Hakka Village

So tonight, the fellow Fellows and I ventured out to Sai Kung Country Park, one of the more remote and green-tastic area of Hong Kong, for a Yale Club of Hong Kong barbeque. The drive out was lovely, as Dr. Man took us to one of the piers by the beach to get a good view of the water and we stopped by the Visitors Centre, which features an entire wall of plastic turtles. We finally joined about 30 other people at the home of a Yale alumnus who lives in a Hakka village, which are these great, tiny little villages that used to subsist on farming - in fact, on the 10 minute trek to his house, we passed by an old, abandoned rice patty. We also passed a huge, gigantic spider that was about the size of my head.

Wall of turtles

As usual, we got to meet a fun array of people at the event, and the alum's wife took us on a tour of the village, which included a smattering of old houses, an old temple, an old cistern, etc. It was cozily rustic, and I actually felt quite at peace there. However... that all changed when out tour guide told us that critters of all shapes and sizes often find their way up uncomfortably close to the houses. Now, we had already seen several cows walking around the park, just chillin, so that was not unexpected. But apparently it doesn't stop with cows - they also have lots of fun spiders, wild boars, and of course my favorite, snakes. Oh, but not just any snakes, no - freaking CHINESE COBRA SNAKES. Apparently there is also a pink cobra snake? Yes, there is, and this lady once had a 10-ft long cobra in her front yard. HO-LY-HELL. So you can imagine how much fun the trek back to the car was after that, especially since it had already gotten dark, and I could just hear the evil army of giant cobra snakes plotting my imminent demise just off the concrete path. I don't think I breathed the entire time.

So will I go back to Sai Kung, now that I know that a populace of monster cobras awaits me there? A few people reading this know how I froze when we saw a small snake in the Everglades - if I saw a 10-ft Chinese cobra in front of me, it would definitely have the Medusa effect. Yet somehow, I feel like I must swallow this fear, and not let my phobias get the best of me. I shouldn't miss out on one of the most beautiful areas of Hong Kong just because *gulp* there are huge, giant, poisonous snakes who want nothing more than to suck out my soul living there... right? Maybe I just need to grow up, face my fears, and move on to enjoy the beautiful parts of life... but I might be enjoying these beautiful parts of life with a machete in hand.

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the school year! I'm working on quite a long-winded post about all the craziness and loveliness of teaching, so as soon as I get a break from lesson planning and paper-grading, I'll try and get that to you. In the meantime, have a wonderful week!

xoxo

Jenny