COURAGE CAN SHOW itself in many ways. It needn't always involve such gallant acts as entering a burning building to rescue a granny, or donating a kidney to save a sick child.
Chau Ka-ling's brand of courage is not just about devoting herself to the family business set up by her father more than 40 years ago, but putting her life on the line almost every day.
Ms Chau runs a small eatery in Shamshuipo called Shia Wong Hip, which specialises in snake soup and snake wine. With just a handful of wooden tables and stools sparsely decorating a pink-and-white tiled floor, a visitor could be forgiven for thinking this is just another small hole-in-the-wall noodle joint along the bustling Apliu street.
But look a little closer and you will wonder what the tall wooden cabinet drawers are doing at the back of the room. Too high and narrow for storing cutlery and plates, yet impractical for keeping perishable foods, the wooden drawers are actually temporary shelters for hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of live snakes - ready to be made into soup.
Growing up, Ms Chau saw many types of snakes arrive at the store, from bamboo vipers to king cobras. Her father would immediately extract their fangs before storing them in the wooden drawers until someone asked for their meat.
By the time she was 17 Ms Chau was defanging snakes herself. But the work took its toll over the next few years and by the age of 22 she was suffering from extreme back pains - a result of leaning forwards over snakes for long periods.
For a while she consulted western doctors and Chinese acupuncturists, but nothing seemed to work. Ironically, her condition improved after having a drink made from a king cobra's gall bladder, often used in Chinese medicine. Today her back pain is cured as a result, she claims, of taking this drink periodically.