courtyard door –for keeping bandits and pirates at bay!

It's not that Pak Sha O is a grand palace of the last Emperors or a cascading monumental Machu-Picchu citadel – there isn't a convenient shop to buy "I ♥ PSO" t-shirts or cups of speciality tea and the nearest public toilet is half-a mile away from the village beside the Hoi Ha Road. Instead, this village is a small, vulnerable and fragile remnant of a past era of simple, somewhat-unassuming Hakka folk that literally forged their lives from the environment. Its unambitious beauty really does mean for some, 'once bitten, forever smitten'!

For centuries the villagers of Pak Sha O deftly farmed their rice from a myriad of tiny fields -some the size of a large room- and ensured that their stream water irrigation was in good working order from year to year. They fished where they could and at low tide would gather at the rocky bays of the peninsula to collect shellfish and the fruits of the sea, returning to the village to feast on their catches.

Each festival was properly celebrated and civic duties undertaken with propriety, if not pride. Certainly the rich decorative motifs that adorn the buildings are symptomatic of residents that held themselves in check by form and convention. They were good Hakka people.

Round about them the rest of the world moved on so that by the latter quarter of the 20th century the tensions brought about by the conflicting aspirations and opportunities for many Hong Kong villagers were simply too much for their communities. The beginning of Timothy Mo's 1982 novel, Sour Sweet, encapsulates the dilemma of those times: the happy rural village life had become unsustainable and most of the younger people simply had to move away either elsewhere in Hong Kong or to cities in Europe and North America. Year-by-year, the older people also moved out to inhabit urban rest homes or died in-situ to be ceremonially buried up in the hills, sometimes in magnificent horseshoe-shaped graves. Those empty properties that they looked down upon eventually fell apart, collapsed and were buried under the ever-encroaching forest: lifeless and rotting midden mounds are all too often the sum total of the work of generations.

Some villages, however, have had a new life breathed into them by quite a different set heading in the opposite direction, purposefully removing themselves from the stress of the city to live a quieter life closer to nature. These settlers are predominantly westerners who have sought, along with creature comforts and air-conditioning, to incorporate their values into their revitalized abodes. For them the old has an intrinsic beauty, its value matched with age. For them simplicity has clarity and unecessary re-development remains unwelcome: what has simply been left by others is the first and best reason to live 'miles from anywhere' and has stirred in them a need for sympathetic (read expensive) maintenance and preservation of those unique remnants of the past.

It would be naive to suggest that the new tenants' motives are entirely selfless, but they would be in keeping with similar such projects undertaken in remote French or Italian villages -it's just what some westerners do! The fate, however, of other vulnerable and beautiful old Hong Kong buildings springs to mind, such a the King Yin Lei building on Stubbs Road (above) where demolition was reprieved in the nick of time by government intervention only after the press expressed outrage.

 
Pak Sha O today is under immanent threat – the village is set to be purchased piece-meal, evacuated, razed to the ground so that in its place will be new luxury developments. This overall aim, of course, has not been explicitly admitted by the purchaser, Lau Ming-shum of Xinhua Bookstore Xiang Jian Group, the company that has been buying up these recently un-zoned plots. It has put in an application to build two new houses in the village. If they get final approval it means the future of this astonishing village as it stands is uncertain.

The local and international press have investigated further (we attended the recent press briefing by Friends of Sai Kung that explained the plight of village and its environment), but so far the Hong Kong government remains unmoved or unable to move –the village enclave is technically not part of the Sai Kung Country Park and the new landowner is within his rights to do whatever he likes to his land, even if that means irrevocably destroying it! It therefore seems likely more damage will probably be done and bewailed before the security of the village, the residents and the surrounding wildlife can be guaranteed through government action.

To emphasize what has already been reported above, a third of all Hong Kong species are found in the valley; "75 species of butterflies, 11 types of freshwater fish, 38 types of birds, eight species of amphibians and 23 types of insects". One can imagine the devastating impact if the woodland was 'improved' into terraces of tarmac car spaces and concrete box dwellings. It's a story familiar to many in Hong Kong's environmentally-empoverished New Territories villages.

