MUIRHEAD'S MYSTERIES - round-up of strange animal stories from Hong Kong

Hi good people,

It`s been a while since I presented a round-up of progress on  the CFZ`s research into mystery animals in  Hong Kong. These are stories for the  Mystery Animals of Hong Kong book Jon and I are preparing. Here is a short selection of old newspaper stories and other gleanings from the Net that I hope will whet your appetite. I could launch into dozens of stories and I believe I have hardly scratched the surface of websites in languages other than English. Especially Chinese of course. [I use Google Translate-R]

I stumbled across a web site consisting of an e-mail from the national library of Japan to myself in 2011. I think it was listing all the bibliographical research they had done  (and there were very many titles)  to find Japanese references to the Hong Kong Stanley Prison Camp tiger of 1942 and I was pretty incredulous to find none at all. But that`s life, as someone once said. I had only previously had a Japanese-language version of this e-mail. More on Japan below.

But in chronological order, here we go:

1. TWO STRANGE FISH STORIES

The first of these stories comes from The Roanore Times, an American paper of June 6th 1893, as follows:

THE WORLD'S WONDERS.

Something strange lately affected the fish in Hong Kong waters. For many days they were in a state of stupor, and allowed themselves to be caught by hand, making no effort to escape.

 The second is almost the exact opposite; hyper-active fish,as reported on the Hong Kong Horror Network website [ http://horrorhk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/blog-post.html ] on July 9th 2013:

'Wan fish accounted appear tomorrow in Hong Kong after a good strange visions lead to panic.' This told the story of fish jumping frantically out of the water in various parts of Hong Kong, including Aberdeen and Lamma Island. Apparently fire fighters had to shovel the fish into bins there were so many of them. This lead to rumours of  an impending disaster such as an earthquake or tsunami. On May 17th 1999 at Sok Kwu Wan something similar happened. One speculation was lack of oxygen in the sea. [Or seismic activity- R]

2.  PARROTS IN HONG KONG

Hong Kong Telegraph   March 14th  1902:

Parrots are not generally supposed to range so far north as Hong Kong, but we learn that a couple have recently been shot in the Colony, one on the Island and the other in the New Territory [sic]. The shooting of a single specimen could of course be put down to an escape, but it is hardly possible that two escaped birds of the same species should be met with in one season and at a considerable distance from the town.

[Now this is interesting because I thought parrots were supposed to have escaped from somewhere during Japan`s occupation of Hong Kong; 1941-45. So what have we here? – R]

3.  BLACK PANTHER  1960s or 1970s

Gwulo.com reported in 2013 that in the 1960s or `70s a black panther was reported in Hong Kong. Confusingly, the militant black American civil rights group the Black Panthers had some connection with Hong Kong at this time! Confusingly, when using Google Images and you`re looking for a cryptid black cat, I mean.

4. HONG KONG`S UNUSUALLY COLOURED COBRAS .


This photo is taken from the Romer archives at the Zoological Society of London, showing a specked-coloured cobra in Hong Kong, c.1970s.

MUIRHEAD'S MYSTERIES: Hong Kong Dugong folklore

According to Wikipedia on the dugong: 'Although they are social animals, they are usually solitary or found in pairs due to the inability of seagrass beds to support large populations. ^[13] 'Gatherings of hundreds of dugongs sometimes happen,^[15] but they last only for a short period of time.^[13] Because they are shy, and do not approach humans, little is known about dugong behaviour.^[13] (1)

About a week ago a Facebook contact, Amy, provided me with the information below:

·                                  

·                                 Hi Richard, I have not heard about any realistic story about dhole. However, a friend told me another story about the sea cows and their ancestors’ tombs. During spring (Ching Ming Festival) and autumn (Chung Yeung Festival), villagers will go to pay respect to their ancestors at the tombs in the hill side next to their village (Chak Keng). 
For many years, during the ceremony they saw waves rolling toward their ancestors’ tombs, just like an act to bow to their ancestors. The village is located in a very quiet cove – the water is always very calm so these waves look very strange and noticeable to them. When they took a closer look, they found that the waves were actually caused by many (about a hundred) sea cows swimming toward their village. This had happened for many years until the end of World War II. The villagers became very poor and they had very little food. Some villagers used the guns leftover during the war to kill a few sea cows for food. Afterward, they hardly see the sea cows come back again. 
This story happened almost 70 years ago and my friend learned about this from his grand father. I hope you can understand what I meant.

