Beating petty persons in Wan Chai

March 6, 2006 8:17 AM

Today is Jingzhe (驚蟄).Legend has it that on the day when insects and hibernating animals are awakening and the demon white tiger starts to seek its prey, the petty person would also start to offend others by making rude remarks. Therefore it is advisable to honor the white tiger with sacrifices and beat the petty person on this day.
From CXB: In the days of yore, the petty person you hated so much was beaten up for some good time by the professional beaters (about HK$50 per fix) with Chinese cloth shoes vigorously. But what a sad fact for your nemesis! These beaters these days use high heels, which in my opinion is ten times deadlier than cloth shoes.
posted by rxrfrx (15 comments total)

i love how that chinese lettering came out looking like scribble.
posted by goldism at 8:22 AM on March 6, 2006

Or boxes in Opera's case
posted by wheelieman at 8:28 AM on March 6, 2006

goldism, there's a number of good MeTa/AskMe threads about getting foreign characters to display properly in your browser... I can't find any of them right now, but a bit of searching should do the trick.
posted by rxrfrx at 8:28 AM on March 6, 2006

I sense a great Web 2.0 opportunity to launch on Jingzhe: Beatr, on-demand IRL cloth-shoe beating of petty people you don't like on the internet.
posted by brownpau at 8:31 AM on March 6, 2006

goldism / wheelieman: code2000 is good
posted by NinjaPirate at 8:39 AM on March 6, 2006

They always come out fine in good ol' Firefox. Yay.

I wonder if there's a Western culture equivalent to dedicating a day to symbolically beating on your adversaries.

Note to future readers: They don't beat real people. :(
posted by Atreides at 8:43 AM on March 6, 2006

Atreides:
In Brazil, Hallelujah (sp?) saturday (the saturday between good friday and easter) is the day in which kids on the neighbourhood make a dummy called "Judas", from old clothes and such, and beat it. Among kids, beating Judas is one of the traditions of that time, right with not eating meat on friday, eating lots of chocolate eggs on sunday, and being sick because of too much chocolate on monday.
posted by qvantamon at 8:52 AM on March 6, 2006

posted by brownpau I sense a great Web 2.0 opportunity to launch on Jingzhe: Beatr, on-demand IRL cloth-shoe beating of petty people you don't like on the internet.

We'll call them eBeatings.
posted by fandango_matt at 9:19 AM on March 6, 2006

There seem to be a lot of "beating the devil" or "chasing the evil spirit" traditions around the world, but this one seems unique in that it's "beating the annoying guy" and it's directed specifically at real people you don't like (or pretend to not like).
posted by rxrfrx at 9:20 AM on March 6, 2006

rxrfrx:
There's a lot of the "beating the annoying guy"/"beating someone you don't like" tradition in grade school too... Quite less symbolic, though :)
posted by qvantamon at 9:23 AM on March 6, 2006

when is kick them in the box and shove them day?
posted by wakko at 10:22 AM on March 6, 2006

If only every day could be Jingzhe!
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:44 AM on March 6, 2006

We'll call them eBeatings.

I thought that was...something else.
posted by voltairemodern at 11:12 AM on March 6, 2006

This explains why I was surrounded by chinese people and beaten with stick this morning. And being the petty guy am, don't think I'll forget this little incident when Promontory Point day comes around.
posted by tkchrist at 12:39 PM on March 6, 2006

From the (unlinkable) South China Morning Post. I'm particularly impressed by the alturism of Mr Yip.

Shouted curses and the sound of shoes banging on cement echoed around Wan Chai yesterday as crowds gathered for the traditional practice of "beating the devil" to take revenge on their enemies.
For $50 a pop, ritual performers battered paper effigies of workplace enemies while shouting appropriate imprecations. While the practice appeals to older women, growing numbers of young people have adopted it in recent years.

Among the queues that snaked around Canal Road was a Mr Yeung, 24, who went with his girlfriend to deal a blow to "kings and queens of gossip" in her workplace. "Though I am only 24, I am quite superstitious and I believe in the practice of beating the devil. I think it really works," he said.

"My girlfriend has had some trouble at work in the past two years. She's been dragged into gossip by vicious colleagues, so we came to beat them."

Another young pair was Mr Yip, 26, and his friend, Ms Ho.

"Hateful colleagues are everywhere. Many friends want to come too, but they have to work. I'm off today, so I'll help them beat those they dislike at work," Mr Yip said.

They almost lost count as they asked a ritual performer to curse numerous coworkers for themselves and their friends - at $50 per enemy.
posted by mono blanco at 5:20 PM on March 6, 2006