So, what's to do? Plenty – please feel free to share comments on this blog or copy this blog's link or links within. Drop a quick email to the reporters (through the highlighted links above) and let them know you read their stories. Better still, write to the Town Planning Board to remind them of their responsibilities to preserve one of Hong Kong's best-kept Hakka villages. Write an email to the Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department's Sai Kung Country Park office to inform them of your interest in this matter. Ask the Antiquities and Monuments Office Heritage Conservation office what they are going to do about Pak Sha O.

Please don't let this beautiful and remote village disappear because it's too much bother to defend. It could be your next romantic association!

(Nearly-) Silent Gloating

It's a beautiful morning.

So it's the right time for a walk.

It's good to be alive. It's good to be free.

The air is clear and there's no-one about.

Listening to podcasts on Freedom and the Romantic Movement. Staring at the view of Long Harbour...

...and being able take time to be with the locals.

Gloating was never so wholesome or more pleasurable.

The Insect Clause (Bugs and Biophobes)

I met a charming lady at a party the other day: we talked about where we lived. She extolled the virtues of living close to the city with access to amenites and services. I extolled the virtues of the life to be had out in the sticks with all the flowers and trees and that... Her face changed and she exclaimed how living in the Sai Kung Country Park would be intolerable. To justify her perspective she invoked the 'Insect Clause'.

I've come across the Insect Clause many times. It is a statement stoked with fear and usually accompanied by misunderstanding and goes along the lines of, 'Oh there are simply too many bugs and other things that bite: life would be intolerable!' But this ain't necessarily so. Allow me to explain.

In both the tropics (Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Southern India, Northern Australia, Thailand and Singapore) and sub-tropics (Northern India, Southern United States, Hong Kong and southern China) the lushious greenery, at least for part of the year, is due to something called rain –in fact, round some parts 'rain' may even constitute a season. This wonderful and varied plant growth then becomes the feed-stuff of all creatures great (cows, monkeys and wild boar) and small (the birds and bugs). Some of these smaller organisms are obviously beautiful –humming birds, for example, feed off flower nectar, as do butterflies who also go for fruit, dung and mud!

Other herbivorous insects, such as cicadas with their massive buggy eyes, may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I love them. Living for years undergound sucking on root sap, they only emerge, make lots of very loud cicadery noises and then mate –once! There are about 2500 species of cicada alone, so they must be quite successful in this... behaviour.

Insects have been around on the planet for quite a long time and have notched up a few able predators. These adept specialists have generally been able to keep the numbers of the more annoying insects down. Geckos should be welcomed as they race about the ceilings taking errant mosquitoes. Amongst the most common of the insectivorous birds here are the lovely Red-whiskered Bulbuls. There are so many of these pretty birds around, they clear up pretty much any insect that comes their way. (They themselves are also a handy lunch for many of the larger predators.)

Other more obvious insectivores are the arachnids –the spiders! Whilst there are plenty of them in the trees, their scary presence belies their role as the good guys. I'm sure that if you have lived in these parts, either in the city or countryside, you have at one time been caught under prepared to meet the huntsman spider: but if it's in your house then it's hunting only one thing –cockroaches!  The large yellowy-spotted Woodland Spider that builds spectacular large orb webs, hence their more common name of the Golden Orb-web Spider (Nephila Pilipes, to be precise). They're clearly successful insectivores round these parts and grow into truly large, beautiful creatures but they also tire easily, so if they are in your path, please don't knock them about too much.

Insects themselves are great predators. One only has to think of a praying matis, or a dragonfly to get the picture. In fact, many dragonflies like the slighty fuzzy Russet Percher below) are adept at catching the much-hated mosquitoes on the wing –they are, in fact, at their most active during high humidity which is when their prey also choose to emerge.

The best insect insectivores are, however, wasps and hornets. These are the only things I am wary of, having come a cropper from an encounter with Yellow Paper Wasps building a nest on our rooftop. They put any European wasp in the shade: the venom felt like I had been stabbed with a red hot stiletto blade! Someone obviously loves them, however, as I recently came across a wonderful Youtube channel of a local chap who has bothered to take the time to get to know these amazing insects and their cousins the hornets. I'm usually far too scared to approach these stripey devils because, as my daughter painfully found out on a walk last summer, the only time it is clear whether these animals are on the hunt, have found prey or are defending a food supply is when they've attacked you! And that really hurts. So, I suppose there is a case for invoking the Insect Clause on this occasion, but one seldom meets these hunters because they spend most of their time clearing out bees nests. And they were so successful last year, there are no bees to be found in the park at all this summer.