6 September at 09:13 via mobile · Like

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Richard Muirhead Ann this is very interesting indeed.Do you believe all the sea cows have now becoming extinct in Hong Kong waters or are one or two still seen? Are you familiar with the story from the book The Hong Kong Countryside by Geoffrey Herklots that in 1940 or 1941 a dugong was killed in Hong Kong harbour? There is a photo somewhere.Also, I have been told about a black panther in Hong Kong in the 1960s and even an Eurasian lynx!

6 September at 09:31 · Like

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Richard Muirhead Ann do you know my blog Muirhead`s Mysteries?See Google.It has many Hong Kong related stories on it.Also,please may I reproduce your message to me about sea cows in Hong Kong as my next blog?

6 September at 10:52 · Like

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Ann Wong Yes, you may use my story in your blog.

6 September at 13:35 via mobile · Like

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Richard Muirhead Thanks,and if you ever recall any more Hong Kong odd fauna stories I`d love to read them

6 September at 14:40 · Like

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Ann Wong Richard, My friend also told me that, although he has never seen any sea cows in his village, he thinks some sea cows did live around his village a few decades age. He recalled that about 40 years ago his grand father pointed to the sea and told him that the special waves in a distance indicated that some sea cows were swimming under the sea because their movement causes some waves that are different from waves caused by wind.

9 hours ago · Like

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Richard Muirhead Thanks Ann,what was the name of this village?Were the Hong Kong mermaid reports the same as dugongs?

7 hours ago · Like

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Ann Wong Chek Keng Village, Sai Kung Hong Kong

5 hours ago via mobile · Like

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Richard Muirhead Thanks (2)

3 hours ago · Like

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So this all adds more information to what we already know about the dugong in Hong Kong – which isn`t a lot.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugong#Ecology_and_life_history

2. Facebook correspondence, Ann Wong with Richard Muirhead

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: WHEN IS A HONG KONG WILDMAN NOT A WILDMAN?

When is a Hong Kong wild man not a Hong Kong wild man? When I get carried away with myself and think he was talking about a Yeren or something.... This note below is a clarification by Tung from the Gwulo.com web site. But I am following up the 'fairy' story he mentions (see below) and will follow up the Silver Chics (sic) too. Are there any silver-coloured baby birds in S. China, anyone?

“The long-eared wild man we saw , around 1953-54, was half-naked, perking on the bushland bordered between this hidden valley and the CLCY village. He was also seen covered with fur skin and leafy clothing with weird hair decorations from seashells, eyes so red like being on fires and voiced very low-pitched as a very old man. He was big, more hairy than normal, kind looking and quite majestic, like a Chief from the Amazon forest. His ears were very big, long and curled up with hairy tip on each top. He smoked with a very long bamboo pipe and seemed always on guard on his tiny territory with a rod like a prophet under the torching sun, sometimes eagles and ravens flying in circle in the sky above. More than once he wanted us to come closed to his den which was like an opening to some unknown shelter next to this forest. For the sake of our parental advice, we never accept his plea, our curiosity always directs our thinking that he might be a fairy because  his location was on the edge of the area known as Sen Yan Jiang which means The Fairy's Well.

real mystery,

and that's not the only fairy we knew (?) on the island.

Anyone know about this one: A legendary story of the " Flock of Silver Chics in the Bamboo Forest near Pai Tai Temple"

Believe it or not! “(1)

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

HONG KONG'S MYSTERIOUS COCKATOOS

http://www.parrots.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/106/

Richard Muirhead sent the above link.

