This underground passage is filled with the sound of experienced ladies tapping the soles of a slipper or shoe on the names of their enemies, written on paper.
Underneath the wide concrete overpass, in the middle of the busy center of Causeway Bay (Hong Kong), you will find a bizarre and enduring tradition called: “beating the bad guy”.
There is a local accident in Hong Kong where elderly women perform an elaborate ritual that involves hitting a name written on paper with a shoe, while chanting, to free people from someone who causes suffering to customers.
Known as “da siu yan”which essentially combines “hitting” or “beating” with “people,” this ritual is a little more complex than what is often interpreted as cursing an enemy. However, for less than 12 euros it’s an affordable and surprisingly cathartic way to let go of resentments.
As noted by , who was at the scene reporting, this is a much less problematic way of taking revenge on an enemy than, for example, puncturing a tire.
Although the colloquial term that has come to describe the ritual sounds quite vindictive and nefarious, it is not a means of “cursing” someone. Before it serves as a way cathartic, therapeutic and communal way of giving a physical presence to negative energies to name them, process them and move on, helping the individual to free themselves from resentment and focus on a more positive future.
In one of the few academic studies on how “beating the bad guy” plays an important role, researchers surveyed a small group of 32 Hong Kong residents who had visited one of the women who “neutralize mean people”.
In the preliminary article in the magazine Transcultural Psychiatrycited by New Atlas, the scientists highlighted the therapeutic benefits that “clients” felt with practice and that you won’t find in a tourist brochure.
“Clients experienced significant positive personal changes after the session, with greater pre-session distress and a greater number of sessions correlating with greater perceived positive change, satisfaction with therapy and overall improvement,” the researchers stated.
It was also concluded that clients who discussed their problems with the healer reported more noticeable personal changes and greater satisfaction with therapy than those who did not.
The interviews also revealed that clients sought help mainly for interpersonal issues and considered the Useful, affordable, and accessible villain-beating practice.
“The relationship with the healer and the clients’ spiritual beliefs facilitated positive change. The healers saw themselves as approachable and their service as available, committed to using their spiritual knowledge to help clients,” he also says.
This Cantonese tradition has become an “alternative” tourist attraction, yet there are regular customers.