One cannot not forget the larger predators; boar, civet cats, shrews and monkeys –especially during termite swarming season. Most bats specialise in catching and eating insects and have even modified their noses to echo-locate whilst on the wing. One of the most pleasant early evening spectacles to be witnessed from our balconies here in the park, glass of wine in had, of course, are our lovely bats emerging from their roosts under our roof tiles in order to go a-hunting. Go get 'em, chaps!

Do we get bitten by mosquitoes out here? Sometimes. Are we bothered by other things like wasps? No, not really, but we are aware of them from time-to-time. If anything, barring the night-time scuttling of the cockroach across the kitchen floor, our interaction with insects is generally pleasant, if not delightful. I really don't know which of these wonderful creatures we will meet on my journeys in the park. Actually, the Insect Clause is probably one of the main reasons we live out here in the sticks with all the flowers and trees and that…

Things I've seen...

I thought I'd show some of the wonderful things of the park. So, without too much preamble, here are a few of the recent additions within the Sai Kung Country Park that astonish me. At the risk of over-egging the park pudding, I can honestly say that each day I see something new and on each occasion I am filled with a sense of genuine wonder. They're nearly all (sometimes shakily) taken with my iPhone 4.

Red leaves and snail-marks

A great big Mormon Caterpillar trying to hide his snakey head outside out house

Cape Jasmine growing by the stream

Amanita Muscaria boldly standing in the leaf litter

The beautiful Mountain Tallow about to flower

An amazing lost caterpillar rescued from the road to Wong Shek

The fluffy fireworks that are Scolopia flowers

Another rescued beetle -lovely, mustardy-yellow little chap

The massive flowers of the riverside Hainan Galangal

Taiwan Acacia grows everywhere round these here parts

Leaf-nosed Bats resting up in an abandoned house at To Kwa Peng

Flowering Sumac (is a-comin' in?)

Curl Grub beetle larva -quite a few of these this time of year

Cheeky little red fungus popping up beside the paths

It's the time for the first wave of Spotted Black Cicadas

You don't have to look far to find the ubiquitous Camellia

Little Red Bug

Squirty Sea Sponge

Tree fungus

Easter Hols and Lethal Booze

'Tis but one day away until the school holidays -yippee!!

We of the chalk-dusted teaching profession, like everyone else, cannot help but count down the days -the release of tension on the last day of term is clearly palpable! Bye-bye kids (at least for two weeks).

As a kid, the Easter holidays was always a bit of a strange fruit -obviously a welcome relief from teachers, times-tables and sums, but it always seemed a 'reasonless' holiday. Yes, we'd all feel sad when listening to the story of 'pore Geesis hoo died... nailded on the cros... four are sins...' but I could never quite work out the necessity of these two weeks off school.

I mean, the summer holidays were made for you to go away to Margate, Weston-super-Mare or Hastings, and Christmas holidays were so that you had enough time to play with your toys. Easter, however, remained a bit of a mystery. It was always too muddy in the garden to do an  easter egg hunt, so was it made for us to shed tears watching Robert Powell playing a poor, suffering Jesus of Nazareth? Was it for scoffing Easter eggs or roast legs of lamb? Was it for going to church -a whole holiday so we could go to church even more? Blimey -a grim prospect! I'd rather be back at school...

Whatever the real reason, we blissfully entertained two fun-filled weeks with the Six Million Dollar Man without early get-ups, much as we as adults do now. Given the chance, I'd like to have the option of remaining in bed a few more hours. In truth, even if I have the option to stay in bed I rarely do so beyond 6.30, unless a taxing evening's enjoyment preceded and therefore precludes it. I think you call that ageing.

Easter remains a sweet time of year, especially here in Hong Kong. By now many of the trees have flowered and even a short walk will fill the nose with a blend of really delicate perfumes. I simply adore it!

Back in the UK it was about this time each year I used to make Beech Leaf Noyau -an astonishingly strong alcoholic concoction from the pages of Richard Mabey's excellent Food for Free. This old French recipe is so easy:

• Pick very young beech leaves (so young that they are practically transparent)
• Place in sweety jar with a lot of good gin
• Steep for a few weekx (three is best, or untiil  it turns a luvley green)
• Strainnn off the gin
• Boill sugar in water to make a sryrup
• Add a glash (or two) of brnady
• Bottle -if theresss abny of the sthuff lefft

S'lufffffly!!

