Wishing Tree, Lam Tsuen Village

The first tree

the second tree

Wishing tree,

Or I should rather say wishing trees...as there are two...

Located near the "Tin Hau" temple in Lam Tsuen village, the trees are popular with the locals and tourists alike.......that's what the tourist brochures say.......

So we made an effort of stopping by this time and see for ourselves what all the fuzz is about.

The custom here is that people write their wishes on a piece of paper, tie it around an orange and throw them onto the branches of those trees.  Bit of a curious act....but heck, tradition is tradition.

After passing through the imposing main gate, we were looking at the first tree....it was fenced off, prohibiting people from actually touching or even approaching the tree closely as apparently a few years ago, a few branches gave way and injured some poor chaps who happened to be standing there at wrong time and wrong place (was it due to old age? due to vandalism? or did God upstairs wanted to punish a non-believer......who knows)

Nothing much to look at, and certainly prohibited to throw any 'wishes' onto that tree anymore......

Scratch one tree........

So where's the second tree then?

We made our way through the park and eventually came upon the second tree....standing in full glory, unfenced, in the center of a totally concrete open space......

It beats me why a tree should stand amidst concrete.....in my mindset, a tree is associated with a green environment. (think grass, flowers, etcetera)

It looked okay though, bit smallish compared with the first tree we saw............from a distance.........the closer we approached....the more odd the tree became....

You're now thinking ....."odd?!?!?"

Yups, on closer inspection.....the tree ain't what a tree is supposed to be like.....it has all the branches, ...check.....it has a proper trunk....check...., it has leaves......check......

it has all the wrapped wishing paper tied with oranges.....check.......

But can somebody now explain to us, why the tree is made out of PLASTIC ?!?!?!

Yes, you are reading my words correctly.....this second wishing tree is made out of plastic........so my next question is...."what happened to the original second tree??"

Look at below vid to see for yourself whether this tree is for real.....

Attracting crowds of people who want to uphold a tradition, ...fine by me...., but I'd say definitely NoNo to this kind of ..........(fill in the blanks yourself).

We came, we saw, we knocked, heard a hollow sound and we went.....a disillusion richer.....

Just hope that the wishes on the tree are not as 'hollow' as the tree itself