Hong Kong: An Oyster
I
By Arthur Yao
haphazardly picked up the razorsharp knife which lay inside the shucking glove, trying my best to find any opening in the oyster that would give to my force. I kept flipping the poor oyster over in my hand, determined to shuck my first without any guidance. After five minutes of struggling, I eventually dug myself a small hole between the oyster’s valve. Feelings of anticipation flooded through me. I was determined to shuck this oyster. Moments later, a light “bup” sounded within my hands. Disarming the seagrass-covered top shell, I beheld a fresh oyster for the first time.
and human eyes. The oyster almost seemed to be outlined by black ink, with soft, light green flesh in the center. The gills surrounded the rest of the organs, where food and water is filtered. Then came the adductor muscles, the heart, the tentacles, the mantle and the intestines, each performing a specified task to sustain the life of the oyster. In some ways, the oyster reminds me of Hong Kong. The heart is the central government, monitoring the economy and regulating the people; the gills are the forests, wetlands, and marshes within Hong Kong; the narrow mountain roads resemble the intestines of an oyster, always functioning as a Within the shell was a coat of pathway for time-rushed citizens creamy white as the oyster’s base to reach their destinations; and last layer, similar to the color of a face but not least, we, humans, are the product. Within this whiteness lay colorless blood that pumps through a naked oyster, exposed to sunlight the transparent organs of the oyster,
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Photo by Arthur Yao
vital and omnipresent. You will find history in every street, every corner, and every alleyway of Hong Kong. This history serves to enrich the human experience of living in such a flagrantly cosmopolitan city. Gigantic skyscrapers fill blocks at a time with their reflective windows and fancy signage. Modern restaurants attract customers with their signature dishes. Newly constructed malls with namebrand shops populate the heart of the city. With such an advanced design of the city on an island, it begs the question of what else we can accomplish in the future. However, before we venture that far, let us reexamine the footprints we have left on this island. Take a bus into a rural neighborhood in Hong Kong, and you will encounter walls of buildings cracked beyond repair, cockroaches scattering at the sight of humans and loud air conditioners propped outside high windows, slowly dripping gray water onto the streets. Like the separate shells of an oyster, there are two sides to Hong Kong. Oysters are mainly cultivated in one area, Lau Fau Shan. This small fishing village in the southwest of Hong Kong has provided consistently delicious, fresh oysters to the city’s residence. Lau Fau Shan faces the magnificent skyline of Shenzhen, only separated by the waters of the Deep Bay. It is in this narrow channel that hundreds of floating metal cages are placed to feed the growing population. This method of cultivating oysters in Hong Kong has been practiced for seven hundred years, yet to this day, only thirty families continue to honor the traditional method passed down from generations above. Due