Lovely Camellias, Lovely Tea

 

If you go down to the woods today you're sure of bumping into some camellia sinensis. This is the famous ancient chinese tea bush from which all kinds of lovely chinesey tea is made. There are, of course, a myriad of naturally-occuring camellias in Hong Kong and we even have our very own purply-flowered hongkongensis varietal, but I've yet to spot it here.

I suppose I ought now to blog on about tea and all its marvellous benefits, the growing and oxidation and extraction procedures that enable an unpromising 'erb to discolour perfectly good hot water with the addition of copious bitteryness, but I'll spare you. That is, after all, why Wikipedia is so popular, but you don't need all that: just get walking -it's out there in thum thar hills.

The best tea ever to pass my lips was Sri Lankan. It was more than 10 years ago and I can't remember the name of the plantation, but the tasting occurred using freshly fermented black tea, pure mountain water and no milk -absolute stunning bliss! It needed nowt else (sugar/lemon/milk) and I swore that if I could have that every day I'd need little else in life. Well, It was a nice thought...

Hong Kong has its fair share of tea vendors. If you're passing through, then pop in to one of these venerable institutions for a quick cuppa, but don't expect anything more than a mere sip of the stuff.

If you like your tea strong -and I mean STRONG- then you need to visit your local dai pai dong (that's a local café to you, 'squire) and ask for Hong Kong-style milk tea: it'll cement a few millimetres of plaquey stain onto your teeth enamel and you'll be awake for days (it will also take that long to get the evaporated milky flavour out of your mouth).

The Hong Kong Tea Museum (Museum of Tea Ware) is actually more interesting than it sounds. Those stuck for a half-hour or so or who cannot bear being inside Pacific Place a moment longer may pop up the escalators into Hong Kong park where the delicate late regency Flagstaff House awaits.

Tea used to be grown all over Hong Kong and abandoned tea terraces can be found on some of the higher mountainsides. It is, apparently, still grown on Lantau Island. Just down the road from the Big Buddha is a little shack called the Tea Garden Restaurant where it is served to those wot know. Strange things happen when you drink the brew, as this YouTube link demonstrates, but if you like it enough you may then pick up a packet of the local variety and then rub the strangest tea urn in the world.

All this talk of tea has made me need a cuppa.

The Most Dangerous Animal in all Hong Kong

Nearly home after another successful performance with the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir, Steve slammed on the brakes: "Did you see the size of that snake?" We reversed back up the road to see a 2.5-3 metre python (perhaps a juvenile?) very slowly inch its way off the tarmac of the Pak Tam Road and into the undergrowth. This unhurried beast exuded strength I could sense even within the safety of Steve's Toyota Prius. Venomous it may not be, but a mean and muscley snake is best avoided, especially at night. Last week one took down a calf in our village! So a python must be the most dangerous animal in Hong Kong, surely?

Actually, the answer to this question is not immediately obvious. Consider the 'dangerous fauna' that inhabit the territory: mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians, insects and spiders -at least all of those that are not extinct like the poor pussy above.

Mammals -these are, of course, our lovely furry cousins. Other than pets, cows seem to be the most obvious of this classification, but the cows in Hong Kong must be amongst the smallest, cuddliest and most docile in the world. When walking elsewhere through a field of Friesians it has often felt prudent to have the gate in mind -they've been known to take sudden bovine umbridge with walker, dog and even the farmer: being trampled by half-ton Bessies, Daisies and Buttercups might really mess up your day!

These bovine beasts have bigger cousins on Lantau and Yuen Long -bubalus bubalus the Water Buffalo. Having been used well by farmers in these here parts for generations, their spectacularly impressive horns demonstrate a serious-and-slow attitude to life. You're unlikely to get on the wrong side of these beasts unless you stupidly tease them -they're too busy wallowing in the mud that protects them from biting insects.

In addition, the other mammalian potentials for most dangerous beasts are wild boar, porcupines, foxes and macaques. I've written about charging boars elsewhere, but they are mostly harmless unless piglets are around. And if they charge it's likely you'll be up a tree before you know it -that self-preservational instinct is a wonderful thing! The Memsahib was once doing the late-night taxi run with the girls in the back and one massive boar charged the Mini denting the driver's door. The massive porcine somersaulted madly in the air and furiously ran off into the dark. It's unlikely he was attacking: boar are impatient pedestrians and are a bit sharpish when crossing roads - they don't even wait for the green man/pig/boar...

