Squatting at a makeshift shrine with joss sticks burning beside her, Granny Leung starts bashing a manlike paper cutout with a pair of sandals.
“I beat you little people, I’m sending you away!” chants the 76-year-old woman, one of the last practitioners in Hong Kong of the ancient Chinese ritual of da siu yan (打小人), or “beating the little people.”
Granny Leung performs her mysterious incantations in the bustling shopping district of Causeway Bay. And business is booming.
For as little as HK$50 (US$6), Leung claims she can curse her customers’ enemies and reverse their bad luck by burning paper offerings and hitting paper figures with shoes.
Believers say the ritual can help to drive away evil spirits in general or a specific nemesis such as a hated neighbor, a business competitor or a love rival.
Ada Mak, a 50-year-old businesswoman, travels from the outskirts of Hong Kong to see Leung every weekend. She believes the ritual can protect her from negative gossip, lawsuits and financial loss.
“I always feel at ease after I see Granny Leung,” Mak says, adding that she usually asks the old woman to curse a general villain rather than a specific target. “If you curse someone specifically, you’re only targeting that certain person. Cursing generally can help you beat whoever is trying to harm you, including those that you might not be aware of, in the whole Asia region.”
“This is better and this is more effective,” Mak explains.
Leung says a steady stream of visitors seek her service every day.
“I have been doing this for the past eight years,” she said on a recent Saturday afternoon, sitting on a plastic stool and burning some paper offerings in a red metal canister.
She is among a small group of elderly women who work near the gloomy “Goose Neck Bridge” in Causeway Bay. The women congregate there because they say evil spirits linger in dark places.
“I just beat the petty person in general for my clients’ peace of mind. I don’t curse or beat someone specifically. If I do that, there will be no end to this cursing and retaliation,” she says.
Leung, who used to collect cardboard for a living, attributes her powers to a “gift” from God.
Half a dozen people line up and wait patiently for hours for Leung’s services. Among them are four Taiwanese tourists, a foreign domestic helper and an eight-year-old girl.
“My daughter complains she has been bullied by her friends in school, she’s very upset,” the girl’s mother, Mandy Wong, says.
“It’s our first time here, she asked me to take her here. She said she’ll feel better after the ritual,” Wong adds, as her bespectacled daughter sits on a stool quietly watching Leung.
“I hope she’s happy after this. There is no harm to take her here if it helps to make her feel better,” the mother says, in between praises for Leung’s feisty beating of the “petty people” — her daughter’s schoolmates.
Each bout takes about 30 minutes, depending on how tough the villains are and how many times Leung needs to beat them until they are gone.
Another stage of the ritual involves feeding pig lard to paper tigers, which represent malignant beings, so they are full and will not bother people.
“I don’t think this is superstition,” says Hong Kong Heritage Museum curator Chau Hing-wah (鄒興華), who reckons the popularity of rituals like da siu yan is growing. “In Western countries, people may choose to go to church. In Hong Kong, they go to da siu yan. It’s just a way of letting go of stress, which is fun and interesting at the same time.”
“It’s not dying, actually it’s getting more popular,” the curator adds.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the