All I can tell you is that it's a maybe!
As per usual, the PLUS 10,000 went in at midnight on Chinese New Year to watch Big Red Hat Sifu stick the Sacred Windmill on his head, and, along with the thousands of monks, "omm" his way into a holy trance and bless the fortune sticks ... before an "unnamed V.I.P." drew out Hong Kong's annual fortune stick ... and it was ...
Number 11
"Unity and Stability for Hong Kong AFTER a fellow from the North descends to rule HK to the city's great advantage!" we are told.
Since Our Venerable Leader, Donald Tsang, has done his time and is about to be replaced, everyone immediately saw sinister moves afoot in all this - a way of CCP breaking the awful news that our next leader will NOT be either a local or even Cantonese - so there was a great deal of collective eye-rolling and a winsy snitty "Tsk tsk! Beijing IS naughty!" before the population turned to people who actually DO know this stuff to ask what it really meant, who all said "Mmmm, with #11 fortune stick, that's a distinct possibility that's what it means." and "It isn't NOT the meaning!"
And those folks who DO know this fortune stick business all say that #11 relates immediately to an ancient, obscure and venerable poem "The Battle of Baideng" and that we all have to hunt up that poem and analyse it for stick's the true meaning!
Naturally, there's nothing HK likes better than in-depth analysis of hoo-ha - their favourite topic of conversation after food - so everyone is digging out their "The Battle of Baideng" and looking in it for clues for what is in store for 2011.
Of course and naturally, I do not have a copy of "The Battle of Baideng" immediately to hand, but from everything I've read, it's an account of the battle (circa 200BC) between the emerging Han Empire and marauding Xiongnu horsemen from the Mongolian steppes; a battle which is best remembered because the arrogant Han were too confident of their natural superiority and so were soundly and roundly defeated and entirely devastated (tee hee).
However, what this poem also talks about is that the Xiongnu weren't too interested in rule as such, so eventually released the Han Emperor after an enormous ransom was paid - which included marrying off his daughters to Xiongnu's own Warlords ... and so, in a move known to history as The Strategic Predicment, the Han were allowed to continue to rule in the devastated, decimated country AND ...
... because a lowly Han of enormous genius arose from the people, a fellow called Zhang Liang, to take over as First Minister, Strategist and Organiser, the country was gently lead back into harmony, wealth and prosperity.
So in there somewhere is the meaning of 2011's Year of the Rabbit's #11 fortune stick, and so it's giving everyone a great deal to talk about. Mostly however it's about The New Zhang Liang and how this Venerable Fellow MUST be found in order to become Hong Kong's next Chief Executive!
And since the original Zhang Liang was a Han, they're all saying that maybe this next one will be too and thus the Great 900 who get to vote on behalf of HK's 7 million population will have to look very fondly on whichever candidate Beijing sends to us for our ... perusal?
Of course, no one really went into those fortune sticks afterwards to check that they all weren't #11s, or that the "unnamed V.I.P." didn't have a handy #11 up his sleeve to pull out at the appropriate moment ... which would mean that this year's Sik Sik Yeun Sin Temple "Fortune Stick" action was indeed a cynical way of CCP breaking the awful news that our next leader will NOT be either a local or even Cantonese, and that the CCP THIS year is certainly a great deal cleverer than they were LAST year.
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