Lovely waddly porcupines' musky pointy spines are their most obvious rattly feature and you often find them discarded on tracks through the undergrowth. They only appear late at night (unless there's a problem) and silently pass through villages. It's not uncommon to see the village dogs sporting a mass of protruding spines on their faces and looking a bit sorry for themselves, so they're definitely more dangerous to unthinking woofy canines than to us.

Rhesus macaques are sometimes a bit skittish and will only approach us if we are obviously carrying easily-obtainable food. They can obviously identify lady humans carrying shopping, but, apart from our friend Sean, I've yet to hear of simians going for anyone of the male persuasion. When we lived in Tai Wai one dominant bushy male with extra-huge cahones came swaggering in from the balcony, took one dismissive look at me and proceeded to leisurely scan the kitchen for some free human food. Despite my defiantly picking up some sort of kitchen appliance and menacing waving it at him he was fearless against my angriest of protestations and simply swung around to nonchalantly return to his jungle -the cheek! The cahones! In view of his sizable incisors, I'm not sure I'd want to repeat Man vs Monkey any time soon, but he was clearly not that life-threatening.

Although they are suppose to exist here, I've yet to see a fox (apart from the dead kind draped on stupid women).

And I think it's fair to say that marine mammals (otters, crab-eating mongooses and pink dolphins) also pose no threat.

Reptiles a-plenty fill Hong Kong's wild places. Some of the turtles, such as the Mud Turtle, are aggressive and might give you a really painful nip or worse, but you really have to be stupid to put your fingers or toes anywhere near one. It's also unlikely you'll ever bump into one of these protected beasts in the countryside -indeed, you're more likely to encounter it, or one of it's poor cousins like the endangered Box Turtle, in a 'healthy' soup somewhere dodgy. 

Snakes are the most likely wild reptile with which you might have difficulty (and only if you live near their food source). Let's think about this for a minute; snakes hunt fairly basic animals such as frogs, invertebrates, birds and small mammals. It's likely only the latter (rats and mice) will be near your home because they are taking advantage of your badly-discarded food waste. In other words, no matter how much you might not want to meet a serpent, you are the most likely indirect cause of your own snakey-humany interaction. They really don't like humans, they cannot hear us, may not be able to see us coming unless they sense our elephantine footsteps and generally give us good warning of their location by hissing in defence (here's a lovely BBC page explaining it further). In general, they have a lot more to fear from us than the other way round. There are quite a few venomous snakes in Hong Kong, but it'll be a rare sight when a snake crosses your paths (I see but a handful each year) and if you do spot something Slitherin-like skeeting across your toes then it's likely you'll only know about it when the last of it's back end has disappeared off into a hidey-hole.

Cobras make a habit of appearing near houses, but they're looking for vermin. In effect, they're clearing up disease-spreading animals for us and should be welcomed. Unfortunately, cobras are also very defensive and will attack anything -I saw one vigorously attacking a dustpan (see above)! In our time living in the country park we have lost three cats, cobras being the most likely cause. Pythons only appear to be really dangerous to dogs caught off-guard: a woman in the nearby village lost her dog to a python and in a later case the python was beaten off.

Sometimes snakes make their way into the house. If they're really small we put a towel over them, quickly pick them up and take them back outside. If they're a bit too big for that, then we call the police and then Dave the Snake. Dave, who lives nearby in the village of Pak Sha O, humanely captures and releases snakes back into the wild. If the police are called, it's likely they'll dispose of snakes in two ways -stamping them to death or putting them in a bag to be added at a later date to the Chief Inspector's soup. A recently caught Hong Kong python (an internationally protected species, ya know) that was due to be released somewhere safe in China ended up dead -quelle suprise!

Many sea snakes are poisonous, but are actually quite sweetly inquisitive with divers they meet. They will only strike if really threatened: why would anyone want to hurt them?