I remember seeing them in the flame trees outside what was then the Colonial Secretariat when my Dad worked there in the late 1960s. But I had no idea until today that they were anything but an invasive species, and certainly no idea that this colony was of conservation importance to the species as a whole.

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: THE HONG KONG "APE MAN" THAT WASN`T

A few months ago I reported on a story from about 1955 of an ape-man in Hong Kong. At the time all I had was a report on a paranormal blog/website. This led me to a report in the Chinese language newspaper Ta Kung Pao of 8 March 1955 (see http://hkclweb.hkpl.gov.hk:8000/microfilm/1/BATCH29b/6871C4CC9FECC4C7512E49C2E297FC3B34487A75.tif)

Today I obtained a translation from the Chinese herbalist Superherbs in Macclesfield ( see pg. 12 Flying Snake 2), which has revealed that this is a “shaggy dog story” - literally!

The actual incident was as follows:

“A hairy beast was found in Makeng Village of Chizhu, Hong Kong. A policeman found her in the grass. The animal weighs about 50 kilos. As tall as a man, quite hairy all over. It was discovered that this was a huge hound. Raised by a local farmer. She was lost from the farm days before. It was said that she often appeared in the field at nights, people would be really scared if seeing the huge hound suddenly".

But what about those “triangular footprints”? If you remember they were mentioned in the original web report when I first did my blog about this.

R

THE 1942 HONG KONG TIGER: A new twist...

Some months ago I wrote about a tiger shot in Hong Kong in 1942 by soldiers of the occupying Japanese Army. Regular readers of my inky-fingered scribblings here and elsewhere will know that I have been obsessed with the provenance of this particular animal for many years. Now, thanks to a passage in an excellent book called Prisoner of the Turnip Heads by George Wright-Nooth, which tells the often harrowing story of his time spent as a P.O.W in Stanley Internment Camp on Hong Kong Island during WW2, the mystery is a little closer to being solved.

30 May, 1942.
Last night Langston and Dalziel who were sleeping outside at the back of the bungalow were woken up at about 5.00 am by snarls and growls. Langston, at Dalziel’s instigation, got up to have a look. He went to the edge of the garden and looked down the slope to the wire fence. There Dalziel saw him leap in the air and fly back into the boiler room shouting ‘There’s a tiger down there’ .... Next morning, on being told the story we were inclined to laugh.

31 May, 1942.
Slept very badly owing to stomach trouble. During the night we were woken by three rapid shots and much shouting.

1 June, 1942.
Early this morning there was much activity on the hill behind the camp which was being searched by parties of Chinese and Indian police under Japs .... One of the Chinese supervisors told me that an Indian policeman had been mauled by a tiger at about 2.00 am."

Two tiger guards were instituted, one armed with a gong, the other with a gardening fork. The bungalows had no doors or windows so for several nights there was considerable apprehension at night.

4 June, 1942.
As usual we all slept outside. At about 3 am I heard Colin say, ‘Geoffrey! Don’t move there’s a TIGER eating a bone behind your bed!’ Then he said, ‘Stephen, nobody move. The tiger is at the foot of Stephen’s bed.’ My bed was around the corner so I loosened my mosquito net and very gradually slipped out of bed ready to take some action, but what I, or any one else, could do was doubtful. Then Colin said, ‘Where is Farrar? My God! He’s eating him.’ This was too much for Searle who came along to see what was happening. Colin then shouted, ‘Don’t move, you fool Searle!’ Just then Farrar woke up and it was discovered that what Colin had seen was a black coat lying across Farrar’s body with one end lying on his white pillow. The pillow he thought was the bone and the coat the animal."

A tiger was indeed on the loose, probably from a circus that had been located at Causeway Bay. It was subsequently shot and the carcass, which weighed some 240 lbs, was given to an internee called Bradbury to be skinned. He had worked as a butcher at the main dairy farm and was probably the most unpopular man in the camp a real life Uriah Heap as I will explain later. As the reader is aware this skin is still on display today in the Stanley Tin Hau temple.

