Red (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

This week's Photo Hunt theme is one that I had lots of suitable photographic candidates for. This is not least because red is considered to be an auspicious color by the Chinese and thus is very popular around these parts. Also, well, as the song -- and movie title -- goes, The East is Red! ;)

After giving the matter some thought, I've decided to go for two photos that, when taken together, make for a study of contrast. For even if this pair of red pictures don't exactly represent the sacred and the profane, they at least are representative images from the secular along with sacred sides of Hong Kong life.

More specifically, the picture at the top is of a pork butcher's stall that's an integral part of the kind of wet market that still is pretty popular over here in 'Asia's World City'. And while pork is considered to be a white meat by some (including those involved with the "The Other White Meat" campaign over in the USA), I must say that it often looks very red to me -- and, indeed, there are others who are emphatic that this is indeed the case!

The second photo in this post, on the other hand, is of one of two red lanterns that hang outside the main doorway of the Hau Wong Temple in Tung Chung on Lantau Island. Built over two centuries ago, the temple is one of a number in Hong Kong that honor the memory of Hau Wong (trans. Holy Marquis), the general and uncle of the last emperor of China's Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), a boy ruler who spent his last days on the run from the Mongol invaders and, according to legend, chose suicide rather than surrender, and to do so by jumping into Kowloon Bay.

So, hmm, even though I hadn't originally planned it that way, both my red photos actually turn out to have something in common: i.e., they both have bloody associations of some sort! ;S