You can't discuss dangerous fish without mentioning sharks. Hong Kong has a rich shared history with these piscine predators. Leaving aside ethical issues connected with their slow death after de-finning, human-shark interaction was perhaps at it's height during the Cultural Revolution. Many poor refugees attempted the swim to freedom from the guarded coasts of Red Guangdong to the freedom of nearby Hong Kong's Ping Chau island only to be unfortunately picked off by these opportunist hunters. More recently, sharks headed to Hong Kong waters for a quick human snack, but in June 1995 three swimmers were taken and this led to the government setting up shark nets at 32 gazetted beaches. Even the stupendous Vic Hislop was employed to remove the territory's waters of Great Whites. Newspaper headlines every now and then warn of sharks being spotted from the air, but they're usually small specimens that are completely lost: they don't stay long in Hong Kong's fish-less waters. The most common species are Black-tip Reef, Sandbar and Tiger Sharks and occasionally the odd Great White will turn up. Unfortunately, the last large shark spotted in Hong Kong waters was a juvenile Whale Shark netted by some fisherman in Aberdeen. Not willing to part with their catch for less than $20,000 or so, the poor creature languished in their care until a well-intentioned local hawker paid for its release. It quickly died thereafter -which is, one ponders, what might be a suitable resolution for this sort of behaviour.

Of all amphibians only the Asian Common Toad has poison glands on the side of the head and I fail to see how you could possibly come into serious contact with what's inside them.

There are actually very few insects, invertebrates and spiders that are dangerous and the ones that are may not be immediately obvious. Centipedes are aggressive buggers that can give you a nasty nip with their toxic fangs and if things went really badly you might have to take a trip to hospital. Some have really long legs (illustrated), but these look more scary than they really are. Millipedes may not bite, but their bodies exude acidic toxins so keep well away from them.

Everyone thinks spiders here in Hong Kong must be poisonous: after all, spiders use venom, have big fangs, jump on their innocent prey caught in their foul webs and then suck the life out of them -eww! Well, we have three quite large species with innocuous-sounding names which folks may happen across from time to time and I don't think they're the hideous monsters of popular imagination (unless you're a fly). Indeed, they do a lot of good for us.

1. The Large House/Huntsman Spider is the one you find scuttling across your walls late at night and they hunt cockroaches and may take geckos. They will bite, but wouldn't you if someone was chasing you with a broom? My advice is to leave them be: once they've got rid of your roaches they'll either move on or starve.

2. The Large Woodland/Golden Orb Spider may have a legspan of up to 15cm and will occupy a lovely big orb web somewhere where light and shade are mixed. It's an occupational hazard to walk into a web if you go traipsing through the woods anywhere in Hong Kong. Look scary, but I love 'em! Here are more pics.

3. The Banded or Yellow Argiope Spider is also a biggy and probably does not cohabit well with the Orb. They make amazingly fine orb webs with a large patterned silk X or zig-zag. Beautiful to see.

I could have included things such as cockroaches and rats for their contaminating qualities, but we seem to be able to cope with these fairly well these days. I've also evaded discussing stinging jellyfish and other marine animals because they are usually out of our way in deep sea waters. Perhaps the second most dangerous animals in all Hong Kong could be mosquitoes. They continue to spread very serious diseases that kill more people than all the other animals combined (Malaria, Dengue Fever, Japanese Encephalitis) and seem impossible to eradicate.

Of all the animals in Hong Kong, there is really only one contender for the 'most dangerous in all Hong Kong' accolade. This fearsome animal is so unbelievably dangerous that nearly all other animals fear it and run away as fast as they can for this animal will kill or consume pretty much anything it comes across, either by design or accident. This animal also kills it's own kind. This animal is, of course, humankind.

Go and find some mushrooms

It's enjoyable to walk around with your head held high, admiring the clear blue skies, taking in the sun, listening to our avian friends, glimpsing the odd fluttering butterfly. Another quieter, almost hidden world lies beneath our feet. We sometimes catch sight of this world after rain when the mushrooms emerge.

These 'fruiting bodies' we know as mushrooms, although technically a mushroom is only the spore-bearing bit that we usually see and pick. The correct term 'fungi' is a fairly drab and unappealing term and has all sorts of negative associations with poisoning and infections. Mushrooms, however, are the astonishing clear-up merchants of the world. Life without their work breaking up dead plant material would be a bit more messy and certainly less interesting. Not only a source of food, there is an argument that human consciousness and imagination only took on full development way back 100,000 years ago thanks to the shamanic use of psilosybe (magic mushrooms) and that this paved the way for the development of religions and philosophical enquiry! To really get this you need to read some Timothy Leary or even better Terence McKenna.

