Opinion | Hong Kong doesn’t need a fortune stick to know to avoid wasteful spending

The tradition of drawing a fortune stick for Hong Kong at Che Kung Temple on the second day of the Lunar New Year has been a bit of a disappointment in recent years. Since 2018, we have received the “neutral” sticks indicating so-so fortune – meaning things aren’t looking great but also not so bad.

It wasn’t always so, though. Remember the unlucky stick that then-home affairs secretary Patrick Ho Chi-ping drew in 2003, the year of the Sars outbreak? The government has not sent a minister to do the honour since.

Many would say this is just a superstition. That might be true, but the political gamble of picking one of the 17 sticks with bad fortune instead of the 44 neutral or 35 good ones is simply too risky. Who wants to be responsible for an unlucky draw during Lunar New Year, when all things must be visibly auspicious?

Even so, the ritual continues and has morphed into an opportunity for Hong Kong’s powerful rural chief, who now draws the sticks every year, to interpret the fortune sticks the way he wants. And since the city’s annual budget speech usually follows soon after the Lunar New Year, it is also a chance to use divine intervention to influence the financial secretary as his team draws up the budget.

The No 24 stick drawn last week by Kenneth Lau Ip-keung, chairman of the Heung Yee Kuk, read: “Do not do anything wrong during your life or cause trouble because of your greed, unless you have a noble person helping you, you should not waste your efforts.”

According to Lau’s interpretation, Hong Kong was being told to live within its means. Hence, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po should spend wisely amid expectations of a budget deficit of HK$100 billion (US$12.8 billion). Urging practicality over window-dressing, Lau said Chan should encourage economic development while looking after the middle class and lower-income residents by not raising taxes and fees.