All that talk of Tai O as the "Venice of Hong Kong" - that's bullshit. It's a disservice to Tai O to be referenced in such a simplistic way just 'coz a canal runs through it. Its parallels with Venice are mostly cosmetic, honestly, because I doubt very much that Venice emanates with the heavy redolence of dried fish.
I like dried fish; I love salty things.
But more than the glorious vision of drying more kinds of seafood than I can count on my fingers and toes, what I like most about Tai O is its sense of decay. Everyone and everything has left Tai O, it seems... even the mangroves. Where you'd usually see a jungle-like spread of the life-giving trees, at Tai O there's a measly collection that almost mimics house plants in pitiful clay pots. The houses on stilts look like match sticks precariously leaning against each other here, or perhaps like mahjong tiles standing on their sides as though dominoes on the verge of collapse. Boats are rotting away like a coke addict's gums, and houses are crumbling into a heap of rusty metal, wooden beams and bricks.
I like Tai O; it appeals to my inner ghetto gay boy.
With Affection,
James
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| Tai O is within sight! |
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| One... two... three mangroves! |
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| White clawed, once-armed crablets? |
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