The term for Easter in Cantonese is fok wot jit ('back to life festival'), so it comes as no surprise that Good Friday is 'Jesus suffers difficulties festival' (ye sou sau laan jit).
Seeing that Hong Kong is now part of a country which views religion with suspicion, it's strange that this 'festival' is kept on the books. It's great for people who aren't self-employed, but for me it's just another big money-loser, as my Cantonese language students invariably go away for up to three weeks.
I thought it might give me time to take a swing around Guangdong province. And when my friend P told me he was going up to interview some artists in Yangjiang who were known for writing drunken calligraphy, and that he required my skills as an interpreter, the trip was on.
We were, of course, hoping to get drunk with them and watch them at work, but it turned out their leader, Zheng Guogu, had become a teetotaller two years ago, after he drank and drove, hit two people and wrote off his car. He said God saved him that day (along with the 20,000 yuan [HK$24,600] he paid in hospital bills) and that He might not help him the next time, so maybe it was time to stop drinking. His work improved after that anyway, so hey.
P and I were still in the market for some beers, though, and were happy to hear that our friend D would come over from Hong Kong on 'Back to Life Festival' Saturday, just in time for dinner. He would take the ferry to Zhuhai and then the bus to Yangjiang, where we would be waiting, full of Easter goodwill.
D is a bit of a ditherer and caught the 3.30pm ferry instead of the 8.40am one, but we thought he could still get to Yangjiang by 9pm. We texted him the hotel details and set off for a well-earned dinner, having spent the day interviewing a sober artist.