Some of these mushrooms are obvious to us. We pick them all the time (at the supermarkets) but, unless through travel or gourmandising we are familiar with an extended menu of wild mushrooms picked in forests all over the world, our appreciation of their delights are a bit uniform.

In Hong Kong we are fortunate to see on a menu an extended range of oyster mushrooms, shiitake, matsutake, cloud ear (known in Europe as Jew's Ear) and a whole host of other delights and find some of them dried in shops all over town. Most of these are commercially grown.

Out in the wilds of Hong Kong there are a whole host of other species, some easily identifiable, others mysterious and alluring. You'll have to go a long way to find a book on identification, even further for a field guide. This is a pity because our environment is a rich one, is through reforestation getting richer and, if  human encroachment is kept under control, is likely to continue to do so day by day. You can find mushrooms out there all year round.

The best time to see such things in the wild is immediately after rain -the heavier the better. The air is alive with fungal scents, the telltale indication that decay is all around us. Indeed, trees are infected with dormant spores whilst alive. These do the plants no harm and may even benefit by protecting the plant from some invasive and predatory organisms.

My first exciting foray into picking, identifying and eating these wild things occured when reading the section on mushrooms in Richard Maybe's Food for Free back in the 1980s. At that time we were living in Bolton with Brenda's mum and took the dogs for walks in the Moses Gate Country Park, a disused quarry turned good through a bit of reforestation, neglect and good management. Plunging through the alder, birch and hazel undergrowth, mushrooms were everywhere. I would take them home and lay them out on the dining room table until I could properly identify them using Roger Phillips' excellent Dorling Kindersley book, Mushrooms (which is about as good as it gets as a field guide). Unfortunately, I would occasionally leave them out overnight and the spores would seep through the newspaper and permeate (and hideously stain) the table much to my mother-in-law's anger. Oh dear. Such is a passion for mushrooms.

I still adore finding mushrooms. I left my mycology books back in the UK before we moved to HK thinking the species would not be the same. What a dummy! Thank goodness for on-line guides. They may not be as good as a portable as a good illustrated paperback, but they do the trick (sometimes). As for the pictures here, many of them a probably mislabelled but are as close as I could get them.

Mycologists of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your fruiting bodies.

Flowers in the Park

It's a lovely warm Saturday morning , the twirds are bittering and the shun is sining so the obvious thing to do is get out there and exercise those legs.  Thus a little doggy-led tramp took us from home to the gate at Pak Tam Chung. Of course, it didn't start off like that. Half-way there (at the bus stop at Pak Tam Au) the Memsahib turns to me and complains that we've (meaning "I've") already changed the destination of the walk three times. Hmmm: she might just have a point...

Getting over the hump

Between the paradise that is Ko Tong Ha Yeung and the-rest-of-the-world where ye mortals dwell is the big ole hill crowned with municipal toilets that perhaps has the Best Views in all of Hong Kong (down Long Harbour to Tap Mun Island and China in the distance). This is the point where the Maclehose Trail #2 ends and #3 begins the awful stepped ascent of Ngai She Shek Shan which ends at the peak of Ngam Tau Shan. Most people get off the bus and either turn left or right here, but if you go a little way down the hill back in the direction of Sai Kung a hidden gem of a path opens up on your left. One of my favourite walks, this shady track will take you on its winding course back to Pak Tam Chung away from the road and clear from all man-made noise. 

Did you know there were over 200 varieties of bauhinia?

Descending the rocky path some beautiful vistas open up: deep green valleys full of nothing but cicada-filled trees, darkened bamboo glades that conceal babbling brooks, broken-limbed red pines strutting out onto exposed ridges. It caused the Memsahib to remark,

"This could be anywhere: Spain -anywhere in the world!"

Observe This!

On the right can be spotted the white round dome of the Lady Maclehose Holiday Village iObservatory (did you even know there was one?). On a good night I reckon that from here I could get a good view of the rings around Uranus.

Just before Pak Tam Chung is the river crossing to Sheung Yiu (folk museum) village. It's a great little walk which begins and ends besides a café-cum-dai pai dong right next to the Wong Fuk Hing bridge where none other than Bruce Lee fought in Unicorn Fist!

This is one of my favourite spots in the world. The old guy that runs this place doesn't speak a word of English, but makes sure the beers are served cold, in frozen metal mugs and that as you sit taking in an evening by the river the Tsingtao is left with you in ice containers -blocks of ice with an aperture for the chilly bottle. Bliss!