Bradbury’s photograph subsequently appeared with the dead animal in a Japanese newspaper, although I did not see it in the Hong Kong News."

So, it looks like it was a circus animal after all, rather than a bona fide South Chinese tiger. This, however is supportive evidence for an even more intriguing question. As I write in my autobiography Monster Hunter (2004):

Back in the late 1960s I remember talking about the affair to my beloved amah - Ah Tim. She told me that according to Chinese belief, the tiger was the King of Beasts and the arrival of a tiger unexpectedly in a neighbourhood was often seen as an omen that a new Emperor or King was about to take the throne. It is certain that some people at the time saw the death of the unfortunate tiger in Stanley Internment Camp as being a signal that the reign of the King-Emperor George VI was nearing an end, and the reign of the God-Emperor Hirohito was about to begin!

It seems likely that the invading Japanese were determined to extract the maximum of publicity from the event by exploiting local folk beliefs. Near the end of the war when it was obvious that they would lose, they were still fermenting Chinese Nationalist feelings, often through the use of cultural motifs, and sometimes by recruiting collaborators, in an attempt to ensure that at least the British would no longer be in power in Hong Kong. They failed, as history has proven, but the different stories I managed to unearth over a period of some thirty years suggested that someone, either wittingly or unwittingly, was not telling the whole truth.

The whole affair is a real mystery, and excitingly it is a mystery that I hope that eventually I shall be able to solve. Although there is no doubt that South China tigers did visit Hong Kong on many occasions, it is very tempting to speculate that the unfortunate creature that was shot in 1941 was, indeed, a captive animal which had been released in the area by the occupying Japanese forces as a crude - but remarkably successful - piece of psychological warfare.

LOOK WHAT TURNED UP ON THE `OLD HONG KONG` NEWSGROUP. It is even more off topic than the usual wallages of soft porn and adverts.

“Luna” cow can jump like a horse? Well, that appears to be the case for “Luna,” a Germany-residing cow who thinks she’s a horse and behaves like one too.

Schoolgirl Regina Mayer, who lives on a farm in Laufen, Germany, didn’t worry when her parents couldn’t afford to buy her a horse – she just trained her cow to ride instead, reports USA Today.
The resourceful 15-year-old spent hours training Luna and the pair now go on long rides together. Luna can also jump over hurdles.

After hours of arduous training, the pair regularly embark on long rides through the southern German countryside and do jumps over a makeshift hurdle of beer crates and painted logs, USA Today reports.

Read More At
http://www.l.md/cow-that-jumps/

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

FOR SO LONG AS THERE IS THE UNFERTILISED OVUM OF THE DOMESTIC FOWL, I'LL BE YOUR EGG MAN

Gregory- The Egg Man- 6 Images

Regular blog readers will be aware of the `Old Hong Kong` newsgroup, which I joined in order to get pictures of - you've guessed it - old Hong Kong. Regular readers will also be aware that although I get three or four images of pre-war Hong Kong for an ongoing project by Richard Muirhead and me, most of what the newsgroup sends me is soft porn or invitations to speculate in the foreign exchange markets.


However, sometimes they send me totally off-topic gems. Like this:

'A walking work of art, Gregory Da Silva is more than an odd spectacle – he is a symbol of Africa’s many diverse cultures…In the first heady years of the African Union, the world’s eyes are increasingly turned to the continent from which humankind first appeared. Beneath the seemingly impenetrable mask of violence portrayed in popular media, lies a living and thriving cultural climate which Des Warde finds well depicted by West African street artist Gregory Da Silva.

His head dress weighs up to twenty five kilograms, his body is armored with artifacts and his face painted with tribal patterns and an undying smile. Each day, Gregory Da Silva presents the city center with a new display of his symbolic art....'

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: SOME HONG KONG ODDITIES,BADGERS,FLYING LIZARDS AND DUGONGS.

Folks, over the last week or two, I have been searching through the Trove Australian newspaper online database, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/search?adv=y with some interesting Hong-Kong-related results. Here they are, below, in chronological order.

There is a report in a 19th century travel book of flying lizards on islands of the coast of South China, which I read recently, which sounds very much like the area around Hong Kong and Macao. Unfortunately I didn`t note down the bibliographical details properly, though I have seen a photograph on the Net of dried flying lizards in a Hong Kong Chinese medicine market that look like Draco volans and I have read that there are flying lizards in China. Hong Kong Amphibians and Reptiles 2nd ed. has no mention of flying lizards in Hong Kong.

From The Land of Chrysanthemums Vol 4 1894 by Dr W.E. Roth `Notes of a Voyage from Queensland to Japan and China`

'The City Hall possesses a most interesting and typical collection of animal life captured within the colony which, considering that the area of the island is just about thirty square miles, certainly does it great credit. For instance, in addition to the insect fauna, comprising numerous beetles dragon-flies, butterflies and white ants, several worms, scorpions and snails, about six dozen different birds and over thirty varieties of reptiles have been discovered within its limits. According to the guide books, “ a small deer, a badger, and a species of wild cat are the only representatives of the larger wild animals.”'

The interesting thing is that it has never been definitely established as to whether or not the badger has ever been a part of Hong Kong`s fauna but here we have an example of it being stated that it was. The last record of a Chinese badger in Hong Kong was in 1922.

Grotesque Fish With Strange Habits The Advertiser (Adelaide) August 10th 1935

This short extract from a longer article could refer to the Dugong, or something else entirely:

'For instance there is the plenny, which is able to emit a piercing shriek; while in the waters around Hong Kong there is found a fish with a human looking head, which cries like a baby.'

World`s Laziest Creature. The Canberra Times January 18th 1937

One of the occupants of the London Zoo is Sligo, the Chinese Salamander, which as far as can be ascertained, is utterly unlike any other salamander or creature in the world. Exactly where he was born or who his parents were. Unknown also is the story of his early days- whether his father and mother,surprised at the appearance of their baby son, expelled him from the family, or whether the poor little creature, wandered off on his own.Somehow, Sligo managed to find the water, which is life to his kind and he battled through a lonely childhood, to be discovered eventually, flourishing in a disused drain in Hong Kong. From there, because his head was much flatter.his body blacker, and his length shorter than is fashionable among slamanders, he was labelled as a new species, and bundled off to the London Zoo.

Not one other salamander like Sligo has been found. He is, apparently, a creature unique in the world. His keeper says “ He should be in this tank for the next 40 to 50 years at least, though of course he may be different in this as he is in most other things.” …” Funny lungs he has,” says the keeper, “he would make a fortune as a diver if he was human. That is,if he worked at all, because I`ve never seen a more lazy creature: not a stroke of exercise, and we have to tickle him once a week to make him feed or he wouldn`t bother even to do that

The Manchu Man Fish The Queenslander September 28th 1938

The following extract concerns the Manchu Man Fish, probably the Dugong

Manchu Man Fish. “ Mention of the enterprising showman who toured the southern capitals with those slightly disguised embalmed dugongs that he exhibited as “mermaids”. “L.M.M.” (Queenslander 27/7/38) reminds me of a crowd I saw collected in George Street, Sydney, only a month ago. When I finally managed to push my way through the crowd I found I was staring into the window of a sporting goods shop, and was confronted by a peculiar looking beastie that appeared to be half-fish and half-monkey, a descriptive placard informing the curious that he was now looking at one of the celebrated Manchu man-fish, its habitat being the eastern waters of the China coast, where it had the reputation of living solely on the bodies of female children that had been cast into the waters of the sulky Whang-po by disgruntled mothers who had been expecting a man child. The placard finished with the statement that the man-fish was so rare that this one on exhibition had been the only one captured in the last 30 years…Even 20 years ago it was still possible to buy one of these deceptions in most Eastern ports. Writer had one, but it disappeared in smoke when the old S.S.Boon Sing went up in flames near Hong Kong in 1917. I tried to obtain one in 1928 , but I searched the bazaars of Shanghai and Kowloon unsuccessfully, and a two months` search around Singapore`s “kampong jawa” was no more successful.”

