I passed by the old temple in Kowloon city which sits there as it has been doing for decades. I remember being confused because it uses the words “上帝”, which many Chinese Christians use to refer to the Christian God, while 廟 usually refers to a temple in the Chinese tradition. It turned out that it refers to one of the Chinese god (北極玄天上帝, 北帝, 上帝), rather than the Christian God. It does not care much about the typhoon, apparently.
At Wong Tai Sin (黃大仙下邨), a bunch of seniors sat in the park, as usual. They also do not seem to be worried about the typhoon.
Near Diamond Hill, I passed through a peaceful cluster of schools around a shared sports ground, where several kids were giggling something. Only 100 meters away is the crematorium (鑽石山火葬場). I wonder what kind of ghost stories the students tell each other.
Downhill from the crematorium, at Ngau Chi Wan village (牛池灣鄉), a road side restaurant serving inexpensive dim sum was full.
People there did not seem too worried.
The Ngau Chi Wan market nearby was very crowded. People seemed to be stocking up. Here people are buying even less expensive take-away dim sum.
At the King of Three Mountains Temple (三山國王廟) next to Ping Shek Estate (坪石邨), there were few worshippers. Perhaps they think this is not the right god to protect them against typhoons?
In the evening, when my wife and I went to the supermarket after church service to buy some apples, many racks were completely empty.
A nearby bakery’s welcome mat still said “welcome”, but there were almost nothing to buy.
It is reported that people are buying so much plastic tape to tape up their windows that the price was driven up 10 times at some shops. People seem worried.
As I am typing (on Sunday morning), typhoon signal number 9 is raised. Typhoon Mangkhut is roughly 250 km to our East-South-East, with wind at its centre around 185 kmh. Winds in Hong Kong is up to 100 kmh already. I suppose we should pay attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment