Today Marion and I have been riding bicycles round the New Territories. We caught the bus to Fanling - the last village before the frontier. There were queues of people all going to the country to see their relations for Chinese New Year. At Shatin we saw a fleeting part of a Lion Dance - traditionally performed at this time. One person wears a very elaborate and brightly coloured mask representing a lion. He dances around accompanied by the banging of gongs and drums with a peculiar tinny sound. Often, this is followed by displays of shadow boxing.
At Taipo, the junks and sampans all had red prayer flags flying and prayer leaflets stuck on the stern. Most of the houses had large prayer borders around their front door. This all looked very beautiful.
At Fanling we hired a bike each for the day. They were men's bikes and we looked very funny as we pedalled away. Anyway the road was flat and the bikes went well. We had to be careful of the Chinese who have absolutely no road sense at all.
We pedalled up to the Police Post that is the beginning of the No Man's Land to Communist China. There was a barrier across the road and we could go no further without a pass. The mountains of Communist China were very close.
We turned back and pedalled away until we came to a little hollow set off from the road up a little track. We settled ourselves there and ate our sandwiches. The sun was very hot and we were both quite sunburnt. There were grave both and some quite large graves on the hillside round about us. When we were eating our food we heard drums and gongs again so we tried to find where they were coming from.
We went along a narrow concrete path raised between the paddy fields to a small Hakka village, where the gongs were being banged - unfortunately only by a small boy. All the women came to stare at us, all wearing black headdresses and with babies on their backs. The men kept well in the background! They were all very friendly and smiled at us. We kept saying "Kung hei fat choy" - Happy New Year. We didn't attempt to take any photographs or else they would have been annoyed.
One old lady picked up the comb from my pocket and obviously wondered what it was for: so I showed her and she was absolutely convulsed with laughter. We gave the children sweets and tangerines and then said goodbye.
This village was solidly built of white concrete and was quite clean. The fields were all beautifully kept.
Fanling seems a dusty crowded sort of place. There were masses of fruit stalls and a few other dirty shops.
Anyway, we returned the bikes intact and caught the bus home again.