As Hong Kong prepares to usher in the Year of the Snake, an increasing number of the reptiles are slithering their way into local households, with sales of the uncuddly pet rocketing.
Keeping snakes has become increasingly popular in the densely populated territory in recent years as animal lovers seek out less space-hungry pets. And with the spotlight firmly on the reptile in the lead-up to the Lunar New Year today, sales have surged.
At Reptile Paradise, a store that first opened its doors in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok neighborhood in 1994, dozens of baby snakes, not more than a few weeks old, frantically try to climb their way out of small plastic boxes. As well as turtles and lizards the shop sells milk snakes, corn snakes, king snakes and ball pythons, plus containers of live white mice to feed them.
Photo: AFP
Its director, Vincent Cheung, said snake sales have been rising steadily for several months prior to the arrival of the New Year.
“The increase for the past month and what I expect for the coming month is about 20 percent to 25 percent, compared with the last year,” Cheung said.
He has sold 100 to 150 snakes in the past three months and remembers a similar spike in 2001, the previous Year of the Snake, with 20- and 30-something Hong Kongers the most eager customers.
“When the Year of the Snake comes, they really want to save their money to buy a snake for it. Keeping snakes is very simple compared to keeping other types of reptiles,” Cheung said, adding that clients often learn how to raise and breed them on the Internet.
With real estate at a premium and rentals sky high, snakes appear to fit with the compact high-rise lifestyle of most of the territory’s residents — popular breeds in Hong Kong like the North American corn snake and milk snake only measure 25cm when they are young, growing to around 119.38cm.
However, while popular pet reptiles such as the turtle represent luck, longevity and fortune, the snake has a mixed reputation in Chinese culture.
Although it can signify intelligence and happiness, it is also associated with tragedy — some believe that if a snake is found in the home it means impending disaster for the family concerned, though others feel that such a discovery brings good luck and peace.
In culinary terms it is held up as a delicacy in southern Chinese cuisine as well as a health booster, with thick soup made from snake meat thought to quicken the blood and ward off illness in winter.
In Hong Kong, practicality and a certain cool factor are fueling sales, as well as moneymaking potential.
“Some people think it’s a good idea to impress the girls with snakes and some people want to keep them to make money through breeding,” said Gourry Chan, a director at Mong Kok’s Turtle Park pet store.
Demand has also spiked in his shop in the lead up to New Year, though he criticized those who simply want to get on the Year of the Snake bandwagon.
“There are a number of people who are genuinely interested in keeping snakes — but lately there have been more people coming in, and if they say they are doing it for the Year of the Snake, we discourage them, he said.
“A snake can live up to 20 years and it takes dedication to keep one. Some are sold online when their owners get bored or they die from neglect,” he said.
Animal protection groups also warn against buying a snake on a whim.
“There are many species of snake and all require unique habitats, including the right temperature and humidity to accomplish various physiological and behavioral processes. There are huge commitments behind keeping snakes and the SPCA [Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] does not recommend it to be a suitable household pet,” the organization’s Fiona Woodhouse said.
Bad diet and poor care often leave pet snakes dehydrated and with bone deformities, while keeping them in small containers leaves them stressed and prone to disease.
The reality may also be more gruesome than buyers realize.
“Many snakes require the feeding of live mice and although some can be trained to eat dead food, many can’t,” the SPCA said, adding that it feared that unwanted snakes would end up abandoned.
Chan says he would make sure his customers know the nitty-gritty before snapping up a snake.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema