Beneath the expansive concrete overpass amid the bustling hub of Causeway Bay, you'll find a bizarre and enduring tradition in Hong Kong – "villain hitting." Here, elderly women perform an elaborate ritual that involves bashing a name written on paper with a shoe, while chanting, to free people from someone causing them grief and encourage fortune and peace in their place.
Known as "da siu yan" (打小人) in Cantonese, which essentially combines "to hit" or "to beat" with “small person/people,” it's a little more complex than what is often interpreted as cursing an enemy. But for 100 HKD – less than US$13 – it's an affordable and surprisingly cathartic way to let go of grievances (not to mention much less troublesome than, say, slashing a tire and cheaper than sending something like this in the mail).
The day I visited in mid-April, I wasn't exactly prepared – the one name I vaguely penciled in was no longer in the picture, so it felt a little mean and a waste of my 100 HKD. Then I had some questions: Was there a statute of limitations regarding a "villain"? Should it be personal or could it be a name a few million other people would also write down? And did it have to be a human, because I'd really like the giant flying ant-like insects sneaking into my apartment at night to find another place to explore. Then, given that I am my own worst enemy, how bad could I make things if I wrote my own name down?
While the colloquial term that's come to describe this ritual sounds rather vengeful and nefarious, it isn't a means to "curse" someone, but instead serves as a kind of cathartic, therapeutic and communal way to give a physical presence to bad vibes in order to name and process them and move on, helping the individual let go of grievances and focus on a future that holds more positivity. For anyone who has done modern-day psychotherapy, this sort of identifying and processing negative emotions is commonplace and integral to understanding not just relationships, but your own response to adversity.
In one of the very few academic studies into how villain-hitting plays an important role, researchers assessed a small group of 32 Hong Kong residents that had visited one of the women who spend their nine-to-five practicing this tradition in a tiny space divided by a busy pedestrian crossing. In the Transcultural Psychiatry preprint paper, scientists highlighted the therapeutic benefits that "clients" felt they got from the practice that you won't read about in a tourist brochure.
"Findings indicate that clients experienced significant positive personal change following the session, with greater pre-session distress and a higher number of sessions correlating with greater perceived positive change, satisfaction with therapy, and overall improvement," the researchers said. "Clients who discussed their problems with the healer reported more substantial personal change and satisfaction with therapy than those who did not. Interviews revealed that clients sought help primarily for interpersonal issues and found the villain-hitting practice helpful, accessible, and affordable. The relationship with the healer and clients' spiritual beliefs facilitated positive change. Healers viewed themselves as approachable and their service as accessible, committed to using their spiritual knowledge to help clients."
The ritual is more than just a seasoned elder hitting a well-worn shoe on a piece of paper placed over a hard surface like a brick. While it happens year-round – and not just in this small corner in Causeway Bay – it has specific meaning during Jingzhe (驚蟄), also known as the Day The White Tiger Opens Its Mouth, or the "Awakening of Insects." On or around March 5, which corresponds with the third solar term on the lunar calendar, this is when tradition states that spring thunder awakens hibernating insects, and in doing so stirs a host of bad spirits and villains into action.
While the women performing the "neutralizing of 'petty people'," which also often includes reciting incantations – of which there are variations in wording, but share a "go away" sentiment – they also prepare paper offerings and burn red gwai yan (貴人, or “noble people”) paper. Traditionally, this encourages good forces to protect the person seeking spiritual counsel once the bad and disruptive influence has been dealt with.
I was curious to experience this tradition first-hand, having known of it for years and more recently becoming quite good at putting myself into awkward situations that inevitably result in a Chinese auntie yelling at me because I have done something silly, not offensive ("duìbuqǐ, āyí!" I'll reply, since my habit of over-apologizing transcends language barriers). However, my Cantonese is non-existent and – for lack of a better description – the "sit down, be quiet and follow along" mode as charades-style gestures showed me what was happening, as I sat on a child-sized plastic stool, made total sense.
Watching the villain-hitting process is very different to taking part. At first, as someone who not only hates being the center of attention but also in the spotlight in a public space, I was conscious of the onlookers taking photos – much like I did earlier to others – but despite the chaos of people and traffic and sounds that seem amplified beneath the huge concrete road above, there's a peacefulness in sitting in front of burning incense and candles, with each step of the process considered and unrushed, regardless of the people waiting for their turn.
Much like the world China built while it was still isolated from the rest of the globe, this Cantonese tradition has become an "offbeat" tourist attraction that doesn't tell its story. But it may be best explained by the aforementioned researchers:
"During the observation period, a total of six healers were present on-site, and 38 clients visited them," they wrote. "Some of the clients were returning clients, while for others, it was their first time. Those who were revisiting engaged more extensively with the healers and seemed to have a more personal relationship with them. The healers appeared genuinely interested in talking to clients, and the conversations seemed reciprocal. In some instances, passersby talked to healers without participating in the ritual or paying any fee. Some clients had a particularly close relationship with the healers. For example, one client brought the healer food and chatted with her for more than 15 minutes, mostly about personal matters, daily life, and the client’s relationships with her spouse and children.
"Each community has forms of formal or informal relationships that are considered 'healing' or therapeutic," they concluded. "Recognizing these healing forms can reduce the burden on formal healthcare systems, lessen stigma, and reach more people. Many forms of indigenous psychotherapies, including the villain-hitting ritual, appear to contain therapeutic elements that resonate with at least some members of the local population. We believe a more inclusive approach, allowing different practices to coexist as long as they do not cause demonstrable harm, is more applicable."
Earlier this year, researcher Tammy Lai-Ming Ho from Saarland University in Germany, wrote an insightful piece adding to this sentiment, explaining that such traditions are integral to community, connection and supporting the practitioners in a way that's crucial to preserving culture and identity in such a wealthy global hub like Hong Kong.
"Many participants describe the practice as knowingly excessive, humorous, or only half-believed, but cathartic nonetheless – a ritualized performance of anger that derives part of its efficacy from irony, play, and collective recognition of its theatricality.
"Beyond its therapeutic dimension, da siu yan functions according to a communal rather than institutional logic," she added. "The economic structure is direct: clients pay practitioners, not institutions, and the practice sustains a form of labor typically unavailable to elderly, working-class women. This is what makes da siu yan a genuinely people-orientated, bottom-up practice – it emerges from and serves communities without mediation by institutional gatekeepers."
So if you find yourself in Hong Kong, head to the Canal Road flyover in Causeway Bay, to not just receive the cheapest therapy session you're likely to find anywhere, but more importantly to have the privilege of experiencing a cultural tradition and gain an understanding of a community that persists as Hong Kong continues to become a prohibitively expensive place to live if you don't have an income to match it.
Sources: Transcultural Psychiatry, Saarland University