There is a blog dated December 10th 2010 with a photo of a Buddhist emptying a bucket or bag with a small octopus in it into Hong Kong/Victoria harbour. Apparently the monks buy animals from local Chinese markets in order to set them free. If this is going on unregulated then it is going to greatly alter the local fauna.



1. Brisbane Courier April 25th 1894 p.6
2. The Adelaide Advertiser August 10th 1935 p.9
3. The Canberra Times January 18th 1937 p.4
4. The Queenslander September 28th 1938 p.2


TALKING HEADS

ANIMALS


I`m mad, and that`s a fact
I found out, animals don`t help,
Animals think,they`re pretty smart
Shit on the ground, see in the dark

They walk around like a crazy dof
Make a mistake in the parking lot
Always bumping into things
Always let you down,down,down…

MUIRHEAD'S MYSTERIES: OUR FROG DEITY

Somewhere near the top of the Peak there is a rock claimed to personify the frog deity whose evil ambition is to get to the top when the island is devastated. Actually there are only a few who can say definitely where the big rock is, but it is supposed to resemble a giant frog. Some think that the Hog`s Back* (1) bears the resemblance while others point to the mass which can be approached from that part of Conduit Road* (2) near the Victoria Battery filter beds. Another cluster of almost upright boulders which are situated above Marble Hall, are also thought to be the “Frog Rock”.

Irrespective of the position, the story goes that it moved rapidly upwards for some years till it got perilously near the top, when the “Heavenly Virgin”, or “Kwoon Yum” smacked it`s head, with the result that it fell back a good distance. For its audacity in daring to climb up to her preserves – this kindly disposed goddess is presumed to watch over the island`s destinies from a favourable position at the Peak – she cast a charm over the Frog so that his ascending abilities were reduced to not more than the length of a grain of rice a year. So HongKongites can feel relieved. Measured on that basis it will be a matter of centuries before Froggy can get anywhere near the danger zone again.

Efforts have been made to trace the origin of this yarn but those who have faith in it can only say that they were told by somebody else. Others with a reasonable turn of mind can only attribute it to the dislike of the foreigner during the early days of the Colony`s occupation when some patriot devised the story to scare Chinese from settling here permanently. It is said that when the plague was at its worst about thirty years ago there were many who wondered if the Frog Rock had not climbed to just near the top.(3)

*1 Hog`s Back- I`m not sure where this is – presumably a ridge of hill on Hong Kong island,
*2. Conduit Rd – a road on the north-west side of Hong Kong island.
3. The China Mail February 21st 1925 p.8

Richard

THE COMMUNARDS DON`T LEAVE ME THIS WAY

Don`t leave me this way
I can`t survive
I can`t stay alive
Without your love.no,baby
Don`t leave me this way
I can`t exist, I`ll surely miss
Your tender kiss
Don`t leave me this way

D. R. SHOOP: Chinese Cultural Artefact

Jon,

McCullough returned from 10 days in Hong Kong yesterday.

She usually brings me a souvenir in the form of a Buddha, which is my preference. I have many little statues in a variety of odd forms from her past travels, as well as my own. This time she brought me a cheap-ass decaled knock off Mao Mug, which I was very delighted to receive.

Apparently the old school Commy gift items have become more rare, so I was more than happy to see it. Tomorrow I will happily drink my coffee from this cheaply made mug (hoping the glaze is not lead-based) and think of Hong Kong fondly.

What does it say?

My best guess is, “Stupid tourist bought this piece of crap”