Jumping Squid

Finally, at Pak Tam Chung we walk through the barrier and get a green taxi home. A hot slathery Squiddly decides now's the time to sit with the slightly nervous taxi driver and attempts a clamber over the front seat leaving dirty paw prints everywhere. Good doggy!

Waking up with some birds and saying goodbye to Mrs Smith

It may have escaped your attention that we’re now firmly in a Hong Kong spring. For this you can be forgiven because this season is somtimes a bit of a tricky one here -it sometimes disappears altogether. A few years ago (2006, I think), we went from a freezing cold January to a humid and hot mid-February and that was pretty much it until the end of November. There are, however, certain features about a Hong Kong spring that, as long as the weather is benign, make it one of the nicest times of year.

For a start, the trees begin their new growth. Some trees continuously grow throughout the year, but the Country Park between February and April can be a riot of verdancy and that means the colour of the hills changes from a darker to lighter energetic green –some leaves may also be initially yellowish or purple.

Many a-tree is in flower charging the air with poetic scents, some light, some the consistency of heavy syrupy, a change from winter’s more earthy moulds. It's the time for Lantana flowers (a bit of a weed here, but very pretty and one which monkeys and dogs -and even people- love eating). This new tree growth, of course, brings with it many of the insects, which of course means dinner for the birds who can then start building nests, laying eggs and defending territory –and that’s the awsome vocal display you can hear each morning right now. The Hong Kong dawn chorus is as good as that anywhere, but the variety of birds, and by implication their songs, gives the Hong Kong forests that added audible life that can, at times, be almost deafening.

If you live in Hong Kong you will undoubtedly have heard the Asian Koel, not so much with the dawn chorus but the entire previous night giving its repetitive "ko-el" sound, especially when it's really, really quiet. I'm surprised this fairly large blue-black-brown bird is not extinct because of the infuriating hours lost to human sleep.

Another pre-dawn 'favourite' is the Common Hawk-Cuckoo, the damned "brain-fever" bird. This one continues all-night... and all-bloody-day!

Then, after your night's disturbed sleep, it's time for all the little birdies to give it a go. Hong Kong has a pretty good share of small avians that stay all year, such as the Crested Bulbul which has a little punk-like crest, as it's name suggests,  red cheeks and vent. It's warbly song is a little repetitive, but loud enough to get you out of bed.

There are Chinese Bush Warblers, tiny, tiny birds that sing a refreshing little phrase, Magpie-Robbins, Black-faced Laughing Thrushes, the delightfully named Hwameis and Black-Necked Starlings -which are pretty much ubiquitous in urban areas.

But along with the twitters, there are an abundance of insects to welcome the day. Crickets and grasshoppers are abundant and keep the place buzzing 24-7 (but are strangely silent below 55° Farenheit -and therefore classify as good temperature indicators).  The sound of spring is properly announced best by the cicadas. Many find them akin to ugly, bug-eyed monsters, but I love them. Their first four-years of their life cycle are spent underground, emerge, mate and then die. Their symbolic value in traditional Chinese thought was obvious and replica jade cicadas were placed in the mouth of the deceased, before burial in hopes of resurrection.

Generally,  apart from the noisy Gunther's Frogs, Paddy Frogs and Asiatic Painted Frog (the Chubby Frog) that fill each stream and culvert -the call of which is like a poor stranded cow- only the lovely little Bowring's Geckos makes the occasional loud tapping noise as it calls out day or night.

And then I have yet to mention the larger animals that surround us here -bellowing cows (who sound more like they have poor indigestion rather than the polite moo-ing you may be used to), screaming tree-top macaques, rampaging boar and the odd porcupine (although I have yet to hear anything from the last of these as they silently waddle throught the villages in the dead of night).

*

And finally, to Mrs Smith, or more precisely, to Elisabeth Sladen who recently died. I think my first desire for a female was fostered upon the pretty Doctor Who assistant ably shouting "DOCTOR!?" at the designated end-of-episode cliff-hanger. A victim to cancer, she will be rememebered, at least by me, as the best assistant, Sarah Jane Smith, but only because she was the first one I fancied! Here she is doing her best being hypnotized-by-evil-contraption and again meeting the great John Pertwee.