Features December 2020âˆŁYouth Hong Kong
Seen on Lung Fu Shan With COVID-19 raging around the globe, it has not been an easy year. Nobody who enjoys exploring and living the dream of travelling around the world would have thought a pandemic would leave them grounded in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, it has given me the chance to reflect on life through local tourism.
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by Woody Wu
my first encounter with a masked palm civet. We looked each other in the eye
Even before the pandemic, I loved exploring Hong Kong’s countryside. From time to time, I met up with friends from secondary school and went looking for wild animal tracks around Hoi Ha, Tai Po Kau, Mai Po and other locations. Last April, as the weather became warmer and amphibians and reptiles became more active, a university hall mate familiar with the local ecology, invited me to go on a night walk up Lung Fu Shan to look for snakes and frogs that are rarely seen during the day.
All of a sudden I heard a loud rustling in the trees above. I looked up. It was my first encounter with a masked palm civet. We looked each other in the eye, and thankfully, it wasn’t scared away. Indeed, here on the edge of the country park, it seemed to have become accustomed to living near people. In the few seconds of its appearance, it almost felt as if we recognized one another even though there was only time to take a photograph.
Because of the ban on large social gatherings, the mountainside was surprisingly busy, even at night. There were joggers and walkers as well as people like ourselves looking high and low for the normally hidden face of nature. There are times when there is nothing special to see and the reward comes just in the process of looking and the people you go with. But this time, I was lucky.
This meeting helped me understand the value of preserving the ecological resources that remain in Hong Kong and reflect upon what we can do for the native inhabitants of Lung Fu Shan. I became an intern at Lung Fu Shan Environmental Education Centre and as a result began frequenting the area. That gave me the chance to come into contact again with the little creatures that live there.
