Fortune Stick "sounds A Major Alarm For HK Govt"

Rural leader Kenneth Lau on Saturday called on the government to be more decisive in its policy-making, saying a fortune stick he picked for Hong Kong sounds a major alarm for the administration.

The chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk drew an average fortune stick for Hong Kong at the Che Kung Temple in Sha Tin on Saturday, as part of an annual tradition on the second day of the Lunar New Year.

Written as a poem in Chinese, the omen from stick 45 drawn by Lau roughly translates as: "One must discuss with others before making a move, the world situation is miserable and in vain."

"The firewood accumulated and the fire that's been experienced is not nothing; knowledgeable people know the fire is not yet lit."

Lau said this prophecy showed that Hong Kong is facing major challenges.

"Every step in this chess match is very important at this stage, if right now the government is not decisive and makes a wrong move, there's a big problem, the fire will get bigger," the pro-Beijing lawmaker said.

He noted that many people are suffering, with some having lost their jobs amid the economic downturn. So government policies also have to be timely and precise.

Lau said for example health officials need to do better contact tracing and guard the borders against imported Covid-19 cases.

The stick said that if people were looking for a prophecy about litigation, "harmony is gold".

When asked whether this indicated that the government shouldn't press charges against pro-democracy figures, Lau said politically, it's always good to look for harmony and compromise.

"You need to ease public grievances. Unyielding policies will never resolve problems," he told reporters.

The tradition to pick a fortune stick for Hong Kong began in the 1980s, and government officials used to be the ones doing so.

That changed after 2003, when the then-home affairs minister, Patrick Ho, picked a bad stick for the territory, which was soon hit by the Sars epidemic.