MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES:MORE HONG KONG CRYPTOZOOLOGY - A LONG EARED WILDMAN

The following has appeared on the Hong Kong history site Gwulo in the last day or two. I`m following it up. Flying Snake is now out.

Hello Richard,

Back in the 1950s, the Colony was still wildlife everywhere except the city districts. We didn't need Hollywood to brighten up our storyline.

Once having Dim Sum lunch with my family elders after a storm, we saw a very large snake swimming in the river by Sha Tin's mudland and everyone were excited and amazed to watch from a safe distant, for a quarter hour, as it seemed to struggle against the angry downstream current rushing to the seawater. It must be more that ten feet long.

Once on a hot day ferrying back to Cheung Chau island from Hong Kong, a school of dolphins were chasing the ferry from behind. Those day, the rear of the ferry's upper deck was like a open balcony and soon all the passengers were aroused to enjoy watching the happy chasers. In minutes the dolphins passed us on the left and made lots of noise and splashings along the course. They surely won the race and screamed wild in victory!!

But the most famous or notorious events were the sighting of South China Tigers in the New Territories. They were being spotted on various parts of the New Territories causing nerveous incidents for not only the Chinese and the British but also the Japanese in WWII. Few were captured or shot dead or unmercifully slaughtered for tasty reason or trophy of selfish glory, near  Kowloon's city outskirt by the Shing Moon Reservoir area or remote hillside forests in Tai Po, Yuen Long or Fan Ling ...etc  area. Yet most of them left the New Territories without a trace, holding the population in fear for long while.

We liked to read the news updates when the Colony's safety was shaken really hard by some lost-minded beasts.

As to jackals, I think on the Lantau island's terrains, folks hunted on a kind of popular small wild dog known as Wong Gann (means Yellow little Jackal). Occasionally the poor unlucky animals were being entrapped and were brought to the street market for the highest bidder as a choicy rarity meat. 

There was also an unexplained sighting of a strange long-eared wild man jointly acknowledged by the children of the CLCY village. In our adulthood, some of us did talk about our own sightings on the same subject as a real  bizaare experience. Will report mine's later.

Real funny!

Tung