In Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong, there is an old snake soup shop, and the owner, Zhou Jialing, is known as the "Queen of Hong Kong Snakes". Catching snakes and killing snakes every day, she cooked snake soup for 48 years, and was bitten by poisonous snakes twice, almost dying. Zhou Jialing's greatest wish is to continue the signboard that her father gambled on all his wealth that year.
Text/Ye Jianyi
"The most important thing for a family is to be neat and tidy."
This line, which often appears in TVB TV series, is so vulgar that it has become a meme. However, for Zhou Jialing, the "snake queen" of Hong Kong who once "played with her life" every day, this is indeed her most sincere wish at present.
"Snake King Association" is a snake shop run by Zhou Jialing in Sham Shui Po, which specializes in snake soup and also hosts snake banquets. The decoration of the shop retains the characteristics of an old-fashioned restaurant and attracts diners from all over the world. The walls are densely packed with media reports about the "Snake Queen" and photos of her and various celebrities.
At the end of the shop stood a wooden cabinet that was more than one person high, and inside each cabinet door, there was one or more snakes. Sometimes, Zhou Jialing received a hundred yuan bill, and she casually stuffed the money into the crack of the cabinet. In her words: "Better than HSBC".
Zhou Jialing also often takes out the snakes in the cabinet for guests to play with and take pictures. But soon, the poisonous snakes that hissed and spit out their letters will be slaughtered, skinned and boneless, and cooked into a delicious snake soup in the bowls of diners.
In Hong Kong's food culture, there is a tradition of eating snake soup in the winter, in order to nourish and warm up.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Sham Shui Po, where Guangdong immigrants gathered, was the "sacred place for selling snakes". Guilin Street and Yaliao Street often have vendors selling snakes, and Zhou Jialing's father, Zhou Xiang, was one of them.
In the early days, snake traders mainly sold raw snakes, providing business for families and restaurants. Later, in order to subsidize the rental cost of the shop, snake traders also began to do some part-time jobs, helping the government or private people catch snakes and earn hundreds of yuan of extra money. Each police station has a roster of snake catchers, and the police call them "Snake King."
Therefore, the old snake shops in Hong Kong are basically named after "Snake King", such as "Snake King II", "Snake King Lin", "Snake King Fen"... The "Snake King Association" managed by Zhou Jialing is no exception.
When Zhou Jialing was young, her family was not rich, and she was always envious of other people's homes that could live in the upper floors. As the eldest sister in the family, she has an impulse and sense of mission to go out to work early and improve the life of the family. But her father Zhou Xiang did not want her to enter the industry: "The girl's family is still not very good." ”
In April 1971, Zhou Jialing still entered her father's business. She still remembers hearing her mother say to her father that I saw her doing it for a short time, just playing, and she would leave in less than three months. Who knows, she's been doing this for nearly 50 years. During this period, he was bitten by a poisonous snake twice and almost died, and he never thought of giving up.
Zhou Jialing enjoyed the taste of fame in the 1980s. She was very popular in the restaurant snake dance by chance, and the highest record ran nine times a day, and because of this, she also appeared on an evergreen variety show "Happy Tonight" on tvb before, performing snake dance with the gimmick of "Maiden Snake King". The fame of the "Snake Queen" really came in 1997 when she caught a 4-meter-long poisonous snake with her bare hands.
In the 1990s, his father Zhou Xiang died. Zhou Jialing took over the "Snake King Association", and the two younger brothers who originally had their own developments were also called back by her as helpers. In 2003, SARS ravaged Hong Kong. Snakes were once suspected of being the medium for spreading SARS, and panic caused people to take a detour when they saw the snake shop. The business of the "Snake King Association" was almost suspended.
After surviving the crisis, the "Snake King Association" still faces many operational difficulties. Snake soup only sells well in the winter, and business is greatly reduced in the summer, and it is difficult for unstable incomes to make up for the rising labor and costs that have been rising year after year. Zhou Jialing and her brother often quarreled over the shop, but "after the quarrel, I don't remember it", there is no overnight vendetta. Quarrels have become a form of communication between the two siblings. After the quarrel, every night the whole family still sat neatly together to eat.
The word "Xie" in the signboard set by father Zhou Xiang is to let the sister and brother work together to do a good job in this shop. This also seems to explain the "Snake Queen's" decades-long insistence: "This sign is a sign that my dad worked very hard to hold up, and no matter what, I will not let the sign fall." ”
Production team profile
Quote from the director of the factory "I want to open a snake shop at Slytherin House"