So the Cheung Chau Bun Festival joins the long list of mass events in Hong Kong being cancelled to halt the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. This is ironic, because according to historians, the festival originated out of Taoist rituals to drive off the evil spirits believed responsible for a plague which afflicted the island in the late Ching Dynasty. If these rituals apparently worked a century ago, shouldn't we give them a chance to drive off the current affliction?
Another local institution suspended in the face of the virus is the Mark Six Lottery. For no obvious reason, the date of the next draw on the Jockey Club website has been replaced for weeks now by the ungrammatical message above. If the Jockey Club can still stage horse racing, why not the Mark Six? In these troubling times, we all need to be able to buy a little bit of hope.
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